Indie Grits embraces Latin American food, film and art

Indie Grits, the film, art and technology festival hosted by The Nickelodeon Theatre, is serving up Latin flare this year.

The theme is Visiones, a nod to the the explosive growth of the Latino community in South Carolina and its cultural influence.

“We decided to go a little further south this year,” Indie Grits co-curator Amada Torruella said. “South Carolina has one of the fastest growing Latino-American communities in the country. We see this as an opportunity to acknowledge these voices.”

From April 20-23, Columbians can partake in Latin music, a Latin-American food truck rodeo, puppet slam, art shows and nightly after parties.

Nashville-based alt. country band Lambchop will headline the festival’s free opening day block party. Curtis Harding, an Atlanta artist with a fresh take on blues and soul, will also perform. Other music acts throughout the festival include Latin jazz fusion bands Vanilla Summit and David Rodriguez and the Palmetto Latin 5, and hip-hop artist Contour.

Interdisciplinary artist Favianna Rodriguez is the festival’s artist-in-residence and will give a keynote lecture on April 23.

And of course, let’s not forget the movies. Indie Grits set a record this year with more than 400 film submissions.

Film features range from a documentary about marathon runner Ryan Hall to an Argentine film about a man searching the Amazon rainforest for indigenous tribes.

For the first time, Indie Grits opened submissions to Latin America. It also invited Latinix (the gender-neutral alternative to Latino) artists and filmmakers to participate in an intensive, six-month collaborative project creating works centered around the Visiones theme.

A full schedule of events is available at www.indiegrits.com.

This story was originally published March 1, 2017 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Indie Grits embraces Latin American food, film and art."