Adriana is the queen bee and general of a tightly run household of four that includes  husband Alfredo, and their children, Lucia and Felipe. Everything must be perfectly structured: the family unit should consist of only four people; her furniture, decoration, even the way dinner is served on individual platters follow rigid geometrical patterns. Those strict parameters are jeopardized by the birth of her third child, Tomás. She solves it by locking him in a closet a la Harry Potter and forcing him to hide in the bushes outdoors. But Tomás turns the tables on the entire family when he discovers the books of one Ann Land in his sister’s bedroom, and the battle for control of this household and a new alpha begins.

A former Economics student turned entrepreneur and even University Dean, Daniel Rodríguez Risco started making short films in 1998 releasing one per year until 2005. His first short film, El colchón (1998), received the award for Best Short Film at Conacine (Peru). His next short, Triunfador (2019), was selected at the Festival du Court Métrages at Clermont-Ferrand and was distributed internationally by Canal-Plus. Thanks to these two shorts, he received a scholarship to study a Master of Fine Arts in Film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

Three of Daniel’s six features which were selected by the Chicago Latino Film Festival: El acuarelista (The Watercolorist, 2008, 25th edition of the Festival); El vientre (The Womb, 2014, 31st edition), and Siete Semillas (Seven Seeds, 2016, 35th edition), starring Javier Cámara and Federico Luppi in his last on-screen appearance. 

We spoke to Daniel about the film’s visual design, Ayn Rand and who in their right mind would marry Adriana:

How was the idea for Cuadrilátero born and how does the film fit in your filmography in terms of styles, themes and even personal obsessions?

The trigger for the story was a commentary I overheard, by coincidence, from my wife who was talking on the phone to a friend who was about to give birth to her third child. When my wife hung up, she confirmed that they were talking about how this boy would change her friend’s family routine and dynamic. If it is true that the birth of a child can bring about a beautiful change, at the same time it provokes a series of complications—instability. This coincided with the release of my short Cuellos Almidonados [shown at the 39th CLFF] where I explored the dynamics of a family with three children where the mother is “the steward of order” and the younger son an “agent of disruption,” so the anecdote fit like a glove and allowed me to further explore this idea. When it comes to my filmography, Cuadrilátero follows the same line of my shorts which are these atemporal, non-geographical, slightly autobiographical short fables.

You present a very precise, geometrically perfect household and world where everything, from the furniture to the hill that leads the family to the car garage follow a specific rigid stricture. It’s also rather monochromatic and austere. Can you talk a bit about the film’s production design?

I had a lot of fun creating this quadrilateral, monochromatic world with my production designer Edi Mérida and my director of photography Miguel Valencia. We all collaborated on Cuellos Almidonados. To visually show the lack of communication [in this family], we decided to place each character at the border of the frame and add weight over them (beams, rafters) so that they would feel as if they were being crushed. Once you define how your film is going to look, which is like the rules of a game, it is key that you do not steer away from it to maintain the film’s unity and cohesion. One of our rules was: less is more.

We see Lucía read a book written by one Ann Land, and in fact, nothing but books by this author on her shelves. This author, in fact, inspires Tomás to take matters into his own hand. Is Ann Land a wink to Ayn Rand? And why?

Funny that you noticed that. My dad was a huge fan of Ayn Rand so I grew up reading her books: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Night of October 16th, The Virtue of Selfishness (Gordon Gekko’s speech in Wall Street is taken from that book). I must have read everything she wrote. I believe something as radical, or even more so, than Rand’s “Objectivism” —[in defense] of an exacerbated individualism— most have stuck in Adriana’s, the mother’s, mind for her to behave the way she does. And I imagine she must have passed Land’s almost Darwinian ideology to her husband and children, except for Tomás who injects himself with it, encouraging him to rebel.

One of the most troubling aspects of your film is that we never know what social, political or even family-driven factors drove Adriana to be so severe, so authoritarian. What was her environment growing up like? And who in their right mind would marry her?

