Theater People Wonder: Where Have All the Profits Gone?
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Pepe Vargas, the attorney who founded the Chicago Latino Film Festival, will open his sixth annual gathering tonight with a reception and showing of Last Images of the Shipwreck by Argentine writer-director Eliseo Subiela at the First Chicago Center Theater. Vargas has watched his dream grow larger and more successful each year. The first festival’s attendance totaled 500; last year’s attracted an audience of 10,000. The first festival comprised films from nine Latin countries, while this year’s event, which runs through October 7 at the Three Penny Cinema, Facets Multimedia, and the Roberto Clemente High School auditorium includes more than 60 films and videos from 18 Central and South American countries, plus Spain. Vargas will run this years festival on a budget of $100,000–half of it earned through ticket sales and the remainder from foundations and sponsors ranging from the Polk Brothers and Joyce foundations to American Airlines, now a major carrier to Latin American destinations.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Steven D. Arazmus.
