DISPATCH FROM THE DENVER FILM FESTIVAL • DAY 6

There were only three words to describe the atmosphere at MCA Denver’s Holiday Theatre on Monday afternoon: Joy. Ebullience. Gratitude.

Astonishing, given the road young sisters Lupe and Lesli Perez have taken from the rugged outskirts of  Guatemala City to the Denver Film Festival, which just welcomed them for two screenings of the remarkable new Colorado-produced documentary “Comparsa.”

Forty-one girls were killed and 15 severely burned in a 2017 fire at a state-run shelter called “Safe Home of the Virgin of the Assumption.” The facility housed children who were survivors of abuse, violence or abandonment, not those who had committed crimes. It was severely overcrowded, with about 700 residents in a space meant for 500.

“The girls were there to be protected because they needed a safe place to stay,” said Boulder-based producer Vickie Curtis. Instead, they found themselves in a situation where there were overwhelming allegations of sexual abuse, human trafficking, neglect and mistreatment at the facility.

On March 7, 2017, dozens of girls escaped in protest. But that night, police rounded many of them up and locked them overnight in a makeshift dormitory with no bathroom. “They were told to rot in there,” Curtis said. Eventually, one of the detained girls lit a fire in protest. The fire spread quickly, but guards left the girls locked in that burning room for nine minutes before opening the door.

One of those who died was a childhood friend of the Perez sisters, who had recently visited the facility with their youth performing group. While there, “this friend told them she was being raped and abused and begged them to help her get out,” Curtis said.

Not long after came the fire.

“Comparsa” is not a documentary about this one notorious act of violence that plagues Guatemala to this day. (In August, eight years after the fact, six people were finally sentenced to prison for their roles in the deaths.) Rather, the film is about Lesli and Lupe’s resulting efforts to empower women and girls through the transformative power of art.

“It is about how they use art to help heal a community that has been frayed over decades of civil war and resource inequality and machismo misogyny and a history of colonialism,” said Curtis. Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide globally, and a staggering 71% of those cases go unsolved.

Curtis, who won an Emmy Award for her writing on the landmark film “The Social Network,” learned about Lesli and Lupe from her own childhood friend, Anna Hadingham, a theater teaching artist who had moved to Guatemala a decade before.

“I was talking with her about the desire to find a story about people who were working on solutions and mending their own communities,” Curtis said. What she found was a universal story representative of the lack of care, respect and rights given to women and girls all over the world.

Lesli and Lupe are not fighting back through the courts. Instead, they offer up their joyful, art-driven methods as a fresh way for young people to engage, build peace and heal deep wounds.

The film shows them stage a community comparsa — an exuberant street performance featuring towering puppets, fire-breathing stilt walkers and thundering drums. They take their youth movement to the streets demanding the safety, dignity and freedom to feel joy for girls everywhere.

And, having survived violence in their own home, they find some healing for themselves along the way, too.

What Lesli and Lupe have seen and absorbed in their young lives would swallow less reliant people in the overwhelming weight of sadness. Instead, on Monday in Denver, they were projectors of light. They wore wings – literally.

Lesli, a beaming, glittery young woman who speaks not a word of English, walked up to me in the lobby and hugged me ferociously in thanks just for coming to the screening.

Where, I asked Curtis, is all of this joy coming from?

“Joy is one of the most strategic and useful tools in the arsenal of the artists activists who work in (Guatemala),” Curtis said. “Taking pleasure and joy in their work is in and of itself a protest. I think art brings joy to their lives. Community brings joy to their lives. Humor brings joy to their lives. And then they try to build from that place where they can actually envision and start to truly create a society that is wonderful and vibrant and beautiful.”

As the film ends, the sisters are shown holding one another in the twilight, reflecting on their mother and the strength she imparted in them to do their work.

“Our mother never had wings,” Lupe says, “but she taught us how to fly.” 

SCREENING OF THE DAY

An unrecognizable Sydney Sweeney stars as Christy Martin, the West Virginia fighter who put women’s boxing on the map, in the buzzy-buzz buzz film of the fest, “Christy.” Ben Foster will receive Denver Film’s inaugural Outlaw Award. “Ben Foster continues to prove why he’s one of the most compelling actors of his generation,” says Denver Film Fest Artistic Director Matthew Campbell. “His work in ‘Christy’ is deeply layered and unpredictable — the kind of performance that defines what our new award is all about.” 6:45 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Holiday Theater

YOU’VE GOT THE (STAR) POWER

Zoey Deutch will receive the Rising Star Award tonight at a screening of 5. “Nouvelle Vague,” director Richard Linklater’s love letter to French New Wave. Deutch gives a luminous performance in this reimagining of the classic film “Breathless.”  7 p.m. Nov. 5 at Sie FilmCenter

SPOTLIGHT ON LOCAL FILMMAKERS

Colorado’s scrappiest filmmakers are those locals who figure out a way to pay the bills and, in some cases, raise families so that they can spend their free time on their true artistic passions. Which, for Jack Cosgriff, means “making weird little art movies.” 