The answer to these two questions are tied to your previous one. Adriana must have grown up in an environment where that culture of egoism, in contrast to an altruistic one that defends the common good, was the norm. We never know the reasons why Alfredo, her husband, submits to Adriana the way he does. I didn’t find it pertinent to go into his backstory but in my mind, he must have some sort of moral debt with her: he must have been unfaithful to her at some point and in order not to lose his family, he took on a passive role.

In the end, this is a movie about the use and abuse of power and the cruelty it inspires. And we live in a world where cruelty for the mere sake of being cruel seems to be the norm for many governments. In what ways does this family represent a microcosm of the world we currently live in?

Your question reminds me of that memorable verse from John Donne’s poem: “No man is an island”. To tell you the truth, some of my movies, the most personal ones, are an artistic recreation of past events that could have become either painful or traumatic. Treating them artistically, so to say, allows me to distance myself from them, to look at them from the other side and even laugh at them. Cuadrilátero is one of those cases of artistic expression as therapy. Which is why it’s been a pleasant surprise to discover how the public goes beyond this family microcosm to themes like the ones you mention. I didn’t think I was making a political movie but I know I did thanks to the audience.

Cuadrilátero will screen on Saturday, April 12th at 4 p.m. and Sunday, April 13, 8 p.m. at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.

One of those friends is Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero. Born in Ecuador, Sebastián spent his childhood in Quito and his teenage years in Paris where he fell in love with the movies. He studied screenwriting at the University of South California in Los Angeles and returned to Ecuador in 1995 with the idea of making a feature film in a country with an almost non-existent film industry. His first film, Ratas, ratones, rateros was an Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival in 1999 where it started its worldwide tour of over 50 festivals. His next film, Crónicas, starring John Leguizamo, won the NHK International Filmmakers Award at Sundance and premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2004. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, Sebastián’s next film, Rabia, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in late 2009 and won for Best Film, Photography and Supporting Actor at Malaga Film Festival. He made his English-language debut with the science-fiction film Europa Report (2013) which was released in the United States by Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures. 

Sebastián makes his debut as a documentary filmmaker with Al otro lado de la niebla (Behind the Mist). In it, he is invited by Iván Vallejo, the first Ecuadorian to climb to the summit of Mount Everest in 1999, to make a film that would commemorate his trajectory. Together, they travel to Nepal, where Iván shares his own life experiences and Sebastián begins to come to terms with his own legacy and future. Stunningly shot by Sebastián himself, Al otro lado de la niebla is a film that invites us to look within ourselves and to take a deep breath and appreciate our surroundings.

We spoke to Sebastián about his move to documentary filmmaking:

We’ve featured a good number of your films at the Festival. How would you describe your relationship to it?

I have a lot of love and respect for the Chicago Latino Film Festival. I presented my first feature, Ratas ratones rateros, there 25 years ago and I was taken by surprise by the great work Pepe Vargas and his team did in reaching out to Chicago’s Latino audiences, creating, truly, a parallel cultural space where our identity could be shared with my fellow Ecuadorians (or anyone from any Latin American country really), with a surprising reach to the public of migrant origin. I’ve attended many festivals that aspire to reach a specific niche and are not successful. The Chicago Latino Film Festival has a surprising reach, thanks to its grassroots efforts, and is able to connect Latin American cinema to the Spanish-speaking communities. This may seem obvious but it is still one of the greatest and most difficult challenges in the United States.

Except for Europa Report, your one and only science-fiction film, the thriller has dominated your filmography. With Al otro lado de la niebla (Behind the Mist), you jump to the other side, to the documentary form, when it is usually the other way around (documentary filmmakers making their transition to fiction features). Why did you want to make a documentary at this stage of your life?

