Category: USA

¿Quien Diablos Es Juliette? / Who In The Hell Is Juliette?

Shot in Cuba and the US over a period of three years, this film features remarkable cinematography by first time director Carlos Marcovich. Winner of the Latin American Cinema Prize.

Cuba, Drama, Mexico, Social Issues, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

20th century with Mike Wallace. The US in Latin America : Yankee go home

Looks at the relationship between the US and Latin America. Turns a critical eye toward the invasions of Grenada and Panama and the occupation of Haiti. Respectively, these operations were ordered by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Extensive footage shows American forces in action, and foreign policy experts examine the stated goals and results. Interviews Dr. Robert A. Pastor who personnally negotiated with Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and Haitian dictator Raoul Cedras

Economics/Development, Politics/Human Rights, USA

Abril, la trinchera del honor

First feature-length documentary directed by René Fortunato, where he examines the political crisis of the Dominican Republic in April 1965, when a military rebellion led by Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó deposed the civilian triumvirate in power and a subsequent intervention by the US armed forces took place.

Dominican Republic, Politics/Human Rights, USA

Aids In The Barrio: Eso No Me Pasa A Mi / This Isn’t Happening To Me

This film by Francis Negrón and Peter Biella examines the impact of AIDS within Hispanic-American communities, focusing on the specific economic, social and cultural factors which influence perception of the AIDS crisis.

Gender/Sexuality, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues, USA

Al otro lado

Border, Country/Region, Economics/Development, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Americas: Part 10

"The Americans" The Americans return to the United States to profile California's Mexican-American population and the Latin American and Caribbean communities of Miami and New York City. This final episode poses questions about assimilation, national identity and how these communities are changing what it means to be an American.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him

A moving and powerful portrait of the life of a poor Mexican American boy and his migrant farm worker family, as they struggle to adapt to life in American society. Adapted from the novel "...y no se lo trago la tierra" by Thomas Rivera. Through its many human stories of growing up as a Mexican American the story exposes the rich cultural traditions which have given shape to life in the American Southwest

Drama, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Antonia Pantoja: ¡Presente!

Antonia Pantoja (1922-2002), a black Puerto Rican activist and educator, worked tirelessly on behalf of the youth of her generation. Promoting causes like bilingual education and founding organizations such as ASPIRA and Boricua College, she left an indelible mark on the US educational landscape. This documentary tribute reviews her work and its impact through interviews and archival footage.

Biography, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA, Women's Studies

Bay of Pigs

This documentary shows the change in Cuba to its communist regime, and the reaction of the United States, particularly with the CIA's plan of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Cuba, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Before Night Falls / Antes que anochezca

Episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reynaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. By 1964, he is in Havana where his writing and homosexuality get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. He befriends Lázaro Gomes Garriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, "Revenge."

Cuba, Drama, Gender/Sexuality, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, USA

BETTY Y PANCHO

Art, Country/Region, Mexico, Music/Dance, Subject, USA

Boda, La / The Wedding

You are invited to the wedding of Elizabeth and Artemio in Nuevo León, Mexico. The video introduces a young couple whose lives and community have roots in Mexico while they encounter the challenges of migrant life in the United States.

Border, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Border Brujo

The acclaimed performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña directs himself in this video focusing on issues of cross-culturalism along the U.S.-Mexico border. In his performance he switches in and out of various characters reflecting different aspects of border culture.

Art, Border, Cinema/Theater, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Borderline Cases

Nearly 2000 maquiladoras have been built in Mexico by companies from the US, Asia and Europe. As a result, the border has become a 2000 mile-long open sewer, a vast toxic waste dump. Filmed in three border regions, (Matamoros and Brownsville; Tijuana and San Diego; Ciudad Juarez and El Paso), Borderline Cases reveals the complexity and magnitude of the clean-up and gives a sense of energy and imagination found in the diverse mix of people of both countries who are re-thinking traditional notions of borders as they engage in the search for solutions.

Border, Economics/Development, Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, USA

Borders Trilogy

Borders tells three small stories to illuminate a much larger one: the consequences of a world order in which products freely cross borders that people may not. Borders is a succinct and powerful meditation on the contradictions of U.S. border and trade policy. PART 1: LOVE ON THE LINE: Families divided by the U.S./Mexico border reunite for transnational picnics. PART 2: CONTAINER CITY: The metal containers that bring products to the US make Newark, New Jersey a different kind of bordertown. PART 3: A VISIBLE BORDER: An x-ray image shows the way 21st century workers are responding to borders that are open to products but not to them.

Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Break of Dawn / Rompe el Alba

Oscar Chavez, a great Mexican singer and actor is the leading actor of this story about the life of Pedro Gonzalez, the host of a radio show in 1930s Los Angeles. His life was filled with romance and music until he challenged a powerful and corrupt political system.

