PANAMA DECEPTION

Description: Banned in Panama and labeled “subversive” in the United States, The Panama Deception gives an account of the events of 1989, when 26,000 U.S. government troops invaded the country searching for one man, Manuel Noriega. Made by a group of independent filmmakers, the film documents the atrocities that the official story omits. Includes follow-up interviews with the film’s creators, and several bonus features concerning Panama, Latin America, and Iraq. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 minutes

PAPERS: STORIES OF UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH

Description: There are approximately 2 million undocumented children who were born outside the U.S. and raised in this country. This documentary explores the situation of young people who were educated in American schools, hold American values, know only the U.S. as home and yet risk deportation to countries they may not even remember. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 88 minutes

REVELACIONES / REVELATIONS: HISPANIC ART OF EVANESCENCE

Description: Dircted by Edin Velez, Produced and written by Chon Noriega. A documentary about the work, cultural expressions, and recent exhibits of 8 latino artists, this film also provides a means to think U.S. latino identity and history. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 28 minutes

SANDRA HAHN: REPLIES OF THE NIGHT; SLIPPING BETWEEN

Description: In Replies of the Night, Sandra Hahn uses computer animation to activate a photograph of her grandfather who died a violent death during the Days of the Dead in 1946. In Slipping Between, she creates a “visual poem” by using another member of her family that died from cancer. The video projects a palette of images transmitting an array of feeling and emotion. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 12 minutes

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS: AN INSIDER SPEAKS OUT

Description: Major Joseph Blair, a former instructor at the School of the Americas, provides a fact-filled and informative portrayal of US military training and doctrine imparted to Latin American armed forces at Fort Benning, GA. Couched as a modernizing influence, the program has elicited a storm of controversy over the years because of human rights violations committed by many graduates.

Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 16 minutes

SELENA

Description: The story of the legendary Tejana singer, Selena, who was tragically murdered by the president of her fan club. Jennifer López and Edward James Olmos star in this movie about he talents, triumphs, and tragedies of the Quintanilla family. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 127 minutes

SHRINE, THE

Description: Explores the traditions and mysteries that surround El Santuario de Chimayo, a small adobe folk church in northern New Mexico. Thousands of people make pilgrimages to see the church and its “holy dirt,” which has origins dating back to the ancient Pueblo Indians of the region. Oral interviews and narration trace the history of the church and its connection to New Mexico’s Hispanic and Indian cultural heritage. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 46 minutes

STATE OF SIEGE

Description: In Uruguay in the early 1970s, an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods) is kidnapped by a group of urban guerillas. Using his interrogation as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between Uruguay’s government and the leftist Tupamaro guerillas. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 115 minutes

STREET ART

Description: The first and last documentary by 18-year old Ben Gutierrez is a highly informative look at graffiti that breaks the art form down into four distinct categories: “peacing,” gang style, tagging, and mural art. Gutierrez was shot and killed in the winter of 1990. Copies: 1 (DVD and VHS) Length: 5 minutes

SUEÑOS DE ANGÉLICA, LOS (ANGELICA’S DREAMS)

Description: Filmed on location in Durham, North Carolina, Los Sueños de Angélica follows the life of a Latino couple striving to enter the mainstream of American society. Angélica and Roberto work multiple jobs and take English classes as a means of realizing their desire to move ahead financially in the United States. At the same time they are torn between their new lives and a desire to return home to the land of their birth and recreate a new life there. Unexpected changes bring these tensions to the fore and push the couple to decide between these two desires. This film provides a window into the everyday lives and consciousness of Latino immigrants while exploring the process of buying a home in the United States. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 82 minutes

SUEÑOS DE ROBERTO, LOS (ROBERTO’S DREAMS)

Description: The sequel to Los Sueños de Angelica picks up 10 years later with the lives of a latino couple living in Durham. The recession has left Roberto without a job for some time, and he and his wife Angelica decide to start a cleaning business. After initial failures he finds himself on his way to starting a business that weds traditional knowledge with notions of sustainability and green practices.In order to get the venture going, Roberto and Angelica take classes on how to start a business at the Latino Cooperative Credit Union. In addition to relating an entertaining story with endearing characters, this film provides instructional information the steps necessary to start a new business and traces the shifting nature of the lives of latinos in the United States after they have established roots and become long-standing members of their local communities. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 102 minutes

SUPER, EL

Description: A humorous and touching view of Cuban exiles living in a basement apartment during a snowy winter in New York, El Super is the story of Roberto, a superintendent who dreams of his warm and friendly homeland and stubbornly refuses to assimilate into the new culture. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes

VANESSA, THE ORANGE THROWER (VANESSA, ARROJA NARANJAS)

Description: A view into the family values and Catholic guilt in a Latino community. This film examines the tragic-comic problems that a Puerto Rican teen creates for herself when she decides to take attention by saying that she is pregnant.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 29 minutes

VIDA NO ES FACIL, LA

Description: This documentary examines the issue of the ineligibility of undocumented immigrants for in-state tuition at North Carolina’s public universities and how this situation affects the lives of college-aged Latino students. Director Maurice M. Martinez examines this controversial topic through the stories of three such students who were born to poor farm workers in Mexico. They have spent much of their lives in the U.S. and are struggling to find the financial resources to attend college. Other topics covered include misconceptions of the Latino community, the conditions of agricultural labor and the impact of Latinos on the economy.

