ECHO PARK LA (2007)
RICHARD GLATZERWASH WESTMORELAND
Plot
As Magdalena's fifteenth birthday approaches, her simple, blissful life is complicated by the discovery that she is pregnant. Kicked out of her house, she finds a new family with Tomas, her great-granduncle and Carlos, her outcast gay cousin. Echo Park LA is a moving, funny and socially poignant film about the challenges young people face when their values and desires differ from the suffocating age-old traditions of the family into which they are born. Inspired, believe it or not, by the British kitchen-sink social realism films of the early 60s, this offers not just poignant insights into Latino culture but engaging entertainment.