Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Mixes art with social projects. Addresses issues such as classism.
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: Portuguese and English Subtitles: Portuguese and English Length: 99 minutes Copy ID: 1441 Comments: Source:
Title: WHICH WAY HOME
Description: A heart-wrenching exploration of a lesser-known dimension of Central American migration to the United States. Every year tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, attempt to migrate through Mexico to the United States. Some as young as nine years old, these children ride atop the roofs of Mexican freight trains in hopes of getting to the United States. This film centers on the experiences of two teenagers from Honduras, Kevin and Fito, following them as they make their way north. The film explores their experiences undertaking a journey that is harrowing even for the most resourceful of adults. Interviews with migrant children,immigration officials, and parents back home reveal the myriad dangers these children face and their determination to brave these dangers in hopes of obtaining a better life.
Subject: Migration/Immigration, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues
Type: Documentary
Year: 2009
Director: Rebecca Cammisa
Country: Central America/Mexico/United States
Film ID: 700
Comments:
Created: 5/13/2010
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 90 minutes Copy ID: 1362 Comments: Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 4/7/2011
Title: THOSE I LEFT BEHIND
Description: 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.
Subject: Migration/Immigration, Social Issues, Culture/Festivals/Food
Type: Documentary
Year: 2006
Director: lisandro Perez-Rey
Country: U.S / Cuba
Film ID: 770
Comments:
Created: 2/10/2012
Copy: 1m Format: DVD Language: english and spanish Subtitles: Length: 45 minutes Copy ID: 1402 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Gato Films Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: SHOVELING WATER
Description: 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.
Type: Documentary
Year: 2009
Director: Witness for Peace Colombia Team
Country: Colombia
Film ID: 756
Comments:
Created: 11/28/2011
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 24 min. Copy ID: 1390 Comments: only checking out for classrooms Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 11/1/2011
Title: NOAM CHOMSKY: NEW WORLD ORDER
Description: A talk by Noam Chompsky on the negative effects of U.S. policy in Latin America and the Middle East.
Type:
Year:
Country:
Film ID: 765
Comments:
Created: 1/17/2012
Copy: 1m Language: Subtitles: Length: Copy ID: 1398 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: NEW WORLD BORDER
Description: 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.
Type: Documentary
Year: 2001
Country: USA/Mexico
Film ID: 8
Comments:
Created:
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: English Subtitles: None Length: 28 minutes Copy ID: 8 Comments: Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 2/23/2009
Title: MOMIAS, LAS
Description: This film documents “The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato” exhibition which appeared at the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, NC in 2012. The history of the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, through the lens of its “accidental mummies”, is explained by historians, architects, anthropologists, and forensics teams. The mummies and crypts are carefully preserved and contribute to the city’s rich cultural heritage.
Subject: History, Social Life and Customs
Type: Feature Film
Year: 2012
Country: United States
Film ID: 794
Comments:
Created: 10/23/2013
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: Length: 55 minutes Copy ID: 1422 Comments: Source: Natural Science Center of Greensboro, NC Price: 0 Acquired: 10/21/2013
Title: HARVEST OF LONELINESS
Description: 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. 58 minutes
Subject: Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues, Migration/Immigration
Type: Documentary
Year: 2010
Director: Gilbert Gonzalez
Country: US/Mexico
Film ID: 750
Comments: Master Copy: Classroom use only
Created: 10/17/2011
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: English Subtitles: Spanish Length: 56 Minutes Copy ID: 1385 Comments: For classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: GRINGO NEXT DOOR
Description: 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.
Type:
Year: 2009
Director: Habib Yazdi
Country:
Film ID: 784
Comments:
Created: 5/4/2012
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 15 minutes Copy ID: 1412 Comments: donated by Habib Yadzi , contact Seana Monley for extra copies . Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: CUBA: AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY
Description: Cuba : an African Odyssey is a documentary of Cuba’s central, yet little known, role in supporting African national liberation during the Cold War. This two-part DVD firsts deals mainly with Cuba’s involvement in the Congo in the early 60’s and the second with Cuba’s intervention in Angola in the 70’s to early 90’s. Directed by Jihan El-Tahri , the documentary also includes interviews with many of the powerful people involved including Pik Botha and Fidel Castro.
Subject: History, Politics/Human Rights
Type: Documentary
Year: 2007
Director: Jihan El Tahri
Country: Africa , Cuba
Film ID: 772
Comments:
Created: 2/14/2012
Copy: 1m Format: DVD Language: Eng,French,Spanish, German , Portuguese Subtitles: English & Spanish Length: 190 minutes Copy ID: 1403 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: art france development Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: BROTHER TOWNS
Description: 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
Type: Documentary
Year: 2010
Director: Charles Thompson and Michael Davey
Country:
Film ID: 760
Comments:
Created: 1/13/2012
Copy: 1 m Format: DVD Language: Subtitles: Length: 58 minutes Copy ID: 1393 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: BETTY & PANCHO
Description: A portrait of the 50 year marriage of Elizabeth Catlett, the renowned African American sculptor, and the Mexican painter, Francisco Mora. Now in their eighties, the couple share the same studio in Cuernavaca, and exhibit their work in New York, Mexico City, London, and Berlin. The granddaughter of North Carolina slaves, Catlett has been presented the key to the city of New Orleans on the occasion of its bicentennial, and won many other awards. Some of her work is included in the Museum of Art at NC Central.
