For movie fans, one of the best ways to keep up with the emerging trends and emerging talents of the filmmaking world is often the indie film festival, inviting audiences into some of the earliest looks at the next great films or great creators.
But can a film festival be not just celebration of cinema, but of the culture, the diversity, and the resilient power of an entire global community?
That’s the aim of the Oklahoma Latin American Film Festival, which kicks off its second annual installment Saturday, November 14th at Rodeo Cinema in Oklahoma City.
Launched in 2025 by filmmakers and film educators Rogelio Almeida and Victor Caballero, spinning out from the previous Cine Latino Film Festival in OKC’s Capitol Hill, The Oklahoma Latin American Film Festival – or OLA, for short - offers a weekend-long slate of shorts and feature films from Hispanic and Latino filmmakers from across the world.
According to Almeida, the event’s greatest goal is to highlight the broad diversity in cultures and experiences from all across the Spanish-speaking world.
Rogelio Almeida: I think the lineup of films that we have this year is very diverse. We have films from Peru, Chile, Puerto Rico, Mexico.
It's really interesting to see like all these diverse, you know, cultures from Chile and from Mexico and from Peru, because they're not the same. We all speak the same language, but it's, culturally speaking, it's very, very diverse.
You know, it's very interesting how all the cultures, just in general, you know, the Hispanic community, even here in the states, even in Oklahoma, it's so diverse and so rich at the same time.
Brett Fieldcamp: But it’s not just the diverse range of culture that OLA hopes to spotlight. The festival also works to provide the full range of emotion and engagement through storytelling in all of its forms, from raucous comedies to powerful documentaries, and even to some pointedly political films that aim to capture the fraught modern moment of the Latin American world.
Rogelio Almeida: Art, politics, you know, film, everything, it’s like you can't have one without the other.
There is a Documentary section, which we're going to be showcasing on Saturday as our opening block. It's just good. It's so good. We have films that just are so powerful.
Right after the Documentary block, we're gonna go right into the feel-good block, which is Comedy.
Then, kind of like the last block that we have is kind of like our Activism, more serious themes, you kno. Political. It's the times that we live in.
So we got comedy, we got documentary, and we also got some social issues.
Brett Fieldcamp: But this year will also feature a brand new block of short films that is particularly close to the heart for Almeida and the festival organizers, shining a light on local Latino filmmakers more brightly than ever before.
Rogelio Almeida: For the first time in the history of the festival, we're having a entire block made by Latino filmmakers from Oklahoma. So all these films - that are going to be showing on Sunday - is going to be the Oklahoma Showcase.
This is exactly the reason why we started the film festival, to be able to have a platform for, first of all, our Oklahoma Latino filmmakers, to give them a platform, give them a space, give them an audience, and I think that being able to have a film festival where you have so many visual identities and so many visual representations of cultures, I think it's what brings everything together so well.
Brett Fieldcamp: Bringing cultures together, Almeida says, is the true goal of the OLA Film Festival, not just creating a space for Hispanic and Latino cultures to gather and share community, but for other cultures to also join in and celebrate the power and beauty of shared experience across boundaries and borders.
Rogelio Almeida: Being able to be at Rodeo Cinema, in such a beautiful venue, being able to open up, you know, our doors to everybody, because that's the one thing, we can cater Hispanic and Latino movies to the Latino community, but I want to be able to broaden that spectrum to anybody who wants to learn about our culture, who wants to learn about our films.
So to me, being able to have a film festival to be able to show their films on the screen in front of a live audience, it's just such a beautiful experience.
Brett Fieldcamp: The Oklahoma Latin American Film Festival runs at Rodeo Cinema Saturday, November 14th for ticketholders and Sunday, November 15th fully free and open to the public.
For more, including festival passes and a full lineup and schedule of films, visit olafilm.org.
—---------------
KGOU relies on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners to further its mission of public service with arts and culture reporting for Oklahoma and beyond. To contribute to our efforts, donate online, or contact our Membership department.