I have dedicated these past few years to exploring several different paths to the creative process. I first started with theater, adapting my own film Rabia into an immersive experience. I wanted to be able to see the audience from different perspectives and also explore new ways of telling the story. Parallel to this exploration, I began to feel the need to tell more personal stories and the documentary has allowed me to do that. In the case of Al otro lado de la niebla (Behind the Mist), the personal element grew in a very organic way, without the film having been planned that way, and it is that personal element that I like the most about it. I am currently editing a documentary that is even more personal. I keep exploring, it’s part of my growth as an artist. 

At the beginning of the documentary, you acknowledge that when Iván Vallejo invited you to shoot it, you had no clear idea how you would finish it or even what shape it would take. How were those initial shooting days like for you? Were you joined by any additional crew members or were you a one-man band? And when did you finally come up with its structure?

It was only me, Iván and our guide during the shoot. I had a small camera, two lenses, the lightest tripod I could find and a digital recorder. Everything fit in a backpack. So, yes, I was a one man band. At the beginning we thought we would split the shoot in two parts: one part in Nepal and the other in China. But the pandemic forced us to change our plans, so we canceled our second trip.

What was interesting is that I felt that that first trip would be part of the process of prior research and that I would be using very little of that material, so I felt free to shoot whatever I wanted and capture anything that caught my eye. Later, as I began to edit the film, I felt grateful for having taken that spontaneous approach. When the second part of the trip was cancelled, I thought that I no longer had a documentary but it was during the pandemic shutdown that I found the structure which focused as much on myself as on Iván.

Has Iván seen the documentary? What did he make of it?

Iván loves the documentary, but I was really afraid of showing it to him the first time because I felt that maybe it would not meet his expectations. But he loved the fact, that it was so personal, so questioning, and that it shows both of us as characters who are philosophical antagonists that learn how to share the beauty of life.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am finishing that documentary I told you before, and I hope to begin shooting my new fiction feature in early 2026, a project that I’ve been dreaming to do since I was a teen,

Al otro lado de la niebla will screen alongside the Brazilian short Pastrana directed by Gabriel Motta on Wednesday, April 9th at 5:45 p.m. and Saturday, April 12, 8:45 p.m. at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the 44-year filmmaker has written and directed several shorts as well as miniseries that are currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+. She has also worked as an assistant director alongside Francis Ford Coppola (Tetro) and Héctor Olivera (El mural), and even as a gaffer for Damián Szifron (Tiempo de valientes). She taught screenwriting at the University of Buenos Aires between 2003 and 2006.

Mariana talked to us about her journey as a filmmaker, working with actors, and the way power and toxic masculinity curtail desire:

Your journey to making Linda began with your shorts Las hormigas (2016) and Error 404 (2016) and continued with your work as a scriptwriter for such miniseries as Planners and Barrabrava (both 2023). When did you finally decide to make the dive to feature filmmaking and how did all these experiences prepare you for it?

I believe the idea of directing a feature film is always there in the mind of any filmmaker. It is a long process, not because of the making of the movie, but, in my case, because it was a product of so many experiences. After those shorts, I shot another one, Pivote, as well as music videos and I continued writing. Those miniseries were released the same year but were written years before. I also took part in the writing of División Palermo (for Netflix) and in 2022 I took on my first big project as a director, El mejor infarto de mi vida (The Best Heart Attack of My Life, a miniseries for Disney+). That project involved many weeks of intense production which gave me enough experience and certainty. The idea of directing a feature was always there and finally it happened thanks to a producer who is dear to me. That is how the process of telling such a complex and uncomfortable story as Linda began. It was a great challenge.

You share writing credits with seven other writers. Can you describe the story’s origins, how the idea evolved, and what was it like to work on it collaboratively?

I have always been interested in family dynamics, the power play within these spaces and how they can be pierced by beauty and sexuality. On the other hand, I was interested in exploring the distance that separates Linda’s and Luisa’s roles as women, each one’s freedom, Luisa’s role as a mother and how she sees her own body. How much real freedom comes with money? How much power does beauty have? How much happiness does hypercontrol bring? What happens when a domestic employee who should play an invisible role in this family, represents its canons of beauty and its members can’t help but feel attracted? Linda’s script is the result of this search, of these questions that interest me and have complex answers. In the course of the script’s development we kept asking more and more questions, keeping an open conversation so we could rethink these themes. The final script was written by Sabrina [Campos], Nancy [Gay] and myself, but it began with the collaboration of other scriptwriters. There are so many of us!