Subject: Art, Music/Dance, Biography
Type: Documentary
Year: 1998
Director: Juan Mora Catlett
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 359
Comments: Possibly something wrong with the DVD and/or the VHS original.
Created:
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: English and Spanish Length: 57 Minutes Copy ID: 658 Comments: Bad copy, a few seconds of tv recorded over the original VHS. Source: MVP Price: 10 Acquired: 2/4/2008
Copy: M Format: VHS Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: English and Spanish Length: 57 Minutes Copy ID: 335 Comments: Bad copy, a few seconds of tv recorded over the original VHS. Source: Price: 40 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: MOMIAS, LAS
Description: This film documents “The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato” exhibition which appeared at the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, NC in 2012. The history of the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, through the lens of its “accidental mummies”, is explained by historians, architects, anthropologists, and forensics teams. The mummies and crypts are carefully preserved and contribute to the city’s rich cultural heritage.
Subject: History, Social Life and Customs
Type: Feature Film
Year: 2012
Country: United States
Film ID: 794
Comments:
Created: 10/23/2013
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: English and Spanish Subtitles: Length: 55 minutes Copy ID: 1422 Comments: Source: Natural Science Center of Greensboro, NC Price: 0 Acquired: 10/21/2013
Title: WHEN THE DRUM IS BEATING
Description: 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.
Subject: History, Social Life and Customs, Music/Dance, Culture/Festivals/Food
Type: Documentary
Year: 2011
Director: Whitney Dow
Country: United States/Haiti
Film ID: 793
Comments:
Created: 10/23/2013
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: english Subtitles: English Length: 84 minutes Copy ID: 1421 Comments: Source: N/A Price: 0 Acquired: 8/21/2013
In February 2011, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted His Eminence Cardinal Roger Mahony. Cardinal Mahony heads 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 61 minutes
Description: This documentary examines a Colombian musical tradition that has emerged to become an internationally popular music genre. Its rural sentiment, straightforward message, and danceable rhythms now appeal to millions of fans around the world. In Colombia’s northern Magdalena Valley, vallenato or “valley music” is the rage and the accordion is king. The region is a place where small children learn to play the accordion at their father’s knee while hundreds of professional practitioners, sometimes several generations of accordeoneros in the same family, perform dazzling feats of musical prowess at social events and duel for bragging rights at annual festivals. The film features an exclusive interview with pop star Carlos Vives and behind-the-scenes footage of the legendary annual Vallenato Festival.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes
Description: A documentary about the effects of IMF and World Bank policies on the economy and society of Nicaragua, and the efforts to counteract the negative results of such policies through cooperative and community development efforts. Based primarily on oral interviews with representatives from development agencies.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: A documentary about the efforts to bring alpacas, indigenous animals of the Andes who were sacred in Inca culture, to a community in Northern Peru. Populations of alpacas were devastated during the Spanish conquest. The film depicts this cooperative project, which was initiated in the small Andean community and sponsored by the Interamerican Foundation.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 28 minutes
Description: “The Garden of Forking Paths” This program traces the modern-era development of the nations and national economies of the Americas, with a focus on Argentina that includes the Peron years, the dictatorship of the 1970s and the Malvinas/Falklands War.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “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.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Capital Sins” Part of a 10-part PBS series on the western hemisphere, this program examines the trajectory of Brazil’s economy from the mid 1960s through the 1980s, spotlighting the methods Brazil’s rulers chose to develop that country and how their choices affected the lives of ordinary Brazilians. Beginning with the rapid growth of the late 1960s and 1970s known as the “Brazilian Miracle,” it examines the cost of this growth in terms of the repression of the military regime of that period, as well as the growing inequality of the 1970s and the debt crisis of the 1980s. The transition to democratic rule in the 1980s is also covered. Interviews with members of the military regime and its opponents, including current President Luis Ignacio “Lula” Da Silva and politician Benedita Da Silva, complement the documentary’s narrative.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Continent on the Move” This program examines the causes and effects of one of the most important forces transforming the Americas: the migration of vast numbers of people within the region. The program is set in Mexico, where migration has moved people across borders, and from rural villages to congested cities.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Mirrors of the Heart” This program explores shifting ethnic and racial definitions in the region, looking at Bolivia, a nation with a rich Indian tradition, and Hispaniola, an island divided between two nations –Haiti and the Dominican Republic– with different cultural heritages and attitudes toward their African roots.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “In Women’s Hands” This program set in Chile, examines the changes women of every social class made when they organized during the Pinochet years to create better living conditions for their families.
