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N.Y. Latino Film Festival combats stereotypes in ad campaign

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The 12th annual New York International Latino Film Festival (Aug. 15-21) has launched a clever, provocative ad campaign to combat Hollywood stereotypes and the blockbuster mentality, and to remind viewers that there’s lots more to contemporary Latino cinema than just Pepe the valet guy and Lupe the maid.

The campaign includes graphics and video, designed in English and Spanish by the Wing marketing and communications agency, and takes several well-aimed jabs at ethnic cliches. One poster, depicting a lineup of silhouetted women’s high heels and a single toilet scrubber, underneath is the cheeky setup line, ‘When a Latina housekeeper meets an attractive businessman in a movie,’ followed by the two possible outcomes: ‘They live happily ever after’ or ‘She remains a housekeeper.’

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Another depicts four garden rakes measuring, in descending order, the popularity of names of gardeners in movies: Jose, Ramon, Juan and Steve.

Wing says the campaign also is intended to draw attention to the relative scarcity of Latino and Latin American actors in mainstream U.S. movies.

As for the festival itself, it will open with the animated feature ‘Chico & Rita’ and close with a 40th anniversary screening of a remastered print of director Leon Gast’s concert film classic ‘Our Latin Thing’ (Nuestra Cosa), filmed at the Cheetah Club in New York City and featuring the Fania All-Stars.

Among the festival’s other attractions will be the premieres of ‘White Knight,’ with Hector Jimenez, Stacy Keach and Tom Sizemore, and ‘Magic City Memoirs,’ about three privileged Miami private-school friends suddenly confronting their hometown’s darker social realities.

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