Copies: 1 (DVD)

VOCES LATINAS

Description: Produced by the Latinos in West Michigan Project, this video includes three segments of interviews with Latino citizens from Grand Rapids, Holland, and Muskegon. Featured narrators are: Mercedes Toohey, Marilia Blakely, Jurisa Negrón from Grand Rapids; Nereida García and Tino Reyes from Holland; and Connie Navarro, Tomassa Ybarra, and Joe Garza, Jr. from Muskegon.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes

YO SOY (I AM)

Description: Features interviews with three artists instrumental in the Chicano art movement: Juana Alicia, Jose Montoya, and Malaquias Montoya. The three describe their early influences and inspirations, and discuss their philosophies on art and life.

Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes

ZOOT SUIT

Description: Adapted from the 1978 stage play by the preeminent Chicano playwright Luis Valdéz, Zoot Suit is a musical drama of racism and intolerance in the culture of Los Angeles. It begins in 1942 with the death of a young Chicano (Mexican-American) which directly leads to the infamous “zoot suit riots.”

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 103 minutes

ZOOT SUIT RIOTS

Description: In August 1942, the murder of a young Mexican American man ignited a firestorm in Los Angeles. The press claimed Mexican youth – know as “zoot-suiters” for the clothes they wore – were terrorizing the city with crime. The police arrested 600 Mexican Americans while seventeen were found guilty for murder despite a lack of evidence. With stunning film noir re-creations, evocative original photography and moving interviews, this documentary tells the story of the trial and the resulting violent events of the summer of 1943.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes

EL SALVADOR: NOT FOR SALE (EL SALVADOR NO SE VENDE)

Description: A portrait of a country under assault from Washington and the World Bank. This documentary shows the impact of structural adjustment, privatization and the global sweatshop economy on the people of El Salvador. It also explores the posible alternatives through interviews with activists in the women’s movement, labor leaders and the FMLN. Historical footage takes you from the start of the civil war in 1980 to the economic war of the ’90s, including new and inspiring images of strikers inside a Free Trade Zone.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes

ROMERO

Description: Incisive, quietly powerful drama chronicling the last three years of the life of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador. The focus is on the way in which he became an outspoken defender of human rights and was eventually assassinated. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 102 minutes

IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES

Description: Based on the novel by Julia Alvarez and inspired by the true story of the Mirabal sisters, who faced brutal repression at the hands of the regime of Rafael Trujillo as a result of their involvement in an underground plot to overthrow him. Salma Hayek stars as Minerva Mirabal, whose direct personal experience with Trujillo’s abuse of power and suppression of his enemies pushes her into active participation in the opposition. She is joined by her two sisters, who become known as the butterflies and serve as an inspirational example of resistance to other Dominicans. Copies: Master Copy and Copy 1 (DVD) Length: 92 minutes

TRUJILLO, EL PODER DEL JEFE

Description: In this first volume of the three part film series about Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina and his thirty year dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, the focus lays in the Trujillo’s rise to power and the early years of his rule.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes

TRUJILLO, EL PODER DEL JEFE VOL. II

Description: In the second episode of this film series detailing Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina and his thirty year dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, the director focuses on the bulk of Trujillo’s reign, and how it impacted the Dominican people.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 95 minutes

TRUJILLO, EL PODER DEL JEFE VOL. III

Description: In the conclusion to this trilogy of documentaries about the thirty year dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic, we see the end of an era, as the final years of Trujillo’s rule play out and end with his assassination.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes

LA FACE DE L’OMBRE (THE FACE OF THE SHADOW)

Description: Milka has known Alexis since they were children, and loved him for as long as she can remember. When Alexis falls in love with and decides to marry another woman, Milka makes a deal with a mysterious stranger with unusual power in an attempt to win him back. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 minutes

MA FEMME ET LE VOISIN (MY WIFE AND THE NEIGHBOR)

Description: A playful comedy about infidelity and jealously set among members of the urban middle class. Gerard is a young attractive gynecologist who takes advantage of his profession to seduce the women of the neighborhood. His escapades set off a tragic chain of events as one woman’s husband confronts the possibility that his wife has been unfaithful. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 93 minutes

POTO MITAN: HAITIAN WOMEN, PILLARS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Description: An exploration of the effects of globalization and neo-liberal policies in Haiti as reflected in the lives and daily struggles of five Haitian women living in Port-Au-Prince. These women tell compelling stories about their experiences working in factories producing items for export for wages that are far from sufficient to meet the cost of living, highlighting the ways in which Haiti has come to serve as a reserve pool of cheap labor for the global marketplace. The film explores themes such as the contraction of the agricultural sector and increased urbanization spawned by neo-liberal policies, the lack of basic services such as healthcare and education, and the gendered dimensions of the violence spawned by widespread poverty in Port-Au-Prince. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes

LIFE AND DEBT

Description: A real world look at how the policies of globalization and free trade devastate places. Director Stephanie Black focuses on Jamaica, which has been virtually destroyed from twenty-five years of ‘help’ from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. An important hit at the 2002 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, with a soundtrack by Ziggy Marley and a narration written by Jamaica Kincaid from her book A Small Place. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 86 minutes

SWEET SUGAR RAGE

Description: Sistren Theatre’s documentary on Jamaican women sugar cane workers, combining theater and interviews. Copies: 1 Length: 40 minutes

WOMEN’S CONSTRUCTION COLLECTIVE OF JAMAICA

Description: Explains how a group of about fifty-five black women from the poor neighborhoods of Kingston, Jamaica have broken tradition by establishing their own carpentry and construction business. Shows how they are trained and how the business has prospered, resulting in contracts with commercial businesses.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 14 minutes

WHISKY

Description: This film is a look at the decline of Uruguayan middle class through the life of Jacobo, a lonely sock factory owner in Montevideo. When he hears about the impending visit of his irritatingly cheerful brother, he enlists his faithful assistant Marta to pretend to be his wife.

Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 94 minutes