Copies: 1 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Miracles are Not Enough” This program travels to Brazil and Nicaragua to observe the explosion of theological debate, social activism and spiritual revival that is changing a region where religion has long played an important role in society and politics.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: "Builders of Images" This program explores the arts throughout the Americas, celebrating the extraordinary creative ferment that has attracted global acclaim and given rise to a distinct and increasingly influential Latin American and Caribbean artistic voice.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Get Up, Stand Up” This program addresses internal and external challenges to sovereignty in the Americas and examines the ways in which the nations of the Americas cope with the dilemma of maintaining economic and cultural sovereignty in the face of strong pressures, both foreign and domestic. The program, set in Colombia, Jamaica and Panama, explores a wide range of threats to sovereignty, from narco-terrorism to foreign intervention.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: “Fire in the Mind” This program looks at revolutionaries in the region today, with a special emphasis on the former guerrilla fighters in El Salvador and the current movement in Peru, and links these movements to the revolutions in Cuba and Nicaragua.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: 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
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 100 minutes
Description: A collection of mostly hand drawn animation, this film brings to reality a life of toling for the cartoonist. Includes: Why Cybraceros?, Dia de la Independencia, Sign of the Times, Latinos on TV, Mysterious, and Apparitions on Tortillas
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: Part I is a documentary dealing with the art of the Mexican revolution as a political movement and a revolution in art. Text by Octavio Paz. Part II examines these monumental creations not only for their great aesthetic value, but also as an essential and fascinating part of Mexico’s history. The murals are examples of the marriage of art and political thought. Includes works by Rivera and Siqueiros. Part III is an insight into the elements of the life experiences of Tamayo, a Zapotecan Indian and a famous Mexican painter.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 60 minutes; 30 minutes; 28 minutes
Description: This is a documentary allows the viewer a glimpse into a Brazilian art symposium which celebrates the art and poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. The symposium occurs in Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais. Literary discussions and some presentation material included. UNC-Chapel Hill Brazil, 1999.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Description: A Documentary that delves into the history of the banana. The film starts by explaining the globalization of the banana and its effects on the economy of Honduras. It shows the viewer the hardships and difficulties faced by the common banana workers and their relationship with the fruit corporations.
Copies: 3 (DVD)
Length: 46 minutes
Description: This documentary introduces us to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico, home to an indigenous Zapotec society where gender and sexual preference are a fluid concept. The women dominate the home and businesses, while the men do much of the heavy hauling and seem happy to let women rule. The matriarchy also fosters the area’s progressive politics, which include standing up to the PRI and warding off the global market.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 74 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 53 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 50 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 65 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 2 (DVD)
Length: 2-3 minutes each
Description: This film highlights some of Brazil’s most impressive features. From economics and industry to geography and culture, this documentary serves as an informative introduction to a country unlike any other. It focuses on major cities like Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazilia and Salvador da Bahia, while also placing emphasis on the country’s rural culture and diversity.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 100 minutes
Description: The Buenavista Base was produced in 1994 at Duke University Museum of Art for the exhibit Painting the Maya Universe. Dorie Reents Budent, curator of the exhibit and curator at DUMA explains in this video the importance of this Mayan case and other objects pertaining to the show.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 15 minutes
Description: (five part series) A co-production of Spanish television and the Smithsonian Institute, this Quincentenary series, narrated by the well known Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, is an excellent historical analysis and creatively filmed story of the encounter of two worlds in 1492 and the aftermath of this encounter. 5 hours in total, it can be shown separately or individually. In this first installment Fuentes examines the meaning of mestizaje, the mix of people that created Latin America: Spanish, Arab, Jewish, Indian and African.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: (five part series) A co-production of Spanish television and the Smithsonian Institute, this Quincentenary series, narrated by the well known Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, is an excellent historical analysis and creatively filmed story of the encounter of two worlds in 1492 and the aftermath of this encounter. 5 hours in total, it can be shown separately or individually. In part 2 Fuentes retraces the indigenous world through its pyramids and sculptures. The return of their blond, exiled god, Quetzalcoatl, was forecast for the very year Cortes reached its shores.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: (five part series) A co-production of Spanish television and the Smithsonian Institute, this Quincentenary series, narrated by the well known Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, is an excellent historical analysis and creatively filmed story of the encounter of two worlds in 1492 and the aftermath of this encounter. 5 hours in total, it can be shown separately or individually. In the third installment Fuentes highlights the enormous wealth that Spain extracted from its colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He also highlights the so-called "Columbian exchange" and its effects in the Old World.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: (five part series) A co-production of Spanish television and the Smithsonian Institute, this Quincentenary series, narrated by the well known Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, is an excellent historical analysis and creatively filmed story of the encounter of two worlds in 1492 and the aftermath of this encounter. 5 hours in total, it can be shown separately or individually. In the fourth part of this series Fuentes focuses on the process and legacy of Latin America’s struggle for independence from Spain. Fuentes travels to Mexico and different parts of South America, focusing on historical characters like Miguel Hidalgo, Simón Bolívar, and José de San Martín.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: (five part series) A co-production of Spanish television and the Smithsonian Institute, this Quincentenary series, narrated by the well known Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, is an excellent historical analysis and creatively filmed story of the encounter of two worlds in 1492 and the aftermath of this encounter. 5 hours in total, it can be shown separately or individually. In this final episode of the series Fuentes explores the pan-Hispanic-American cultures of the present day. pain, Latin America and the Hispanic communities in the United States all have undergone enormous changes. Fuentes comments on the traditions which Hispanic immigrants bring to the US in art, music and dance, respect for family ties distinct hallmarks of the Spanish-speaking world.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 85 minutes
Description: Story of the revolt at the American-owned Cananea mine in the years preceding the Mexican revolution. This revolt led to the eventual nationalization of Mexican mines. The film is told from both the miners’ viewpoint and the American viewpoint, as personified by Colonel Green, the mine owner.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 124 minutes
Description: An interview with the renowned Mexican novelist for World Monitor–a television presentation of the Christian Science Monitor.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 7 minutes
Description: This film relates the intimate saga of the star who captured the world’s heart and imagination. It reveals the lasting image of Latin American women she created and serves as a celebration of her glorious talents. Using active footage, film fragments, interviews and dramatic re-enactments, acclaimed director Helena Solberg goes behind the scenes to convey the true life story of the “Brazilian Bombshell.”