Drama, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues, USA

Brother Towns / Pueblos Hermanos

Brother Towns/Pueblos Hermanos describes the lives of immigrants from Jacaltenango, Guatemala who currently work and reside in Jupiter, Florida. The documentary explores the motives of migration to the United States and the hardships that the Mayan descendants of Jacaltenango face either in Guatemala or in the United States. The documentary also includes the voices of those who have responded to undocumented immigration: those who adamantly oppose it and also the advocates who help migrants acclimate to a new place.”
Subject: Migration/Immigration

Country/Region, Economics/Development, Guatemala, Migration/Immigration, Subject, USA

BUENAVISTA VASE, THE: ARCHEOLOGY VS. LOOTING

Anthropology/Archaeology, Art, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America, USA

Café Con Leche: Voices of Exile’s Children

An introspective look at young Cuban-Americans, the now-adult children of the first wave of Cuban exiles that came to the U.S. This documentary focuses on the fusion of traditional, old world values of yesteryear and modern, American culture, as the young Cuban-Americans comment on their experiences growing up bi-culturally.

Cuba, History, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues, USA

Campaign for Cuba

The more than 1 million Cubans that came to the United States fleeing the Cuban Revolution have set up lives for themselves, largely in Miami. The fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s left Cuba, and therefore Fidel Castro, vulnerable. In light of the fall, this documentary looks at how Cuban Americans waged their campaign for Cuba in the streets of Miami and boardrooms of Washington D.C.

Cuba, Migration/Immigration, USA

Chicana

Made by Sylvia Morales. Chicana traces the history of Chicana and Mexican women from pre-Columbian times to the present. It covers women's role in Aztec society, their participation in the 1810 struggle for Mexican independence, their involvement in the US labor strikes in 1872, their contributions to the 1910 Mexican revolution and their leadership in contemporary civil rights causes. A classic film by a leading Latina filmmaker.

Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, USA, Women's Studies

Chulas Fronteras y Del Mero Corazon

Documentary films of the borderland between Texas and Mexico. Norteña music filled with the poetry of daily life-love songs, passion, death, humor, and loss is explored from dancehalls, small towns, and family gatherings.

Cinema/Theater, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Music/Dance, USA

Cooperative Without Borders, A

This informative piece begins with a presentation of the struggle of Mexican men crossing the U.S. border in search for better economic opportunities. It narrates the crossing of U.S. border in search for better opportunities. It narrates the creation and accomplishments of the Cooperativa sin Fronteras, a fund for economic development. Through this fund money is transferred from employers of migrant workers in Arizona to create and encourage the economic development necessary for the amelioration of conditions in 6 Mexican states. In this way, the Cooperative strives to reduce the problem of illegal migration to the United States. Inter-American Foundation.

Economics/Development, Mexico, USA

Couple In The Cage

This film documents the traveling performance of Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco, in which they exhibit themselves as caged Amerindians from an imaginary island, providing a vivid and provocative interpretation of cultural encounters.

Anthropology/Archaeology, Art, Cinema/Theater, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Crosses / Cruces

In 1995, the U.S. Border Patrol instituted Operation Gatekeeper, which has caused the death of about 1800 migrants since its implementation. CROSSES documents the efforts of artists and activists to bring the disastrous effects of Operation Gatekeeper to the conscience of the people of both the U.S. and Mexico, and to pressure the governments of both countries. By representing every death with a cross bearing the name of the victim, mounted directly on the border wall, they keep the issues alive. Crosses are still visible today.

Border, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Cruceros y Caminos

Like many communities across the Southeast, the town of Clinton, North Carolina, has become home to a vibrant and growing Spanish-speaking community. This diverse community of newcomers, who are attracted to the area by jobs in the agriculture and livestock industries, are struggling to honor their cultural and religious identities while making new lives. This short video documentary, made by a graduate student from UNC- Greensboro in collaboration with Clinton's Immaculate Conception Church and local Latino leaders, consists of still and moving images of community meetings, religious ceremonies, and cultural festivals which are narrated by a mosaic of voices from the community.

Latinos/Chicanos, Literature, Migration/Immigration, USA

Cuba Va: The Challenge of the Next Generation

A fast paced weaving of sound bites and interviews that lets young Cubans speak and argue for themselves. What they have to say or sing or rap suggests that everyone born after the revolution has an opinion. Directors/Producers: Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco. USA (the filmmakers consulted with many Cubans, and filming is entirely in Cuba, but production was done in San Francisco).

