Javier Guerrero, president of the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela, gets things started with a free lecture at Florida Atlantic University's Performing Arts Building (777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton) at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Films screen at Cinema Paradiso (503 SE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale), and all have English subtitles. They begin on Saturday with a double-header: Don Leandro el Inefable (1919), a silent movie about a man who moves from the provinces to the big city of Caracas; and La Balandra Isabel Llegó Esta Tarde (1949), about a man's adventures on the island of Margarita. According to Duno-Gottberg, this film is notable for its gender stereotypes, including a "lazy man in a hammock and a woman who devours men."
Also included among the festival's 12 flicks is Soy un Delincuente (I Am a Delinquent) (1976), one of the most popular films in Venezuelan history. It chronicles the violent, passionate life of a Caracas robber. Manuela Sáenz, La Libertadora del Libertador (2000) is a fictionalized bio of Simon Bolivar's lover, who accompanied him in battle and saved his life on several occasions. She ends up in Peru, telling her story to a man who, it turns out, is Herman Melville.