Copies: 1(VHS)
Length: 90 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 73 Minutes
Description: This film contains two episodes from The Children of the Earth Series. GUATEMALA: Natividad Hernández is a 14-year-old Maya girl, called “Nati” by her friends. Her isolated mountain village retains many traditions which strengthen its sense of identity. But Nati’s world is changing. A recently constructed road brings new influences to the community; and farm land is growing scarce. Soon she will make important choices about the direction her life will take. EL SALVADOR: José Marvin Benítez is 15. Everyone calls him Marvin. A child of refugee parents, he was born in Nicaragua during the civil war of the 1980s. After years of uncertainty, Marvin’s family has returned to El Salvador to sink roots in Nueva Esperanza, a jungle cooperative village of 200 refugee families. He shows us his family, school and village.
Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 14 minutes each
Description: Based on Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s memoir Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, this film constitutes part 1 of the two part series directed by Steven Soderbergh on the life of this iconic hero of the Cuban revolution. While focusing on Guevara’s role in the guerrilla campaign that begins in the Sierra Maestra and ultimately ousts Fulgencio Batista from power, the movie also splices in scenes depicting Guevara’s visit to the United Nations and audio re-creation of an interview that presents some of Guevara’s political philosophies and thoughts on being a revolutionary. The film portrays the personal dynamics of his relationship with Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and other anti-Batista activists during the war, Guevara’s leadership style as reflected in his efforts to maintain discipline in the rebel army, and the final military campaign that culminates in the capture of the city of Santa Clara and the flight of Batista from the country.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 135 minutes
Description: Part two of Stephen Soderbergh’s chronicle of the revolutionary activities of Ernesto “Che” Guevara examines Guevara’s attempts to start a revolutionary guerrilla movement in the jungles of Bolivia. Beginning with his arrival in Bolivia under a false identity, the film traces the factors which result in ultimate failure, as well Guevara’s untimely demise. Efforts to attract the support of Bolivian peasantry ultimately fail as Che’s band is unable to convince the peasants that supporting them is in their best interests. The insurgency effort becomes more and more desperate as the Bolivian military, with the support of the United States, steadily gains the upper hand in its attempts to quell the rebellion.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 136 minutes
Description: On October 9, 1967, Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army, aided by the CIA. Ches diary, a detailed, personal account of his futile 11-month attempt to spark a revolution in Bolivia, is the basis of this intimate filmed portrait.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 94 minutes
Description: Produced by John Alpert and Maryann DeLio; co-produced by the Disarm Educational Fund and the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean. Through interviews with peasants and peasant leaders, the Catholic Church, human rights workers and victims of Army abuses, and government officials, this documentary attempts to portray the life of the indigenous in Chiapas and show why and how the revolution of the Zapatista National Liberation Front in 1994 makes sense in their lives.
Copies: 1(VHS) Length: 28 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 23 minutes
Description: Back in the 1960s, Carolina María de Jesus became famous in Brazil after publishing her diary Child of the Dark. In this video, the director Robert Levine introduces this book about the daily life of poor people in Brazil, using images (mainly pictures and pieces of art) of the favelas. Note: This video doesnt have very good sound quality.
Copies: 1(VHS) Length: 15 minutes
Description: Our universal passion for chocolate goes back over 3,000 years. This documentary explores the history of this divine substance through artifacts, ritual, and obsession; and takes the viewer on a journey from ancient Mesoamerica to Europe’s finest chocolate houses. It is the first documentary of a series focusing on four ritual foods of the Americas: chocolate, tequila, corn and potatoes. Produced by Archeo Productions.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Description: This film looks at the Christmas traditions of Mexico, which feature influences from both Spanish and Native American backgrounds. Intended primarily for younger audiences, with highlights of the celebrations. Produced by the Educational Video Network
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 90 minutes total (58 minutes first film, 28 minutes second film)
Description: This is a documentary by the Educational Video Network about ancient Maya society. This is intended for younger audiences. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 23 minutes
Description: Four fictional stories set in New York City, but common to many other places United States or the world. Filmed in black and white, the program depicts Latin American immigrants living in New York: day laborers paid to gather brick from an abandoned lot struggle to save one crushed when a wall collapses; a young man from Mexico meets a girl from his home village at a quinceañera, then loses her in the maze of a housing project; a homeless puppeteer dreams of a better life for his daughter, but cannot enroll her in school; a sweatshop seamstress needs money for her daughter’s medical treatment, but her employer has not paid her in more than a month. Most of the actors are nonprofessionals and are themselves struggling immigrants, bringing understanding and realism to the film Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 84 minutes
Description: This documentary features interviews with indigenous activists from North, South, and Central America who gathered at the First Contintental Conference of Indigenous Peoples in July of 1990. Native people speak about the impact on their cultures of the Columbus legacy, contemporary struggles over land and human rights, the importance of reviving spiritual traditions, and the need to alert the world to environmental crises.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 24 minutes
Description: The conquest of the New World in less than 50 years is one of history’s most profound events–and remains one of its greatest adventures. British historian Michael Wood captures the bravery, endurance, greed, cruelty, and suffering involved in these 16th-century explorations. Wood turns his attention to the Americas to follow four amazing tales: Cortes’ dramatic conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico; Pizarro’s daring overthrow of the Incas in Peru; Orellana’s obsessive search for El Dorado and discovery of the Amazon; and Cabeza de Vaca’s pivotal crossing of the North American continent. Great Britain/Latin America.
Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 120 minutes
Description: The conquest of the New World in less than 50 years is one of history’s most profound events–and remains one of its greates adventures. British historian Michael Wood captures the bravery, endurance, greed, cruelty, and suffering involved in these 16th-century explorations. Wood turns his attention to the Americas to follow four amazing tales: Cortes’ dramatic conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico; Pizarro’s daring overthrow of the Incas in Peru; Orellana’s obsessive search for El Dorado and discovery of the Amazon; and Cabeza de Vaca’s pivotal crossing of the North American continent. Great Britain/Latin America.
Copies: 1(VHS) Length: 120 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 22 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: This documentary tells the story of how, after centuries of inaccessibility, the Mayan hieroglyphics were finally decoded by archaeologists. Through many discoveries by people of all ages, including Michael Coe and David Stuart, the Mayan Civilization is brought to life during this fascinating account of how the Mayan “code” was cracked, and the ways in which this newly available script has reshaped our understanding of Mayan civilization.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 54 minutes
Description: Father Amaro is a new priest assigned to the small rural town of Los Reyes, Mexico. He soon discovers that a conspiracy of corruption, sex, and lies has consumed the local parishes. Though he tries to resist falling into the corrupt actions of his colleagues, temptation eventually draws him in.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 102 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 18 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 2 (VHS) Length: 17 minutes
Description: One of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" case, CRUDE is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film examines a complicated situation from several angles while bringing a story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 104 minutes
Description: 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). Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: Experience a tour through mountains, beaches, and the colorful panorama Cuba has to offer. This video provides pieces of folklore, music, architecture, history, as it shows the major cities of the island. Video Visits. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 52 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 minutes
Description: This short film explores the work of several Cuban artists who collaborate with Vígia Press, a unique publishing house in Matanzas which makes beautifully crafted books by hand. The interviewed artists discuss their imaginative modes of contemplating what constitutes a book or text, and the ways in which they blur the boundaries between artistic and literary expression. This film was produced in conjunction with the exhibit Cuban Artists’ Books and Prints, an exhibit organized at Wake Forest University that featured 120 pieces of Cuban art, including several of the handmade books mentioned in the film. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 18 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: This very first three-color, live action film production is a comic short about a volatile tempered cantina girl trying to regain the love of a fellow dancer. The piece has lots of dancing and music, marking the debut of Technicolor. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 21 minutes
Description: To call attention to the absence of their loved ones, "disappeared" during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chilean women perform the cueca, Chile’s national dance of passion and courtship, poignantly and without partners. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 100 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 54 minutes
Description: Experience the ancestral rituals of the Day of the Dead as it takes place in the mystic atmosphere of Jantzio. Watch as the people prepare themselves to receive their dead relatives as they clean and decorate graves and they set beautiful tables or altars in which they place offerings of food, liquor, cigarettes and flowers for the enjoyment of the visiting dead. In the evening the people go to the cemetery to bid farewell to the dead using thousands of candles to guide them on their long journey back. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 21 minutes
Description: This film captures the beauty and richness of San Franciscos 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 14 minutes
Description: “A Day Without a Mexican” is a “mocumentary” – a real documentary about a false event! California is shocked. One third of its population has disappeared and they are all Hispanics. Reporters take to the streets to capture the immediate effects of the crisis: “The Mexicans disappeared? That’s great!” Have you been to the store…$6 for a head of lettuce, $8 for a pound of tomatoes.” The film mixes facts and fiction with a touch of humor. Fact and fiction quickly begin to look alike, calling into question the idea of “objectivity” and “documentary as the truth.” Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 98 minutes
Description: This documentary tells the remarkable story of a rebel people – the Mascogos, known in the United States as the Black Seminoles. This exceptional community is descended from escaped slaves who made common cause with the Seminole Indians of Florida. The exceptional Mascogo/Black Seminole culture combines African-American spirituals, Indian fry-bread, and Tex-Mex cowboy culture. Filmed on both sides of the border, this video documents the complex history of people of African descent caught between national boundaries, and the efforts of their descendants to maintain their culture. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 103 minutes
Description:
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.
