Feliz Año Tijuana (Happy New Year Tijuana)

Alejandro (Luis Deveze) is a Chicano studies professor in the U.S. While headed to his hometown of Guanajuato, Mexico, for New Year’s Eve, he misses a connecting flight in Tijuana, and is stuck in the city overnight. Too restless to sleep in his seedy hotel room, Alejandro decides to hit the streets and see what the holiday looks like. But he soon proves to be a rather quirky figure who’s a little removed from the life around him, angering a hooker by asking why she’s a prostitute, and being lured into some sketchy backroom—like a curious anthropologist—to get his cards read. What becomes clear over the course of the night is that Alejandro’s deep-rooted convictions as an educator on the subjects of Latinx identity, pride, and history have become more about long-distance principle than immediate experience. And that disconnect is even more apparent when he bumps into an attractive American—a former student of his named Ana (Kristine Veta)—who invites him to a party. Once there, alcohol and flirtation combine to release repressed passions and a hunger for life in Alejandro, which in turn are met with some pushback by tiny minds. Deveze, who co-wrote the film with director Andrew van Baal, shoulders the movie, his Alejandro a work of guileless humanity, surprising naivete, and a Don Quixote-like romanticism. Recommended. (T. Keogh)