NCLAFF: Pelo Malo | Bad Hair

Location: FedEx Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium, UNC-Chapel Hill, 301 Pittsboro St., Chapel Hill, NCIn Spanish with English subtitles. (2013, dir. Mariana Rondon, Venezuela, 93 min.) A nine-year-old boy, Junior, lives in a Caracas; shanty-town, he is obsessed with becoming a singer and having straight long-hair, which elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother. Junior aches to straighten those curls, to acquire a whole new look befitting his emerging fantasy image of himself as a long-haired singer. As the opportunity approaches to have his photo taken for the new school year, that ache turns into a fiery longing. Junior¿s mother, Marta struggles as the father of her children has died, to put a few arepas on the table for Junior and his baby brother. She loves her kids, would endure almost anything for them, but she cannot abide Junior¿s preening and fussing over his appearance. The boy¿s grandmother (Nelly Ramos), however, encourages and nurtures his behavior; even though she knows why he visits the same newsstand every morning ¿ the one tended by a handsome, slick young man. Junior doesn¿t even know yet what it means to be gay, but the very notion prompts Marta to set out to ¿correct¿ Junior¿s condition before it fully takes hold. This is a story of people doing what they feel they have to, partly out of fear, but also out of love.