Cuba, Latin America, Social Life and Customs, USA

Cuba: The Broken Image

This program gathers together the most representative of exiled Cuban filmmakers, who recount their personal experiences of having to abandon their work and start a new life away from their country, culture and natural environment. The program features clips of their film and photographs as it takes viewers on a journey from Cuba in the late 1950s to the lives of the filmmakers today. Although Castro encouraged the development of a state sponsored cinema in Cuba, opening doors for many talented filmmakers, his policies towards intellectuals led many of these same filmmakers to abandon the island, leaving behind a broken image, an interrupted flow of creativity which some were able to find again abroad but others were not.

Cinema/Theater, Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Cuba: The Forty Years War

This documentary follows two Cuban exiles, Bay of Pigs invasion veterans, upon their return to their native island. As attendees of a conference discussing the invasion, they interact and attempt to reconcile the past with former battlefield adversaries, including Fidel Castro. Narrated by Martin Sheen.

Cuba, History, USA

Cuban Americans, The

An exploration of the experience of Cubans living in the United States, focusing especially on the nature of the community since 1959. The film avoids explicit discussions of politics and instead focuses on the maintenance of community, culture and identity among Cubans now living in the United Staes. Through interviews with numerous celebrities, the film explores the experience of leaving Cuba and subsequent exile in the United States, that challenges of building lives as newly arrived immigrants in the United States, and the cultural forms that served as vehicles for the preservation of Cuban identity.

Cuba, Culture/Festivals/Food, History, Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

Cuban Roots / Bronx Stories

This documentary traces the tangled paths and multifaceted identity of a black Cuban family in the Bronx. Both working-class and professional, black and Latino, foreign and native, Spanish-speaking and English-speaking, the family is shown in the constant process of negotiating its identity. On their arrival in Miami, the family immediately encountered racial segregation, and they were forced to choose their identity: “Are you black or Spanish?” The film explores the various experiences that each family member had in dealing with the realities of life as black Cuban-Americans in the Bronx.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

Danza Del Espejo, La (Mirror Dance)

Identical Twins, Margarita and Ramona de Saá, grew up to become acclaimed ballerinas with the National Ballet of Cuba. Once inseparable, their relationship deteriorated as one sister left for America and the other embraced the Cuban Revolution. Mirror Dance is the story of two women forever linked by birth and dance but struggling to overcome a deep rift between sisters and nations alike.

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Day Of The Dead: San Francisco / Dia De Los Muertos

This film captures the beauty and richness of San Francisco’s annual Day of the Dead celebration. Enjoy scenes from this cross-cultural Mexican tradition that honors ancestors and families. People of all ages celebrate with a festival of marvelous costumes, reflective altars, live music and a neighborhood procession, all while exploring the relationship between the living and the dead. View all these aspects of the Dia de los Muertos holiday along with interviews with artists and participants.

Culture/Festivals/Food, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Day Without A Mexican, A / Un Dia Sin Mexicanos (2004)

The California Dream suddenly becomes a hilarious nightmare when the entire Latin American population of the Golden State vanishes. For most "the disappearance" forces the cracks in their private lives wide open, including news reporter Lila Rodriguez, the state's last remaining Hispanic, and senator Steven Abercrombie III, who becomes governor pro tem despite his anti-immigrant stance. Confusion, misunderstandings and humorous situations abound, making this film a comedic satire and a modern fable with a very current message. This is the full-length feature film based on the 1997 short film of the same name.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Death And The Maiden

A powerful psychological thriller about one woman's struggle to heal from the effects of torture. Fifteen years after being tortured and imprisoned by a sadistic doctor, Paulina Escobar, played by Sigourney Weaver, faces a man who may have been her torturer. This film reflects the realities of political repression that occurred in Chile during the Pinochet regime. A Roman Polanski film, based on the play by Ariel Dorfman.

Chile, Latin America, USA

Dedos De Luna

Through a poetic combination of words and paintings, Dedos De Luna tells the story of Toño and his grandfather, Don Gregorio. They enjoy making masks together, until Don Gregorio dies after making his last mask. Toño must come to terms with the death and decide whether to carry on the tradition of mask making. This is an instructional video that is intended to be paired with the rest of the Dedos De Luna unit.

Chile, Latin America, USA

Drug Wars: Frontline Documentary Part I

Despite America's 30-year war on drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana remains essentially unchanged. This two-part documentary presents a television history of America's war on drugs from both sides of the battlefield. The first episode examines the impact of crack cocaine on our city streets and our criminal justice system. The report also investigates Mexico's role in supplying drugs for American demand. The second episode recounts the origins of the drug campaign, from the Nixon administration's drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. PBS documentary from Frontline.

