Hispanic Film Festival Jan. 10-Feb 7

The 23rd annual Hispanic Film Festival at Augustana College will run on Wednesday evenings Jan. 10-Feb 7, with films from Chile, Guatemala, Spain, Colombia and the U.S.

All films are free and will begin at 7 p.m. in room 102, Hanson Hall. The public is invited.

January 10: El Botón de Nácar (The Pearl Button)

This 2015 documentary from Chile 2015 was nominated for awards in many countries, and won in Adelaide, Berlin, Jerusalem, Philadelphia, France, Japan and Italy.

IMDB: "The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice."

This unrated film runs one hour and 22 minutes.

Jan. 17: No Más Bebés (No More Babies)

This film by American director Renee Tajima Peña premiered at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival and was broadcast on the PBS documentary series "Independent Lens."

IMDB: "They came to have their babies. They went home sterilized. "No Más Bebés" is the story of Mexican immigrant mothers who were pushed into sterilizations while giving birth at Los Angeles county hospital during the 1960s and 70s. Alongside an intrepid, 26-year-old Chicana lawyer and whistle-blowing young doctor, the mothers mounted a civil rights lawsuit that is seminal to the alternative history of Roe v. Wade, and the movement for reproductive justice."

The unrated film runs one hour and 20 minutes.

Jan. 24: Tarde Para la Ira (The Fury of a Patient Man)

This 2016 thriller from Spain won for best picture, best new director and best original screen play in the Goya Awards.

IMDB: "A hard-working single mother and wife of a getaway driver who is about to be released is approached by an unassuming and gentle man, completely unaware though of his inscrutable and utterly impelling motives."

The film is rated R for violence, and runs one hour and 32 minutes.

Jan. 31: Ixcanul

The 2015 debut film by Guatemala's Jayro Bustamante was best film at the Molodist International Film Festival and the Cartagena Film Festival.

IMDB: "On the slopes of an active volcano in Guatemala, a marriage is arranged for 17-year-old María by her parents. The debut by Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante is about the lives of Kaqchikel-speaking Mayans, a disappearing tradition and a disappearing people."

The unrated film runs one hour and 33 minutes.

Feb. 7: El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent)

The 2015 adventure-drama from Colombia was nominated for an Oscar and named best film at the Mar de Plata Film Festival.

IMDB: "The story of the relationship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of 40 years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant."

The film is rated R and runs just over two hours.

Films are sponsored by the Office of Student Life and Leadership as part of the International Film Series.