The 12th annual Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (VLAFF) is coming to Vancouver August 28 - September 7. The festival is the largest Latin American film festival in Canada, showcasing films from over a dozen countries. Festival goers can look forward to 73 films, including 36 feature-length films, exhibited in three venues in downtown Vancouver. The program includes the third year of our New Directors Competition (7 films compete for this award) as well as the fourth year of the Al Jazeera Documentary Competition (7 films in competition), which is given in partnership with the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel. Sixteen short films are also in competition for Best Short Film. This year VLAFF will be hosting Chile as a guest country, with a retrospective on Chilean actor Manuela Martelli. For the first time, VLAFF will be screening a series of Afro-Cuban films at the Museum of Anthropology in UBC as part of their exhibition "Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art." This year VLAFF has also partnered with the The Etxepare Basque Institute in Spain, which has curated a program of contemporary Basque cinema and will be screened at the festival with film director Telmo Esnal in attendance. Tickets on sale now at www.vlaff.org