Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla
The cinematic experience of 2020 was just downright strange. The pandemic upended many normal things in the industry from theatrical release dates and production schedules to film festivals and awards ceremonies. So, it wouldn’t be a surprise if film purists were ready to put this year behind them.
If that were an option, however, we wouldn’t be able to tell you about some of the best Latino & Latin American films we had the pleasure of watching during this extremely unusual year. Of the 10 selected films, which span across several genres, four of them are powerful documentaries that capture raw emotions of undocumented immigrants, aspiring legislators, an iconic TV mystic and a legendary Argentinean-Brazilian filmmaker. The latter was chosen by Brazil to represent it in the upcoming race for Best International Film at the Academy Awards.
The Vow, which brought the sprawl and sensationalism of podcasts to the small screen. Those kinds of docs can certainly be enlightening and entertaining, but they aren’t really representative of the artform at its best.
The movies below deal with some of the same kinds of grabby subjects as the new wave of podcast-esque TV: scandals, politics, addiction, sex and death. But the filmmakers behind them have honed their stories finely, finding just the right images and characters to say something artful and relevant about our world. Here are some of the highlights from an excellent year for documentaries.