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I just had the privilege of seeing "The Blue Diner" in a Rhode Island film festival last night and was treated to one of the warmest surprises of the year. It sported terrific performances from fresh faces, about characters you really cared for. An engaging script was complemented by very colorful cinematography, soothing music, a collection of reflective "insert" scenes and a number of subtleties that really worked well together. Although "The Blue Diner" was billed as a Latino film, it was much more than that. It was a family movie, a community film and a relationship movie all in one. While very different in style and content, it was reminiscent of the surprise movie of 1963: "Lilies of The Field". Standing ovations were clearly in order with kudos to Lisa Vidal, Miriam Colon, Joes Yenque (of the just released "Traffic"), and of course William Marquez (who played the Padre in "the Mask Of Zorro"). In addition, I had the opportunity to meet Natatcha Estabenez and Jan Egleson (both of whom wrote, directed and produced this work) in a Q&A following last night's showing. Both explained how difficult it is to get an independent movie to the viewing public these days. That said, this is a quality effort, and these are people you really want to root for. Hope this one makes it to national distribution....if it does, DON'T MISS IT!!! If it doesn't.... what a shame!!!