Social Issues, USA

Drug Wars: Frontline Documentary Part II

Despite America’s 30-year war on drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana remains essentially unchanged. This two-part documentary presents a television history of America’s war on drugs from both sides of the battlefield. The first episode examines the impact of crack cocaine on our city streets and our criminal justice system. The report also investigates Mexico’s role in supplying drugs for American demand. The second episode recounts the origins of the drug campaign, from the Nixon administration’s drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. PBS documentary from Frontline.

Social Issues, USA

Drug Wars: The Camarena Story

An undercover DEA stationed in Mexico exposed large-scale marijuana trafficking, which led to his own murder and a high-profile investigation into government corruption.
Parts 1-3 of the made-for-television Tom Brokaw report.

Mexico, Social Issues, USA

Edge Walker: A Conversation With Linda Schele

Documentary tribute to the late Linda Schele, among the leading scholars of Maya civilization, who in January 1998 gave a long, filmed interview in which she talks freely and frankly in her own inimitable style about her life, work, and philosophy.

Anthropology/Archaeology, Indigenous Peoples, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Escuela, La

There are over 800,000 students enrolled in migrant education programs in the United States and, of those, only 45-50% ever finish high school. "Escuela", the sequel to Hannah Weyer's critically acclaimed documentary "La Boda", personalizes these glaring statistics through the honest portrait of a teenage Mexican-American farm worker, Liliana Luis.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

Faces Of War

Produced by Neighbor to Neighbor. Host Mike Farrell-Organizing Version.

El Salvador, Nicaragua, USA

Fiesta Quinceañera, La

This two-part video depicts a young Mexican-American woman's fifteenth birthday celebration. Set in Dallas, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico, the first part consists of a discussion of the preparations, planning, and logistics that have to be considered in planning this important social event. The second part observes the actual ceremony through various stages after the preparations are completed for the mass, the party, and the dance that traditionally follow.

Border, Gender/Sexuality, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, USA

FLIGHT OF PEDRO PAN, THE

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, USA

Flores De Otro Mundo

The story of relationship struggles between men and women in the small town of Santa Eulalia, in Spain. Among them are Patrica, the Dominican woman, and Milady, the Cuban woman.

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, USA

For Goodness Sake: Why America Needs Immigration Reform

In February 2011, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted His Eminence Cardinal Roger Mahony. At that time, Cardinal Mahony was head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, the 5-million member Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is 70% Latino. In his presentation Mahony drew on scriptural and Catholic social justice doctrine in his call for immigration reform legislation. Also included with this film is selection of interviews with children of undocumented immigrants provided by Cardinal Mahony, as well as a public Q & A following the lecture.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, USA

Frescoes Of Diego Rivera, The

 "An artist must be the conscience of his age." In this way Diego Rivera, a leader of the Mexican mural renaissance movement of the 1920's and 1930's expressed the philosophy behind his work; in particular the spectacular series of murals he created for public buildings in the US and Mexico. Vividly exploring Rivera's evolution as an artist, his use of the fresco technique, and his explosive political beliefs; this stunning documentary reveals one of the true geniuses of the twentieth century. Actor Michael Moriarty narrates. From the "Portrait of an Artist" series.

Art, Biography, Mexico, USA

Frida

Taymor recreates the tactile passion and beauty of Frida Kahlo’s art as a backdrop for her life of romance and revolution. Frida chronicles the life of artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek), from her upbringing to her worldwide fame. The film shows the turbulence and controversy that surrounded both Frida and her husband, Diego Rivera, throughout their lives as political activists, artists, and lovers. Frida received a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe and two Oscars.

Art, Biography, Drama, Mexico, USA, Women's Studies

Frida Kahlo: Portrait Of An Artist

 A documentary about Frida Kahlo's painful life and creative process. Part of the series "Portraits of an Artist."

Art, Biography, Mexico, USA

Fronteira, A (The Border)

The story of two Brazilian families who put everything at risk to cross the border into the United States from Mexico, in search of a better life. Having gotten over the first leg of their journey, they all confront unexpected obstacles as they struggle to both reach their goals and adapt to their new reality. They fight for their dreams with the same courage and determination with which they cross new frontiers that appear on their way. Entirely based on true stories that were compiled to make up this beautiful and moving story.

Brazil, USA

Great Mojado Invasion, The

The director narrates this pseudo-documentary, fantasizing an invasion of mojados (wetbacks) who reconquer lost Mexican territory to create the “U.S. of Aztlán.” This new regime propagandizes by portraying Anglos with the same stereotypes employed against Latinos. Directed by Gustavo Vásquez and Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, USA

Greener Grass: Cuba, Baseball, And The United States

While unfolding the story of the Cuba vs. the Baltimore Orioles games, this documentary develops a narrative of the history of baseball as an element of Cuban national identity, and the impact the sport has had on both the United States and Cuban relations. Especially interesting is the story of African Americans playing for Cuban teams, and both white and black Cubans playing in the early American Negro Leagues when baseball was segregated in the United States

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Gringo In Mañanaland

This film is a montage of scenes from travelogues, dramatic films, industrial films, newsreels, military footage, geography textbook illustrations and political cartoons. Together they explore the stereotyped image of Latin America in popular US media during the 20th century.