Description: Despite Americas 30-year war on drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana remains essentially unchanged. This two-part documentary presents a television history of Americas 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 Mexicos role in supplying drugs for American demand. The second episode recounts the origins of the drug campaign, from the Nixon administrations drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. PBS documentary from Frontline. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 120 minutes
Description: Despite Americas 30-year war on drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana remains essentially unchanged. This two-part documentary presents a television history of Americas 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 Mexicos role in supplying drugs for American demand. The second episode recounts the origins of the drug campaign, from the Nixon administrations drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. PBS documentary from Frontline. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 120 minutes
Description: Parts 1-3 of the made-for-television Tom Brokaw report. Copies: 1(VHS)
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: Produced by Neighbor to Neighbor. Host Mike Farrell-Organizing Version. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 27 minutes
Description: Every year on July 16th the town of Paucartambo celebrates the festival of the Virgen del Carmen, Mamacha Carmen. According to tradition, the beauty of this festival arises from the competition between it and the Virgen del Rosario, the former celebrated by mestizos and the latter by Indians. Dance groups provide ways for the inhabitants of the town to identify themselves as individuals, as well as relate with one another as a single mestizo identity. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 34 minutes
Description: This film is an intimate portrait of the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Filmmaker Estela Bravo presents rare interviews with Castro and footage of him swimming with bodyguards, visiting his childhood home and school, and trading jokes with his friend Nelson Mandela. It introduces a positive portrayal of Castro rarely shown in the US media. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 38 minutes
Description: Patricia Amlin, the extraordinary animator who created Popol Vuh has taken authentic images from ancient Maya ceramics and turned them into a riveting retelling of the Maya creation myth. The story tells how Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca create heaven and earth, journey to the underworld to create humans and find sustenance for them, and finally create the sun and the moon. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 58 minutes
Description: Experience the heartache and uncertainty of the 1960s flight of more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States. The children of Operation Pedro Pan share their personal stories of the sacrifice, survival, broken hearts and new beginnings through interviews and archival footage. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description:
Description: This film documents the weeklong Mexican celebration known as Days of the Dead. This festival honors the memories of loved ones who have died. Food for the Ancestors explores this festival as it takes place in the culturally rich state of Puebla. The program is also very focused on the special food that is made for this celebration. The climatic portion of the film, and of the festival, occurs on November first when family members spend the entire night sitting at self decorated gravesites waiting for their ancestors to return. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: “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 1030’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. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 35 minutes
Description: Taymor recreates the tactile passion and beauty of Frida Kahlos 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 123 minutes
Description: A documentary about Frida Kahlo’s painful life and creative process. Part of the series “Portraits of an Artist.” Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 62 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: 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 Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 61 minutes
Description: Part I-Documents religious paintings in the Merced Iglesia, a colonial church in Antigua. Part II-Documents retablos in the Merced Iglesia. Part III-Documents the rich history of the church of Santo Domingo and the feast of the patron in San Martín Obispo and San Martín Chile Verde. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 25 minutes
Description: This television documentary provides a brief history of land distribution efforts in Guatemala and follows a threatened priest leading a landless campesino movement. The program shows the dream of some landless families come true, as they obtain land for the first time through three land distribution programs. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 29 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 53 minutes
Description: This documentary traces the history and presence of the Jewish community in Cuba. It explores the impact of the 1959 Revolution on the five percent of the original community, the community’s recent resurgence, and the international issues that affect its future. Rich in footage of Cuba, archival material and interviews, this film depicts an important history of Jewish immigration, with a focus on the particular experience of Cuban Jews. Edited by Vicente Franco and narrated by Isabel Alegría. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 57 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 38 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 27 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 20 minutes
Description: This film recounts the remarkable life of Benedita da Silva, the first Afro-Brazilian woman to be elected to Brazil’s senate. Her long history of struggle in the shantytowns, the women’s movement and the black movement created the base for her enormous popularity as an organizer, a politician and an international role model. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 44 minutes
Description: This is a hilarious but devastating film about values, the food chain, and the human condition. Ultimately, a Brazilian island where pigs eat first, and the people are fed what the pigs leave over provides an example of how arbitrarily we have arrived at the human food chain and system of exchange that we now know. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 15 minutes
Description: Deep in the rainforest of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula are the lost Mayan Cities of Chichen Itzá and Palenque. Discover their magic and learn about the Mayan culture while exploring some of the region’s most exquisite examples of pre-Hispanic American architecture. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 60 minutes
Description: Explores the mysteries of an advanced civilization’s disappearance. The miracles of the Incas are presented in this engrossing special by award winning filmmaker Luch Jarvis. Suitable for all ages, but excellent for elementary-school students. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: Inner Force visualizes the survival strategies that surge from the love and the talent of women. The 1980’s was a decade of extreme poverty, violence, civil wars, state repression, invasions, political crises, and a loss of institutional credibility. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 21 minutes
Description: Political prisoner Valentín Arregui and homosexual pederast Luis Molina share a Brazilian prison cell in this fantastical drama from Manuel Puigs book by the same title. Molina helps pass time by recounting memories from one of his favorite films, a wartime romantic thriller that just may also be a Nazi propaganda film, in order to spur Valentins imagination and distract him from the brutal realities of political imprisonment and separation from his love. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 120 minutes
Description: This documentary retraces the decipherment of the ancient Mayan codices by an unknown Russian scholar, Yuri Valentinovich Knorosov. Due to the political tensions of the Cold War, Western scholars ignored his linguistic breakthrough. This film recounts the personal and intellectual journey that led to his discovery, and the subsequent struggle for recognition. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 57 minutes
Type: Documentary, Year: 1998, Director: Bran Taylor, Country: Mexico, Format: DVD-R, Language: English and Spanish, Subtitles: English
Type: Documentary, Year: 2001, Country: USA/Chile, Format: DVD-R, Language: English, Subtitles: None