You built a solid ensemble around Eugenia “China” Suárez, who plays Linda in the film. They understand that a simple gesture can say so much more than words. And this is a film full of gestures and tiny reactions. Describe the casting process and how you directed these actors.

I fervently believe in the kind of acting that is subtle, small, that is capable of expressing an enormous amount of layers in a character. All the characters in Linda are complex, they are full of contradictions. The idea here was to build on that complexity through gestures, through erratic, almost imperceptible actions that would gradually generate a degree of tension. These are characters with so much volume, with so many layers, as ambiguous as real people. With this in mind, we found a wonderful ensemble, with whom we worked in building this universe with enormous enthusiasm. Each rehearsal produced an exchange of ideas that nourished the story. They are all very talented and to work collaboratively with them was a real treat.

The fact that Claudio has security cameras all over the house and that he spends a significant amount of time not only monitoring the goings-on of his staff but also of his family caught my attention. It stands as another way to exercise power.

Cameras in these neighborhoods, in these wealthy households, are pretty common but when it is used as a form of security, you want to see clearly everything that it entails. Camilo exerts total control over the house’s spaces and people. He can spy without being seen from the comfort of his office, he can stick his nose in everybody’s business, which he does. I think the saying that “families are the building blocks of society” offers us a way to think about how a family’s microbehaviors are duplicated by society. It is a metaphor of life as we live it. Cameras are another tool for the powerful, but in the end that tool delivers a terrible blow to him. A well deserved one, I think.

Above all, this is a film about desire and how societal norms, toxic masculinity and the need to preserve the status quo repress it.

The film talks about connecting to your own desire and how life or certain social norms repress it, particularly in certain family spaces. It also talks about an old toxic masculinity that is passed from generation to generation: the gifts, the promises, the supposed care, the lessening of a beautiful object. It’s interesting how Linda alters the supposed established order and reconnects each member of the family to their own desire. That manipulation, even when it is not done on purpose, overturns the table of power and places her in the position of having control. That’s where social status no longer matters, but at the same time, real control is on the side of the moneyed. At the end of the day, the most vulnerable are still vulnerable.

Linda will screen on Sunday April 6 at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday, April 8, 8:30 p.m. alongside the Nicaraguan short Adelaida by Tamara Hernández at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.

The year is 2147: environmental pollution after a deadly chemical war has reduced the world’s population to extinction level. Tania, a conservation biologist, has been working in finding a way to prevent the extinction of her species with the help of VIDA, an Artificial Intelligence system with whom she has forged a symbiotic relationship. But the arrival of Azarias, a traveler with a hidden past, throws off kilter the safe, almost sterile environment both scientist and AI felt so secure in.

Leticia talks to us about why she wanted to do a science-fiction movie, the challenges of making the film and her next project, a musical biopic about the Queen of Merengue, Milly Quezada:

Your feature debut, Love Child (La hija natural, 2011), won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature at the 27th Chicago Latino Film Festival. What does the Festival mean for you?

Not only was attending the Festival with my first feature a wonderful experience because of the award, but it was also the first film festival I attended as a filmmaker! It was the best start to my career not only because of the warm welcome from the moviegoers and from Pepe (Vargas, executive director of the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago), and also because of the experience of bringing a movie that is so representative of our country to an international audience. Up to this day, it stands as a wonderful memory and an experience from which I learned a lot.

From the Santo movies to graphic novels like El Eternauta to the short stories and novels by Yoss, science-fiction has left its mark in Latin American literature and cinema. And yet, it is still very rare in Caribbean cinema. Even so, we have two science-fiction features from the region at the Festival this year, including yours. Why do you think science-fiction has yet to be seen as a viable genre in our countries?