Biography, Cinema/Theater, Latin America, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Gringo Next Door

When Jack sees that his chickens are missing, he turns on the only people he thinks to blame - his Hispanic neighbors. The solution? Hire immigrant labor to build a wall between the two homes. A hilarious web of miscommunication ensues in this humorous satire. This short film was shot by UNC-CH students in Pittsboro, NC.

Country/Region, Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Subject, USA

Gringoton (Gringo-Thon)

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a misplaced gringo in Mexico City helplessly watches the atrocities through Mexican television news. Taking a tip from his local neighbors, he begins to sell chewing gum and wash car windows in the streets...to raise money for a guerrilla army to take out Bush. "Gringo-thon" is a personal expression of protest of an expatriate living abroad and a meditation of the complexities of “gringo” identity.

Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Guestworker, The

Since 1986, thousands of Mexican men have entered the United States to work under the auspices of the H-2A guestworker program. These men are given temporary visas to come to the United States for several months a year and provide labor in sectors such as agriculture in which American citizens are increasingly unwilling to work. The Guestworker centers on the experiences of Candelario Moreno, who works on the pepper, cucumber, and tobacco fields of Wester Farms in North Carolina. It explores the need for labor that drives the program and examines the conditions experienced by those Mexicans who make the choice to participate.

Economics/Development, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Guestworker, The

Economics/Development, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Harvest Of Loneliness

In today’s weak economy, current immigration laws in different states of the country show hostility towards undocumented immigrants. This was not the case during and after World War II where the United States was in need of laborers who would work the fields of California and other states. This documentary explores the Bracero Program, and immigration reform that sought Mexican workers for temporal guest workers. These workers could not join unions, strike, or seek redress of their grievances, making them vulnearable for exploitation. The program was supposed to boost the economies of both countries, but Mexican wives and children were left behind as husbands traveled north in search of the American Dream. The documentary shows how the main reason for the program was to provide cheap labor without regard for the Mexican families.

Country/Region, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Social Issues, Subject, USA

Heavier Than Air

This documentary challenges the popular understanding that the Wright brothers were the “first in flight.” It treats the life of Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont and his mission to create “heavier than air” flying technology.

Brazil, USA

Hotel Cuba

A documentary about the Cuban-Jewish community in South Florida, with interviews from both Cuban-Jewish and Non-Jewish members of the community. Robert Levine began the documentary after realizing the effects of the generation gap between Cuban-Jewish teenagers and their parents and grandparents, who were originally from Cuba. Robert Levine, joined with Mark D. Szuchman, a colleague at Florida International University, began to record their interviews with the community members to reflect the views of the community members.

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

I Am Joaquin

This work by Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino marked the emergence of film as a distinct cultural and aesthetic practice within the Chicano Movement. In the film, Luis Valdez gives a dramatic interpretation of Rudilfo "Corky" Gonzalez's epic poem: I Am Joaquin, which was often distributed through mimeographed booklets to be read at rallies. This powerful film delineates all the contradictions of the Chicano experience over a 500-year genealogy of mestizo resistance.

Indigenous Peoples, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Lagos, Ricardo (Visit To UNC)

 Filmed on November 9, 2001, when Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar received the Honorary Doctor of Laws from UNC-Chapel Hill. The film includes the introduction by deans and Lagos’ speech upon acceptance of the award.

Chile, USA

Letters From the Other Side / Cartas del Otro Lado

This film interweaves video letters carried across the U.S./Mexico border by the film’s director with the personal stories of women left behind in post-NAFTA Mexico, giving voice to 4 amazing women who feel the effects of failed immigration and trade policies on a daily basis. Focusing on a side of the immigration story rarely told by the media or touched upon in our national debates, Letters from the Other Side offers a fresh perspective, painting a complex portrait of families torn apart by economics, communities dying at the hands of globalization, and governments incapable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Economics/Development, Mexico, USA

Low’n’slow: The Art Of Low Riding

Filmed in San Jose, CA, this work by Rick Tejada Flores documents the art and culture of the low riders, and includes an animated title sequence by Chicano artist Rupert Garcia and music by Jorge Santana.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Maquila: A Tale Of Two Mexicos

This film examines the impact of corporate globalization on Mexico, focusing on the maquiladoras, U.S.-owned factories employing cheap Mexican labor. Archival footage and interviews provide historical background to the present crisis.

