The Center for Latin American Studies has a small film library from which we can loan out videos to SDSU students and faculty. The collection contains a mixture of feature films and educational works dealing with Latin America. ITS and the Love Library also have numerous films with Latin American Content. (This section is a work in progress)

Film are listed alphabetically A-C, D-G, H-M, N-S, T-Z

Dances of Mexico (Animal Origins) - Description N/A

Dateline: San Salvador - Description N/A

The Devil's Dream - Description N/A

Death Squadrons: The French School - Description N/A

Doctora p1 and 2 - Description N/A

Dona Herlinda and Her Son - Doña Herlinda, a wealthy Guadalarja widow, is happy with her son, Rodolfo. For a start he has become a neurosurgeon - and while Doña Herlinda may be Mexican, she is also a New York Jewish mother at heart. The poor boy is so busy he doesn't seem to have ti me to look for girls, so mother fixes him up with one from time to time - but he seems more interested in Ramon, a musician. He has a problem there - Roman lives in a noisy and inqusitive boarding-house. Mama's solution - he can come to live with them. "Rodolfo has such a big bed,"she explains to Ramon. But at the same time she is setting up Rodolfo's wedding to Olga, a feminist worker with Amnesty International. How does Doña Herlinda solve that one ....?

!!!NEW!!! El Color de la Tierra - Description N/A

El Espejo Enterrado: Reflexiones sobre España y el Nuevo Mundo
La Virgen y el Torro
Bestselling Mexican author Carlos Fuentes looks for his forebears in the mix of people that created Latin America: Spanish, Arab, Jewish, Indian, and African. He asks what is unique in their culture that is cause for celebration in the 500th anniversary year of Columbus. His quest takes him from the quayside at Vera Cruz, "where the Mediterranean comes to an end in the Caribbean."' back to Spain, to the dark caves of Altamira, the harsh sunlight of the bullring, and the stamping feet of the flamenco dancer.

El Salvador: Not For Sale - Description N/A

Empires of the Americas - A fascinating program that highlights the amazing parallels between the two great American societies of the Aztecs and the Incas. Features magnificent animated re-creations of mysterious lost cities of Macchu Piccu and Tenochitlan.

Enamorada - Description N/A

EZLN - Description N/A

Face to Face: US Teenagers Tour Nicaragua - Description N/A

La Familia Sanchez - Description N/A

Fernando is Back - During General Augusto Pinochet's reign in Chile following the 1973 coup, thousands of civilians were 'disappeared' - arrested and killed - by the military. FERNANDO IS BACK follows the workings of Chile's Forensic Identification Unit in its quest to reclaim the identities of the disappeared. Founded in 1994, the Forensic Identification Unit is composed of doctors and specialists in anthropology and forensics. They compare the victim's skulls, bones and teeth with family photographs, dental records and medical histories, in an attempt to find a match. The Forensic Identification Unit's goal is to identify the remains of all disappeared, and to determine the cause of death, thereby reclaiming the disappeared histories and identities, one by one. FERNANDO IS BACK documents the Forensic Identification Unit's work to identify Fernando Olivares Mori, a husband, father and son, who disappeared when he was 27 years old. The film shows the powerful impact of the Unit's work for one family, indicating it for the entire country.

Fiesta! A Mixtec Indian Festival - Description N/A

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker's Struggle - This film joins social history of the agricultural labor movement with a biographical portrait of Cesar Chavez. Following the end of the gold rush, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Filipino workers were drawn to agricultural opportunities in California's bounteous Central Valley. They encountered substandard conditions and virtual enslavement. Attempts to organize were crushed by a joint effort of the U.S. and Mexican governments, which flooded the fields with braceros or temporary immigrant workers. Forced to leave school after the eighth grade to join his family in the fields, Chavez was schooled early in the vagaries of managerial injustice. Incorporating archival footage, newsreels and current interviews, this comprehensive documentary traces Chavez's early days as a community organizer, his marriage, his successful efforts to unionize farmworkers and the fasts that riveted attention on the plight of agricultural workers. Chavez and the United Farmworkers inspired Chicano activism of the 1960s and 1970s and in the process touched the consciences of millions of Americans. Befriended by Robert Kennedy and attacked by the Teamsters, Chavez was the most important Latino leader in this country's history. The movement he led changed American politics forever.