I do think our countries see science-fiction as a viable genre. I, at least, have a very particular opinion on the matter. For me, it comes from a need to express ourselves, to not limit ourselves to the type of stories we can tell, not only about the past and the present but also about the future. I know that, often, our countries’ societal needs, the problems we may have politically, socially, about poverty, often impede us from having a vision of the future, right? But I think it is a healthy sign that as an industry we want to tell stories, that we want to reclaim the right we have as Latinos and Caribbeans to offer our perspective and tell stories that express our doubts about the future from a particular perspective.

How was the idea for Aire.Just Breathe born? How were you able to pull it off?

The first challenge was the budget, because generally the science-fiction films we are used to seeing on the big screen are the product of a much larger industry with much larger budgets, so my director of photography, my production designer and myself had to sit down and figure out a strategic way to use the resources we had at hand. One of the decisions we made, and it was really a way to be coherent with the film’s narrative, was that 95% of the materials used in the set design had to be from recycled materials. That, of course, helped bring down costs and gave the sets, especially the bunker, a unique aesthetic.

I came up with the idea for Aire. Just Breathe, if I am not mistaken, a year before the pandemic. I’ve always loved science-fiction but I am also respectful of it. The original pre-pandemic story was much, much darker. Once we got out of the pandemic, I revised the script and I felt that, after all we had gone through, I was not up to telling such a dark story and that I would also be contributing to the uncertainty, right?, that we had about the future. I thought of offering some hope through Aire. Just Breathe.

How would you describe your experiences of shooting your films at Pinewood Studios in the Dominican Republic? And how has this studio helped the development of the country’s film industry?

It’s wonderful to shoot at Pinewood; their facilities are fantastic, nothing to envy their studios in London and Atlanta. It fulfills all the requisites plus it’s also right in front of the beach! But besides the fact that the studio is so complete, there is a close professional relationship with studio executives who have had the vision and know the importance of producing Dominican films. Even though they have a large international clientele, they always carve a space for the production of local films; I think that theirs is a smart vision because it not only guarantees a steady year-round flow of productions but it also helps foster a community of filmmakers who help each other. The studios have played a fundamental role in the development of our film industry these past years.

You are currently working on a musical biopic about pioneer merengue singer Milly Quezada. What can you tell us about this new project and how far are you in its production?

My filmography is rather eclectic, isn’t it? I am really attracted to genres. So, yes, I am working on a movie about Milly, the Queen of Merengue, which is currently in post-production. It’s a co-production with Puerto Rico. I believe we will have the film ready in two, three months, max. And we have a strategic release plan. We are choosing a festival for its World Premiere. And well, what can I spoil for you?

I am incredibly happy with the end result. Music is such an important part of our culture. And besides, we are talking about the Queen of Merengue who’s been working in the industry for more than 45 years. She’s been an inspiration not only for artists of her generation but contemporary ones as well. It’s been a complete honor that Milly Quezada trusted me with her life story. We all gave a lot to the film. We embraced the challenge of producing another genre rarely done in the Caribbean, the musical, with our heads held high.

Aire. Just Breathe will screen on Sunday April 6 at 9:00 p.m. and Tuesday, April 8, 8:30 p.m. alongside the Colombian short Thirst (Sed) by Julián Díaz Velosa at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.

We begin the series with Alexandra Latishev Salazar, writer and director of Delirio, a film that uses the tropes of the traditional haunted house story as well as such Russian folk myths as the vourdalak to explore the psychological impact of domestic violence on three generations of women. 

Daughter of a Costa Rican mother and Russian father, Latishev Salazar discovered film through her father’s Soviet film archives. She graduated from the New Film and Television School at Universidad Véritas in San José, Costa Rica and in 2013, made her graduation film Irene. Her documentary Los Volátiles (2014), about a 26-year old man with a mental disability who looks for stability in his life, won the award for Best Documentary Feature and the Audience Award at the Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine. In 2017 she released her feature debut, Medea, which was selected for the Cine en Construcción section at the 2016 San Sebastián International Film Festival and represented Costa Rica at the Oscar and Goya Awards, before participating in festivals in over 25 countries. She also La Linterna Films, a production company dedicated to film development. 