Economics/Development, Mexico, Social Issues, USA

Mariachi, El

The critically-acclaimed film debut from Robert Rodríguez, shot with no second takes using borrowed equipment and a talented cast of unknowns. A case of deadly mistaken identity leads the protagonist, who aspires only to be a mariachi, to trade his guitar for a gun and play for his life in this vision of bandido violence in Mexico.

Border, Drama, Mexico, Social Issues, USA

Mayan Voices: American Lives

Set in Indiantown, Florida, a small, agricultural town 30 miles west of West Palm Beach, this film illustrates the challenges of a totally alien environment, exploring issues of identity, cultural integration, migration, and social change. It also demonstrated the impact 5,000 new immigrants with a foreign language and culture is having on the still predominantly white community.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Missing

John Shea, Sissy Spacek, Jack Lemmon. A young American journalist mysteriously disappears during the violent 1973 military coup in Chile. When his wife and father attempt to find him, they are confronted with a deeply disturbing political reality relating to their own country and the country they are investigating. A 1982 Cannes Film Festival winner.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Montaña De Luz

On a Honduran mountainside overlooking vast fields of sugar cane, a six-year-old boy named Marlon dreams of becoming an artist. Twelve-year-old Inri dreams of attending university. Little Yorleni simply dreams of having a family. Meet the children of the Montaña de Luz orphanage, their lives a living testament to the beauty and innocence of childhood in the face of adversity beyond their years. With artistry and honesty, the camera paints a stirring portrait of a loving community where nothing is truly certain but hope and where each birthday is a celebration of dreams fulfilled and dreams to come.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Morristown: In The Air And Sun

This film is the working classes' response to globalization. It engages the audience in the issues of immigration, factory flight, and the organized demand for economic justice. Filmed over an 8-year period in the mountains of east Tennessee, interior Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez, this documentary is rooted in the authentic expression of workers who speak about their lives, work, disappointments, and hope. These conversations are combined with scenes in factories, fields, union halls, Mexican stores, city parks, and employment agencies. The documentary travels to the U.S.-Mexican border (El Paso – Juarez) to create deeper understanding of factory flight out of Morristown, and to interior Mexico to look at the forces that cause immigration. The film ends with a stunning union victory at a large poultry processing plant in Morristown, Tennessee.

Mexico, USA

Mujeres Cubanas: Marcadas por el Paraiso

They were the women a man would silence. Robbed of their dignity and hope, they became his anonymous victims. Political prisoners, wives, mothers, writers, artists, children, lost at sea…Forgotten over and over. Once deprived of their voices, they now speak.

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Natives: Immigrant Bashing On The Border

This film depicts the disturbing increase in racism, violence and intolerance along the US-Mexican border in recent years. NATIVES examines the concerns of some of the individuals involved in San Diego's anti-immigrant movement. Relying principally on a cinema vérité style and avoiding explanatory narration, the film seeks to critique the nativist position by contrasting their professed love for their country with their racist and anti-democratic attitudes.

Border, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

New Audiences For Mexican Music

A three-part documentary. Part I describes the phenomenon of banda dance music sweeping the Unites States and Mexico. Part II provides a history of mariachi music and its fusions with country-western and other styles, while Part III profiles Tejano music.

Mexico, Music/Dance, USA

New Muslim Cool

Jason Perez, a.k.a “Hamza” is a Puerto Rican American man who grew up in Massachussets. Raised as a Catholic, he experienced a conversion to Islam after being imprisoned. This conversion was a turning point in his life and afterwards he formed a rap group through which he expresses bonds of solidarity with the Muslim community in Pittsburgh and in the United States. After his mosque is raided by the FBI for unclear reasons, Hamza begins giving anti-drug talks as a spiritual speaker in a jail of Pittsburgh, where he unites inmates of different racial and religious backgrounds. Hamza also looks for new alliances with a Jewish writer and both of them start using music and poetry as means for spiritual and social expressions through which the youth can channel their aspirations and frustrations.

Politics/Human Rights, Religion, Social Life and Customs, USA

New World Border

New World Border documents the rise in human rights abuses along the U.S.-Mexico border since the implementation of border blockades, which have been erected in populated areas throughout the border region during the last decade. This film includes interviews with immigrant rights organizers, testimony from immigrants, analysis of “free trade” policies & current efforts to build a vibrant movement for immigrant rights.

Border, Country/Region, Economics/Development, Environment/Geography, Mexico, Subject, USA

Noam Chomsky: New World Order

A talk by Noam Chompsky on the negative effects of U.S. policy in Latin America and the Middle East.