Flour Mill House - Description N/A

Forgive Us Our Debts - FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS visits one of the world's most impoverished nations - Nicaragua - to gauge the impact of that country's indebtedness on the poorest members of their society.

Both inspiring and informative, the documentary relates the powerful story of the grassroots movement to end Third World debt, a movement that has confronted the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the G8 lenders, in each case demanding that they cancel the debts of the world's poor.

The Jubilee 2000 debt cancellation campaign was inspired by the ancient Biblical observance of "jubilee" described in Leviticus 25, as a tradition that was honored every 50th year when the sounding of a loud trumpet proclaimed liberty throughout the country. Calling for complete debt forgiveness, which at the time included the reinstatement of property ownership and the freeing of indentured slaves, the practice of jubilee granted personal freedom and provided hope to future generations.

The Forgotten Roots - Mexico has always imagined itself a nation forged from the encounter between Spaniards and indigenous people in the colonial past. But there are roots that have been forgotten, if not deliberately erased. This impressively researched documentary, the first of a three part series, acknowledges and explores the history and influential cultural heritage of Africans in Mexico. It tells how African people were brought as slaves and servants to the conquistadors, and came to occupy a variety of places in Mexican colonial society, from exploited mine and plantation workers to wealthy landowners. Their story in Mexico is one of both resistance and acculturation, as some slaves rebelled against their masters and others had children with them to advance themselves socially. This video uses both historical documentation and the example of Mexico's dazzling hybrid traditions to illustrate the deep and pervasive footprints left by African culture in Mexican culture and society. The crowning example is the city of Veracruz, that bustling port of the "Afro-Andalusian Caribbean," with its bubbling hodgepodge of faces, races, and musical expressions that was the point of entry for the majority of the slaves to enter Mexico. But the video emphasizes that Africans were present throughout the country, and works towards a reconciliation with those African roots of Mexican culture that have been forgotten for too long.

Forgotten Village p1 and 2 John Steinbeck wrote the story and script for this moving film about the ancient life of Mexico, the story of the little pueblo of Santiago on the skirts of a hill in the mountains. An extremely moving portrait of life in a Mexican village. Narrated by Burgess Meredith.

For the First Time - Description N/A

NEW - Foro Nacional de Derechos Indígenas Convocado Por El EZLN - San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México
Realización: Carlos Martínez Suárez
Enero 1996: 40 minutos

The Fourth World War - The Fourth World War weaves together the images and voices from the front lines of struggles in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, 'the North' from Seattle to Genoa, and the 'War on Terror' in New York and Iraq. It is the untold human story of men and women who resist being annihalated in the current global conflict.

Frontline: Who's Running this War - Description N/A

The Garifuna - Is a intimate documentary revealing the Garifuna culture through the daily lives of several charismatic people from southern Belize. The Garifuna are the descendants of shipwrecked Africans bound for slavery in the New World and the Caribes of St. Vincent Island. After many battles and hardships the Garifuna eventually settled along the curve of the Caribbean coast. Set to the rhythm of traditional Paranda music in this film explores a unique and vibrant culture with its own language, religion and music.

Grabacion del Río Tecate - Description N/A

The Gray Whale - Description N/A

The Gringo in Mananaland - In a meticulous compilation of excerpts from hundreds of films, The Gringo in Mananaland shows the relationship between media and history: how images of Latin America shaped and were shaped by U.S. foreign policy. Thirteen years in the making, this project grew from a data base of over 7000 films: Hollywood dramas, industrial films, home movies and educational "documentaries". In the tradition of archival compilations, such as the work of Esther Shub in the early days of the Soviet Union or the classic compilation about nuclear war, The Atomic Cafe, it distills the underlying ideology of the U.S. media to point out the cultural imperialism at work by juxtaposition and irony rather than heavy handed didactic narrative.

!!!NEW!!! Guatemala: La Tierra Arrasada - Description N/A