Description: CBS Reports with Dan Rather presents a biography of Fidel Castro. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Type: Documentary, Year: 1992, Country: Latin America, Format: DVD-R, Language: English, Subtitles: None
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
Description: This Masterpiece Series provides a triple treat – a close-up look at the lives and works of the worlds most famous artists plus three art lessons that focus on the style of each. These lessons reinforce the techniques and skills that the artist used and students will experience hands-on learning. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes each segment
Description: 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. Copies: 3 (DVD and VHS) Length: 45 minutes
Description: An examination of corruption and class warfare in Brazil as told through the stories of a wealthy businessman, a plastic surgeon who assists kidnapping victims and a politician whose income relies on a frog farm. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 92 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 55 minutes
Description: This documentary goes on location to rarely seen gatherings in remote villages where masks are still an essential part of festivals such as Day of the Dead, Corpus Christi and Winter Clebrations. This video traces the ritual use of masks, beginning with Aztec priests and warriors, and explores the influence of Spanish friars who used masks to spread the teachings of Christianity. The result is a vibrant blend of indigenous and European traditions that gives this art form its distinctive flavor. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
Description: This great exhibit shows the expressive aesthetic language and historical testimony of an admirable civilization. This is the first presentation of the maya civilization that has covered all the regions of their geographical extension, all the periods of its history and all the diversity of the people who forged it. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 56 minutes
Description: The pioneer film maker Salvador Toscano portrayed the key events and figures of the Mexican Revolution from 1904 to 1924. Capturing the flavor and reality of war-torn Mexico, the film presents the political and military upheaval that shaped present day Mexico using exclusive, authentic footage. It also describes the women’s role in Mexico during this period. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: This film takes a look at the cultural wealth of prehispanic Mexico: the civilizations of the Toltecs, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and their legacies are explored. Intended for younger audiences. An Educational Video Network film. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 24
Description: This volume focuses on the rich cultural heritage of Mexico and how it affects the daily lives of its citizens. Students will find that Mexicos indigenous people and Spanish rule have influenced the ceremonial dress, folktales, foods and holidays of Mexico. Explored topics include the music of Tejano bands, the artwork of Diego Rivera and Talavera pottery from Puebla. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 24 minutes
Description: This volume focuses on how Mexicos geography has shaped its history, society and culture. Travel through a variety of land formations and regions from the desert in Sonora to the lush rainforests of Chiapas, and see how location and climate have impacted the settlement patterns and lifestyles of Mexicans. Learn about the major industries like silver mining and tourism, and appreciate the exceptionality and diversity of the Gulf Coast regions animal and plant life. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 23 minutes
Description: This volume focuses on the obstacles that Mexico has overcome throughout history to become an independent, self-governing nation. Explore history topics from the time of the Olmec through the time of independence fights as well as other more contemporary events. Understand the Father Hidalgo and Benito Juarez, and see why freedom has been so important to this proud nation. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
Description: This documentary depicts the story of the two Cuban worlds of Miami and Havana, and the social, cultural, and political processes that have created this divide since 1959. It provides many touching moments that portray the difficulties of this fragmentation, as well as the ideological struggles in both communities. An excellent point of departure for considering the Cuban Revolution, migration and communities of exile. Produced by the Institute for Policy Studies, USA Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 122 minutes
Description: 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.
Description: Several Maya women in the Highland community of Comalapa share their insights into the art of weaving and its place and importance in their lives. Directed by Julia Kellman and Phil Miller and filmed on location in Guatemala and Honduras. Produced by Conejo Productions. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 35 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 min
Description: Produced by Samuel Franco, director of the Casa K’OJM, a private non-profit educational research center in Antigua, Guatemala dedicated to the preservation of Maya culture through music this video shows us live footage of music during daily life and special ceremonies throughout Guatemala, particularly in the Highlands. Narrated by Samuel Franco.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
Description: The musical panorama of the region of Lambayeque shows the role placed by musical instruments and genres in delineating different cultural spheres, as well as in the conflict between traditional and modern expressions. Two large areas can be distinguished: those of the coast and of the mountains. Each expresses itself in music differently, even when both use the same musical instruments. The coastal town draws on African traditions. Communications and popular urban music have also influenced this area, significantly changing Lambayeque’s musical panorama.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 27 minutes
Description: On the history in Cuba of an extensive West Indian community (consisting of people from Jamaica, Barbados, & many others)
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 53 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 25 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: This film, narrated by Edward James Olmos, presents a forceful analysis of the possibilities for radical change through Guatemalan student protest. Shot in urban ghettos, rural villages and jungle encampments, this documentary reveals the immediate and personal struggle of a cross-section of the country’s population during the forty years of civil war. Recommended for undergraduates and high school students.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 3 (DVD and 2 VHS) Length: 60 minutes
Description: Two stories designed to teach children how to identify numbers, colors and figures in Spanish.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 20 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 50 minutes
Description: The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold against the madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The story is enhanced by brilliant performances, thrilling music, and magnificent color photography. Copies: 2(DVD) Length: 107 minutes
Description: A documentary about the mixture of Catholic and Afro-Brazilian religious traditions. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 Length: 10 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 87 minutes
Description: The Xavante of central Brazil and the Wayuu of Venezuela are two indigenous groups who both face considerable challenges in their efforts to maintain control over and access to one of the most basic of natural resources, fresh water. In this compelling documentary an anthropologist from the United States collaborates with a member of the Xavante and a member of the Wayuu to explore the ways in which indigenous peoples are responding to threats to their environment and natural resources. The film focuses primarily on efforts by the Xavante to combat the deforestation and excessive use of agritoxins associated with the expanding Brazilian soy industry that threatens the viability of the Rio das Mortes as a viable water source. Through a focus on this particular movement, the filmmakers explore the close connection between the the goals of protecting our environment and defending the interests of indigenous peoples, as well as an growing solidarity among indigenous peoples throughout South America that is centered around mobilization with respect to environmental issues. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 34 minutes
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