Country/Region, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Subject, USA

Norte, El

Mayan Indian peasants organize in an effort to improve their lot in life. After the army destroys their village and kills their family, a teenage brother and sister decide they must flee to “El Norte”. After receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant on strategies for traveling through Mexico, they arrive in Los Angeles, where they try to make a new life as young, uneducated, and illegal immigrants.

Border, Drama, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Nueba Yol

In this comedy, a Dominican widower, Balbuena (Luisito Martí), decides to leave the economic strictures of island life behind for the streets-are-paved-with-gold promise of the Big Apple.

Comedy, Dominican Republic, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Nueba Yol 3

In this comically-numbered sequel, Balbuena (Luisito Martí) returns to New York, where he must marry an American citizen to remain in the country legally.

Comedy, Dominican Republic, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Nuestra Comunidad

This film documents the personal experiences and work environments of migrant workers living in North Carolina and examines the impact of their arrival on their newly adopted communities. The debate about whether illegal immigrants should be living and working in the United States is central to this film. Through many interviews with policy-makers, immigrants, religious officials, human rights workers and North Carolina residents, a complete picture of the opinions that fuel the debate is provided here. The film also examines the contours of cultural encounter and prospects for the future for these new southerners.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, USA

Numeros Y Colores

Two stories designed to teach children how to identify numbers, colors and figures in Spanish.

Animated, USA

Ofrenda, La: The Days Of The Dead

Made by Lourdes Portillo and Susana Muñoz. The very young, the old, and the deceased are all represented in this personal and affectionate filmmaker's relationship to the history, and present-day celebrations of the Day of the Dead.

Art, Culture/Festivals/Food, Latinos/Chicanos, Religion, USA

On The Case Of Rosalie Evans

A historical discussion among North American and Mexican historians about the diary and life of Rosalie Evans, a disgruntled North American property owner who lost her land during the Mexican Revolution

Gender/Sexuality, History, Mexico, USA

Otro Lado, El

Americans simply pass through the turnstiles for cheap thrills in Tijuana. Mexicans on the other side, however, face endless barriers of barbed wire, attack dogs, and armed border patrols. Alex Webb captures the odd panorama of the border.

Border, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, USA

Our Brand Is Crisis

For decades, U.S. strategists-for-hire have been quietly molding the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates in elections around the world. This documentary is an astounding look at one of their campaigns and its earth-shattering aftermath. With flabbergasting access to think sessions, media training and the making of smear campaigns, we watch how the consultants', including James Carville, marketing strategies shape the relationship between a leader and his people. The film is a shocking example of how the all-American art of branding can affect the "spreading of democracy" overseas.

Social Issues, USA

Panama Deception / El Engaño de Panamá

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, Panama, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Papers: Stories Of Undocumented Youth

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

Pictures From A Revolution

Photographer-filmmaker Susan Meiselas returns to Nicaragua to find out what happened to the people she photographed years earlier at the height of the civil war. Meiselas and her collaborators capture the shattered lives and broken dreams of people on both sides of the conflict.

Art, Drama, Nicaragua, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Reagan And Sasser: Contra Aid

March 16, 1986.  Presidential address of President Reagan concerning the controversial issue.  Response to the address by Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tennessee).

Nicaragua, USA

Revelaciones / Revelations: Hispanic Art Of Evanescence

Directed 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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Roots Of Migration

A journey by US citizens to Oaxaca, Mexico reveals the global forces that have pushed millions of people to migrate to the United States. Learn first-hand why people make the journey north, why they wish they didn't have to, and what effect their migration has on their communities back home. Shot entirely on location in Oaxaca, Mexico during a fact-finding trip organized by Witness for Peace co-founder, Gail Phares.

Border, Economics/Development, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Roots Of Rhythm

This is a joyous and colorful three-part musical odyssey that follows the powerful flow of Afro-Cuban music from its origin five centuries ago in Africa and Spain to the contemporary sound of such exciting popular artists as Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades, and jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie. Program one traces the African and Spanish roots, Program 2 traces the cultural blending in the Caribbean, and Program 3 traces its popularity in the United States and eventually through the world.

Cuba, History, Latinos/Chicanos, Music/Dance, USA

Sandra Hahn: Replies Of The Night; Slipping Between

 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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Saving Elian

The political, social, and international implications of the custody battle over five-year-old Elián González pitted the U.S. Department of Justice, the Miami Cuban exile community and the Cuban government in a new acrimonious struggle. Documentary footage from Miami, and some from Cuba, along with interviews and observations from participants, legal observers, and US- Cuban experts. The film explores how Elián became a metaphor over the future on both sides of the Florida strait. A PBS Frontline Documentary.

Cuba, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

School Of Assassins

Since it was established in 1946, the United States Army School has trained thousands of Latin American and Caribbean soldiers, among them the former dictators of Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and Panama. This program shows how officers who studied at the school are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Latin America, USA

School Of The Americas: An Insider Speaks Out

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.