Today, Latishev Salazar, alongside Antonella Sudasassi Furniss (whose new film Memories of a Burning Body is also representing Costa Rica in the Fest) and Nathalie Álvarez Mésen (Clara Sola), is part of a new cinematic wave led by women that is throwing a spotlight on that country’s vibrant and creative film scene:

In Delirio, you, through 11-year-old Masha, make several references to Easter European and specifically Russian folk tales and myths such as the vampiric Vourdalak. How were you introduced to these tales and how influential were they? 

All these tales were part of my childhood, they were the books they read to me when I was little, as a daughter of a Russian immigrant. The Russian children tales have the same essence of Russian literature, it is full of nihilism and I like to use this concept of the “vourdalak”, because they are vampires that attack their own family. I believe that the cycles of violence inside the families are the same as vampires. You aren’t born a vampire, they make you one after they attack you and then you make other people vampires when you attack them. 

In the film’s press notes, you mention the impact domestic violence had on your mother and grandmother, that they lived with “persecutory delusions”. The film itself feels like an exorcism of sorts. Why did you feel now was the right time for you to tell this very personal story? 

What a difficult question. I don’t think it was a very conscious decision. I started writing a film about characters in certain circumstances, and as I wrote it, my personal story began to emerge like a ghost. I think it often happens when you write or make films: you start in a place that seems foreign, but as you go deeper into the story, you appear there somehow, but I think in that moment the film becomes more interesting. Still it’s difficult to feel so exposed, but at the same time it gives you some kind of release.

Tell us a little bit about the process of casting: what were you looking for and how did Liliana Biamonte (Elisa), Helena Calderón (Masha) and Anabelle Ulloa (Dinia) fit with your vision? What else did they bring to their roles? 

I have the privilege of working with excellent actresses. I’d worked with Liliana on several previous films already, but finding Helena and Anabelle took months. With Helena, we developed a casting process with girls of some Russian origin, which was very unique for a country like Costa Rica. Working with the actors is one of the main focuses of my work. The rehearsal process lasted about eight months, during which we did many things: we filmed short exercises that the actresses wrote about their characters’ stories, we rehearsed scenes from the past of the characters, we drew a lot, we did yoga, we even took long walks in the woods. I think it’s important to build a bond of trust with the actresses to get to a deeper level of intimacy, which is only built over time.

There are two levels of violence in the film: one level is hinted at through small visual cues, through music, through the use of space. It’s about the psychological impact. Then there’s the one that is expressed through words, particularly through the grandmother’s despicable words towards her carekeeper. Could you elaborate? 

I’m fascinated by how clearly you interpret this second level of violence, because it’s perhaps the most imperceptible, but for me it’s the most interesting and is related to my grandmother and cultural themes. My grandmother came from a very poor family; all her life she was subjugated in some way: due to her social class, her low level of education, the relationship she had with the carekeeper was perhaps the only relationship where she exercised power in any way. It’s also permeated by an aspirational discourse of “white” superiority, because people in Costa Rica consider themselves “whiter” than other Central American nations, with fewer indigenous genes, which is ridiculous.

Has the film been released theatrically in Costa Rica? How about other festivals? What has been the response?

The response has been positive, despite the fact that audiences in Costa Rica are quite conservative. I think there are new initiatives that have taken on the task of creating an audience that seeks out more alternative cinema. Each film follows its own path and is quite unpredictable, yet it’s always full of surprises and beautiful experiences because the film resonates in places you never expected.
Delirio will screen on Wednesday April 9 at 8:30 p.m. and Friday, April 11, 5:45 p.m. alongside the Honduran short La Llorona by César Laing at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.