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Alonso's Dream - Since 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation
Army, a guerrilla army comprised predominantly of indigenous Mayan
Indians, has been involved in a tense military standoff with the
Mexican government. The Zapatistas are demanding equal distribution
of wealth, land and power for the indigenous population. Focusing
on the impact the Zapatista and paramilitary violence have had on
the day-to-day lives of the Mayan peasants, rather than on political
machinations (or glorification of the Zapatistas).
Anima - Description N/A
Aqui Viven Genocidas - Groupo de Arte Callejero - Description
N/A
NEW - Ask a Mexican by Gustavo Arellano
Attack on the Americas - Description N/A
At Play in the Fields of the Lord - Missionaries travel to the
Brazilian rain forest and make a mess of everything. What else is
new? Actually, plenty in this dark but beautifully realized adaptation
of Peter Matthiessen's well-regarded novel, directed by Hector Babenco.
Aidan Quinn, Daryl Hannah, Kathy Bates, and John Lithgow play the
Americans who travel to the Brazilian interior in an effort to do
some good. But their definitions of good vary wildly; Bates and
Lithgow are old-fashioned puritans who want to convert the heathens
to Christianity and remove all traces of their own culture. Quinn
and Hannah are more spiritually minded, hoping to make a connection
and a cultural exchange with the Indians they encounter.
The Aztec Sun - The film deals with the pre-Columbian art
of the groups of people from Mexico's high central plateau and the
Gulf of Mexico. The plastic arts of the Totonac, Toltec and Mexican
cultures reveal the continuity of a deeply religious and warlike
view of the universe. The violence and beauty of these creations
express a dramatic encounter with a mythical reality. The identity
of Mesoamerica was preserved for centuries through this extraordinary
view of the cosmos.
Benedita da Silva - Description N/A
Biculturalism and Accumulation Among Latinos - Many Latinos
struggle with pressures to reclaim and reaffirm their heritage while
simultaneously facing pressures to assimilate into the dominant
American culture. This program examines the question of what part
of their culture Latinos feel they should keep and what to leave
behind, explores some commonly held beliefs and misperceptions about
who Latinos are today in the U.S., and probes the relationship of
ethnic identity to entrepreneurial success in the changing mosaic
of the American marketplace.
Black God, White Devil - Glauber Rocha's BLACK GOD, WHITE DEVIL,
a quintessential film from Brazil's 'Cinema Novo', is a fictionalized
account of the adventures of hired gunman Antonio das Mortes, set
against the real life last days of rural banditism. The movie follows
Antonio as he witnesses the descent of common rural worker Manuel
into a life of crime, joining the gang of Antonio's sworn enemy,
Corisco the Blond Devil (Othon Bastos), and the Pedra Bonita Massacre.
Bolivian Music: Ernesto Cavour - Description N/A
Bread and Roses - From acclaimed director Ken Loach comes
the gripping story of a group of immigrant workers who take a stand
against the million dollar corporations who employ them. Newly arrived
illegal immigrant Maya has just joined her sister on the job as
a janitor in a downtown LA office building. Appalled at the work
conditions and unfair labor practices, she teams up with Sam, a
labor organizer, to fight their ruthless employer.
Butterflies on the Scaffold - The film focuses on a troupe
of drag queens who perform for workers and community members in
the Havana suburb of La Guinera. Most of the members of the troupe
are working-class gay men, whose emotional lives very clearly revolve
around the two or three hours a night they're allowed to dress up
and perform on stage in a neighborhood workers' dining hall. The
real drama behind this story lies in the way this group of social
and political outcasts manages to secure both a place for themselves
and a kind of grudging respect in their community by winning the
support of female leaders of a local construction brigade.
NEW Bus 174 - This documentary
captures what happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12th,
2000 (that country's Valentine's Day) when Bus 174 was highjacked
by an armed young man, Sandro do Nascimento, with a dozen passengers.
Nascimento threatened to kill all of the passengers, but eventuallly
agreed to surrender, as TV cameras were rolling and an entire nation
was glued to their screens watching the event take place. Then,
a police officer decided to fire at Nascimento anyway, accidentally
killing one of the female passengers instead. What followed was
a revolt among the city's population, enraged at police brutality
(and incompetence), comparable with the Rodney King riots. The film
intertwines the story of the standoff with biographical information
about Sandro do Nascimento, including his childhood as a survivor
of the "Candelaria" child mass murders in the early 1990s
(which was followed by him being sent to appalling juvenile delinquency
facilities), and the trauma of seeing his mother stabbed to death
in front of him.
Campamento - Description N/A
NEW Carandiru - This dramatic
film tells the stories of prisoners in Brazil's Sao Paulo House
of Detention, one of the largest prisons in Latin America (housing
7,800 men in a facility designed for 3,000), leading up to the massive
October, 1992 "Pavillion 9" riot/massacre which led to
the deaths of 111 unarmed inmates. Central to the film's story is
a doctor who arrived at the prison in the late 1980s to implement
an anti-AIDS program, as we are introduced to the various inmates
as he meets and treats them in the infirmary.
