Yo Soy Collective provides a platform for creatives from Latin America to break creative boundaries. Committed to the values of courage, nourishment and experimentation, Yo Soy creates a space where ancestral magic intersects with contemporary cultural practice.

Since 2018, the collective has been centring Latin American creative voices and curating projects for artists to create, connect and celebrate culture.

To celebrate the breadth and beauty of Latin American arts and culture, Yo Soy co-founders Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh and Jess Ibacache share their most anticipated picks from MIFF’s 2023 selection of Latin American films.

Above and Header: Tótem

Tótem is a tender portrait of a family, crafted through the eyes of a child, the seven-year-old Sol. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lila Avilés, the film follows Sol’s family as they prepare for a surprise birthday party while the guest of honour, her father, remains absent. We learn – alongside Sol – that not all is what it seems and that adults, indeed, are human, are people with secrets.

Catch the special post-film Q&A and community event co-presented with Yo Soy on Saturday 19 August!

Sorcery

Sorcery is a story of righteous retribution and sublime self-determination on the archipelago Chiloé. Full of magic realism and fairytale horror, the film is based on events involving a real 19th-century Chilean sect who were tried for practising witchcraft. For hundreds of years, the practitioners of Chiloé have been linked to secret societies and to the legendary defeat of white settlers through magicks. This particular story follows teenager Rosa in 1880 as she rejects Western faith and embraces the magic of her ancestors to avenge her murdered father against the Church and the State.

The Buriti Flower

Shot over 15 months, The Buriti Flower is a blend of documentary and fiction. This Cannes Un Certain Regard Ensemble Prize–winning offering follows the Krahô people and details their tireless commitment to the protection of people and environment in the face of massacre, dictatorship and neoliberalism.

The Eternal Memory

Through remembrance, we learn from our past and ensure that history isn’t repeated. The Eternal Memory honours remembrance through the lens of former journalist Augusto Góngora, now living with Alzheimer’s. Committed to fighting against political forgetting, Góngora spent his career documenting and exposing the atrocities of the military dictatorship of Chile, led by Augusto Pinochet. Through filmic collage of archival material, home videos and television recordings, the documentary traces the efforts of Góngora and his wife, actress and former culture minister Paulina Urrutia, to preserve memory, identity and legacy.

Mutt

Mutt is a story of gender and identity as sacred oath. Following Feña, a Chilean-Serbian trans man, the film draws on writer/director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s life experiences. Over the course of one day, Feña is confronted with his father, his sister, a reminder of his estranged mother and his ex-lover as he holds resolve around his identity and fear/grief for the potential loss of his loved ones in tandem.