USA

Seams

Directed by Karim Ainouz, a young Brazilian American filmmaker, who traveled back to his home in Brazil to interview on film his five delightfully eccentric unmarried or widowed aunts on their views of love, family and marriage. These women all in their eighties or nineties seem more liberated and more at ease with certain issues than many people of today.

Brazil, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Second Voyage Of The Mimi?, What Is The

The crew of a converted French traveler studies ancient Mayan civilization and strives to acquire the science and mathematics expertise to understand it. Adventures develop observation, hypothesis formation, data collection, and analysis skills.

Mexico, USA

Selena

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Shoveling Water

Journey to the heart of coca country where United States tax dollars have financed the aerial fumigation of 2.6 million acres of land in Colombia – the world's second most biodiverse country. See crop-duster’s target coca plants, the main ingredient of cocaine, with concentrated herbicide as part of the U.S. war on drugs. Listen to people on the ground, hear about the impacts, and learn new ideas about how to solve this deadly problem.

Colombia, Environment/Geography, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Subject, USA

Shrine, The

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Sleep Dealer

Sleep Dealer is a futuristic science fiction story set in a world not much different from our own, in which borders are closed, and a global, high speed network ties distant people and places together. The story centers on 3 characters who inhabit very different spaces in this world: a migrant, a soldier, and a writer. Sleep Dealer won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for both the Gotham and Independent Spirit awards. Geoffrey Gilmore, the festival director, describes the movie as "a combination of The Matrix, Blade Runner, and The Border". Already a Latino Sci-Fi classic, this film has been praised by critics and audiences alike.

Border, Cinema/Theater, Drama, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, USA

Spanish-American War: Archival Footage

Silent motion picture footage of the Spanish-Cuban-American War and the subsequent Philippine insurrection produced by Edison pictures between 1898 and 1901. The two conflicts were the first in which the motion picture camera played a role. Most footage is staged for the hand-cranked camera, but views of ships, parades, and notable figures is also included. Silent with English captions

Cuba, Puerto Rico, USA

State Of Siege

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.

USA, Uruguay

Stepan Chemical: The Poisoning Of A Mexican Community

The moving account of the people of Matamoros, Mexico after the Chicago-based Stepan plant dumped zylene, a toxic solvent linked to birth defects, into open canals near their homes. The Sanchez family and their community, with the help of the U.S.-based Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, demanded an end to the contamination and a full accounting from Stepan.

Mexico, USA

Street Art

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Sueños De Angélica, Los / Angelica’s Dreams

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, USA

Sueños de Roberto, Los / Roberto’s Dreams

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.

Economics/Development, Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Super, El

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Those I Left Behind

Those I Left Behind is a documentary that explores the transnational ties that bind Cuban-Americans in the United States to their families still living on the Island. The film also speaks to the controversial travel restrictions enacted by the U.S Government and the emotional impact on the lives of four Cuban families.

Country/Region, Cuba, Culture/Festivals/Food, Migration/Immigration, Social Issues, Subject, USA

Tune In Tomorrow

 Based on the Peru-based novel "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" by Mario Vargas Llosa. When radio reporter Martin (Keanu Reeves) falls for his sexy aunt Julia (Barbara Hershey), the station’s zany soap opera writer Pedro (Peter Falk) decides to play cupid – and broadcast the details! Courtship soon turns to chaos with Martin’s love life in the shambles, Julia in disgrace and irate listeners rioting in the streets. Everyone will have to tune in tomorrow... to discover how it all turns out.

Peru, USA

Vanessa, The Orange Thrower (Vanessa, Arroja Naranjas)

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Vida No Es Facil, La

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Social Issues, USA

Viva la causa

Viva La Causa focuses on one of the seminal events in the march for human rights - the grape strike and boycott led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s

Economics/Development, Indigenous Peoples, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Voces Latinas

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

When The Drum Is Beating

This documentary explores the music of the famous Haitian orchestra “Septentrional” along with the violent history of Haiti. Through Septentrional’s powerful musical pieces, accompanied with brutal scenes, viewers are taken on a graphic journey through Haiti’s culture and history; from French colonialism and bloody revolutions to natural disasters and foreign debt while Septentrional’s beautiful sounds of Haitian voodoo beats and Cuban big band serve as a backdrop. This film contains graphic images.

Colonial, Haiti, History, Music/Dance, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Yo Soy / I Am

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.

Latinos/Chicanos, USA

Zoot Suit

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."

Drama, History, Latinos/Chicanos, Music/Dance, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Zoot Suit Riots

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.

History, Latinos/Chicanos, USA