Cosgriff had just come off the opening red-carpet runway with two buddies wearing … um … wearing … well, let’s let him describe what he was wearing.

“This is a green morph suit from my latest movie,” he said with a laugh. “One of the actors was wearing this so that we could animate over them for the entire film.”

Armani? No. Thrift-store chic. This whole costume was assembled from random (bleep),” he said.

No big budgets for Colorado’s short narrative and short documentary filmmakers.

“I got this for 15 bucks,” said Cosgriff, whose income comes from working as a stagehand for events throughout the Denver Performing Arts Complex. “Our biggest production cost was buying Crayons because we were all doing hand animations.”

Every local filmmaker’s story is different, with some basic commonalities. Like, scrappiness. I met Cosgriff in 2021 as a student at Denver School of the Arts. He was out at an airfield helping prolific local filmmaker Susan Lyles as she scrambled to complete a 48-hour film project.

Last year, Cosgriff’s short film “Kino Kopf” was accepted into the Denver Film Festival. It was about “a forgotten sentient VHS camera.” This year, he’s been accepted again for “Echo Equinox,” a 13-minute film that is about … um … it’s about … well, let’s let him describe what it’s about.

“It’s a queer sci-fi movie about astronauts,” he said. “It’s …  I don’t know. It’s strange. It’s got, like, romance, love, drama, everything!”

Colorado’s selected narrative and documentary shorts are each shown twice in bundled screenings at the Sie FilmCenter. The docs are up first, with group showings at 7:15 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) and 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Those filmmakers are Shaffer Nickel, Jenna Rice, Lee Knight, Dewi Sungai, Thomas Yellow Horse Davis, Keely Kernan, Cameron Wyatt and Turner Wyatt.

The narrative shorts will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 p.m. Friday. That group includes Cosgriff, Robbie C. Ward, Fiona McNeal, Preston Tompkins, Zach Reinert, Matt Sandoval, Kelly Sears, Estee Fox Bershof, Laura Patterson and the remarkable Bruce Tetsuya, who has made it into the lineup for the seventh straight year.  

DRAGON YOUR FEET

Little pieces of all the niche film festivals Denver Film co-produces throughout the year have their days at the mother fest as well. The Colorado Dragon Boat Festival has a spotlight screening tonight of “No Other Choice,” from master filmmaker Park Chan-wook, at 6:45 p.m. at the Denver Botanic Gardens. It adapts Donald E. Westlake’s novel “The Ax” into a razor-sharp thriller satire laced with dark humor. Also: “Kokuho” at 10 a.m. today at the Sie …

TITLE OF THE DAY

Israel-Palestine is the hot topic of the doc “Coexistence, My Ass!” at 10:30 a.m. at the Sie.

DISCOUNT TICKETS

Monday was a milestone night for the Denver Film Festival. It had four screenings in four theaters, and all of them were sold out, including the new Will Arnett film “Is This Thing On” at the spacious Holiday Theatre.

Even so: Adventurous moviegoers looking for a bargain will find them at this year’s fest. Each day, Denver Film is designating a few films or events that can be had for $5 when purchased in person. Generally, though, you have to be available for daytime weekday screenings. Box offices open 30 minutes before the first screening of the day.

Wednesday’s $5 films or events:

• “Franz” (a Kafka biopic), 12:45 p.m., at the Sie FilmCenter (Czech Republic and two others)

• ”Young Mothers,” 2 p.m. at the Sie FilmCenter (France)

• ”Christy,” 6:45 p.m., at the Holiday (U.S.)

TICKETS AND INFORMATION

Go to denverfilm.org

MORE OF OUR DENVER FILM FESTIVAL COVERAGE:

• Our interview with Delroy Lindo

• Here are five films you don’t want to miss

• Look who’s coming to Denver 

• Spotlight on Colorado films like ‘Creede U.S.A.’

• Daily Dispatch from the Denver Film Festival: Oct. 31

• Daily Dispatch from the Denver Film Festival: Nov. 1

• Daily Dispatch from the Denver Film Festival: Nov. 2

• Daily Dispatch from the Denver Film Festival: Nov. 3

• Daily Dispatch from the Denver Film Festival: Nov. 4