The annual film festival season is well underway in Vancouver. August featured the Queer Film Festival and, starting tonight, it's Latin America’s turn. Now in its 9th year, the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (VLAFF) has grown steadily, no longer a mere warm up for the Vancouver International Film Festival that starts in late September. This year's VLAFF features 11 days of films from throughout the Americas.

Nearly a decade ago, America's War on Terror began as a manhunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But over the next nine years, that anti-terrorism effort evolved into a multi-faceted crusade: birthing a new national security agency, blossoming into two bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, institutionalizing the racial profiling and surveillance of Muslim Americans and even redefining unauthorized Latin American immigration as -- of all things -- a national security issue. Now, in the wake of Osama Bin Laden's death, which elements of that crusade will persist or expand and which -- if any -- will dissolve?

Muslim Americans celebrate Bin Laden's death…

Q: You’ve done human rights work in various countries, could you talk a bit about that?

Kevin: I started in Guatemala where I worked a human shield for opposition leaders during negotiations that led to the peace accords, including (Nobel peace Prize winner) Rigoberta Menchú, some deans from the university and a couple of labour lawyers. I also went to El Salvador a couple of times as an elections observer to their legislative and presidential elections. All those trips were under the auspices of the Central America Support Committee (CASC) in Victoria.