Carlos Egana: Universidad de Concepcion, Chile - Description
N/A
La Catolica Programs in Peru - Description N/A
NEW Central Station - Dora is
a former school teacher who makes a living by writing letters for
illiterate people passing through Rio de Janeiro's main train station,
Central Station. Among her clients are Ana and her nine-year-old
son Josue, who has a fierce desire to meet his father, whom he has
never seen. Dora has become stoically indifferent to her charge,
choosing arbitrarily to send some letters and discard others with
the help of her neighbor Irene. A sudden accident leaves Josue orphaned
at the station and this is when Dora's life begins to change dramatically.
Swayed by a curiously maternal compassion, Dora commits to returning
Josue to his father in Brazil's remote Northeast.
NEW City Life - Marta Suplicy
is the new mayor of Sao Paolo, Brazil -- a breath of fresh air after
years of municipal apathy and corruption. Her aim is to make Sao
Paulo a sustainable 21st century global city.
This program, the first from the City Life series, follows Marta
as she visits schools, hospitals, favelas, and a shelter for battered
women, in her quest to turn the city around.
Interviewed in the program are Professors Peter Marcuse (Columbia
University), Saskia Sassen (University of Chicago), Ed Glaeser (Harvard
University), as well as Sheela Patel, director of SPARC (Society
for Promotion of Area Resource Centers), and Anna Tibaijuka, the
new Executive Director of the United Nations Center for Human Settlements.
The Changing Role of Hispanic Women - The traditional role
of wife and mother is changing rapidly to that of independent, self-sufficient
working woman for many American Latina women. In this program, several
prominent Latina women, including author Isabel Allende, discuss
their changing role within the context of Hispanic family values,
male machismo, and the traditional role of females as the center
of family and community life. Actress Jennifer Lopez explains her
choice of career over marriage. A psychiatrist and several Hispanic
men examine the issue from the male perspective.
The Children of Zapata - Children of Zapata looks at the Zapatista
National Liberation Army's struggle to attain justice for the Maya
Indians of Chiapas. These last remaining descendants of the proud
ancient Mayas have been ruthlessly marginalized by the Mexican government.
Their land is the least arable, they live in grinding poverty, they
are jailed and tortured for asserting their rights.
Chile: Obstinate Memory - Chile, Obstinate Memory visits with
Chileans who experienced the coup first-hand (some of whom are seen
in The Battle of Chile from 25 years ago). Survivors reminisce as
they watch that film, recognizing lost comrades and recalling their
courage, gaiety and love of life. Those who were not killed during
the coup itself were crowded into the National Stadium in Santiago,
where many were tortured, disappeared, and never seen again. Survivors
talk about the terror that characterized the Pinochet regime until
the dictator was finally obliged to relinquish power.
Choropampa: The Price of Gold - This is the story of an Andean
paradise lost - lost after a devastating mercury spill. On June
2nd, 2000 at the Yanacocha goldmine in the Peruvian Andes, 151 kilograms
of liquid mercury spilled over a 25-mile long area, contaminating
three mountain villages, including Choropampa. The environmental
catastrophe turned this quiet village into a hotbed of civil resistance.
City Life Vol. 1 - Marta Suplicy is the new mayor of Soa
Paolo, Brazil-a breath of fresh air after years of municipal apathy
and corruption. Her aim is to make Sao Paolo a sustainable 21st
century global city.
Cover-Up Iran Contra - Description N/A
Conga Lessons at the Bay of Pigs - In December 2002, three
Americans traveled to Cuba under the U.S. Government's People-to-People
exemption of the Trading With the Enemy Act, which at the time allowed
for a variety of educational and cultural exchanges between the
United States and Cuba. The original purpose of the travelers had
been to avoid the more than forty years of political drama inherent
to American-Cuban relations. Instead, they sought to immerse themselves
in the musical culture of Cuba. They wanted to experience firsthand
this small impoverished island with which the American government
has all but totally prohibited commercial and cultural contact.
In Havana, the men stayed in what is known on the island as a "Casa
Particular" (or private home) this one owned by an elderly
woman named Estelle. Here they paid for both room and board while
taking in the city's famously crumbling facades and its stunning
Afro-Cuban music.
Later they headed south with a driver toward the Bay of Pigs and
the cities of Trinidad and Santa Clara. Their final destination,
however, was Santiago de Cuba, where they were invited to stay at
another "Casa Particular," this one owned by Cesar. In
fact, Cesar had invited the travelers to his family’s holiday
feast and while the music and lilting rhythms of the island dominate
most of this video, it is this day of Christmas spent with Cesar
that gives these 52 minutes an unexpected weight. Here the American
filmmakers realize that it is impossible for Americans to visit
Cuba only for its music, that Cuban-American politics is the subtext
of nearly everything. Here, the momentous Bay of Pigs fiasco is
recalled and the injustice of its aftermath on the Cuban people
– continuing now for over forty-two years – is carved
into memory forever
Crisis de los Rehenes p1 and 2 - Description N/A
Cristina Feijo- TV, March 9, 2004 - Charla Biblioteca -
Description N/A
Cuba: The 40 Years War - forty years after the BAY of PIGS,
five Cuban-American veterans of the attack traveed from miami to
Havana for an international conference exploring the causes and
effects of the 1961 American-lead invasion. A list of notables traveled
with them, including richard N. Goodwin and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Also attending was the ex-CIA agent who ran President Kennedy's
Operation Mongoose, the goal of which was to assassinate Cuba's
President Castro. Counterparts from the Cuban side included Fidle
Castro himself. narrated by Martin Sheen
Cuba Today - Description N/A
Culturas Peruanas (available on Beta) - Description N/A
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