Description: This documentary provides an in-depth look at the social, economic, and environmental impact of the Pascua Lama gold mine in the Huasco Valley of northern Chile. By examining the Canadian Barrick Gold Corporation’s management of the mine, this film forces us to rethink whether such operations are actually beneficial for Chile and its citizens. In addition to exploring the negative environmental impact and associated effects on local agriculture, the films uses interviews with a number of activists who argue that these mines generate very little economic benefit for the local or national economies, and instead export profits while nationalizing costs. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 64 minutes
Description: A short documentary made by British TV focusing on the Shining Path movement within the city of Lima and a few villages. There are extensive interviews with members of this guerilla movement. Knowledge of the present situation in Peru is necessary before showing this film to students. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 41 minutes
Description: This is a promotional travel documentary about Peru and its resources. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 10 minutes
Description: This is a wonderful travelogue about Peru. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 8 minutes
Description: From 1979 to the early 1990s, a guerrilla war in Peru took a huge toll on the countrys economy, and an even greater one on its poorest people. This documentary probes the economic and political roots of the conflict and examines the post?war struggles of Peruvians as they strive to reconstruct their lives. The plight of rural populations displaced by the violence—committed by both sides and presented in graphic footage—is recounted by volunteers currently working to resettle them. A Free-Will Production. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 93 minutes
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
Description: With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 Cuba lost half of its oil imports and survived. The economy shifted from large farms or plantations and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens, converting Cuba from a highly industrial society to a sustainable one. This documentary shows Cubas success in this transition and is aimed at giving hope to a developed world hooked on oil and to lift American’s prejudice against Cuba by showing the Cuban people as they are. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 53 minutes
Description: Quilombo Country examines the communities established by runaway slaves in 19th century Brazil as they navigate the hazards of the modern world, observing the daily activities that allow the quilombolas to survive in relative isolation. This film also offers rare footage of two ceremonies and many other celebrations. Copies: 2(DVD) Length: 73 minutes
Description: March 16, 1986. Presidential address of President Reagan concerning the controversial issue. Response to the address by Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tennessee). Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
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
Description: Every November the Mexican people clean and decorate the graves of their loved ones, set beautiful tables or altars in which they place offerings so the visiting dead enjoy them. Experience these and other ancestral rituals of the Day of the Dead. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 20 minutes
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
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 58 minutes each part
Description: Every year in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, in Southern Mexico, thousands of Maya Indians gather to celebrate Carnival, which they call “Festival of Games”. This award winning film, which merges Catholicism and ancient Maya rights, beautifully captures the passion and mystery of the event and shows how Maya’s symbolic world is renewed each year in the celebrations. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 59 minutes
Description: Beautifully filmed in Cuba, South Africa, Gambia, Honduras and Venezuela, Salud reveals the human dimension of the worldwide health crisis, and the central role of international cooperation in addressing glaring inequalities. The film examines the remarkable case of Cuba, a cash-strapped country with “one of the world’s best health systems,” and accompanies some of the 28,000 Cuban health professionals now serving in 68 countries. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
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
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 18 minutes
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
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 24 15-minute segments
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
Description: This documentary investigates the kidnapping, rape and murder of over 230 young women in Juarez, Mexico. Using the testimonies of the families of the victims, the film boldly reveals a web of complicity that has contributed to the persistence of the killings. It serves as a frank portrayal of Ciudad Juarez and of the grime of the new global economy. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 74 minutes
Description: Filmed almost entirely from a helicopter, this film presents spectacular views of seven of the most important archaeological sites in Mexico: Teotihuacán, Monte Albán, Mitla, Tulum, Palenque, Chichen Itzá and Uxmal. Narrated by Orson Welles. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 18 minutes
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
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: Tomás loves women and they love him. However, Tomás has problems -he lives in the times of DC-10’s, microwave ovens and AIDS, and this modern Don Juan doesn’t use condoms! A wonderfully funny comedy faintly reminiscent of Almodóvar. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 94 minutes
Description: The dazzling story of two women raised in different worlds — an immigrant folk dancer from the Andes, and a modern dancer from Queens, NY — who return to Peru to reconnect with their cultural heritage through an astonishing world of traditional dance and celebration. Soy Andina is an exuberant cross-cultural road trip, bursting with traditional music and dance rarely seen outside the country. But the core story is intimate and universal: a yearning for roots and connection in turbulent times. An inspirational story, Soy Andina examines the issue of identity in a globalized era. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 70 minutes
Description: 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. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 18 minutes
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
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
Description: Sistren Theatre’s documentary on Jamaican women sugar cane workers, combining theater and interviews. Copies: 1 Length: 40 minutes
Description: In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act – the take – has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale. With The Take, director Avi Lewis, one of Canada’s most outspoken journalists, and writer Naomi Klein, author of the international bestseller No Logo, champion a radical economic manifesto for the 21st century.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 87 minutes
Description: A UNICEF style documentary showing the hardships of the Tarahumara Indians and how a local hospital attempts to remedy them.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 25 minutes
Description: This is a documentary about the religious life in Latin America. Many of the conquerors saw no contradiction between enslaving the Indians and bringing their souls into Paradise. But turning temples into churches was one thing, and transforming native religions into Christianity quite another. This program shows that, although the religious emblems are Christian in most parts of Latin America, the native people still pray to the "old" gods of pre-Columbian times.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 28 minutes
Description: When the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico 600 years ago, they found a mysterious city of great pyramids. With this video students will examine some of the theories and legends surrounding the mysterious civilization of Teotihuacán, see some of the existing artifacts and ruins of Teotihuacán, and study some of the unique cultural traits of the Teotihuacános, which include their architecture and their religion
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 18 minutes
Description: A beautiful recorrida of Tikal, Guatemala’s most visited archeological site. There are aerial views of the sites, close-ups and excellent photography of the landscape around the site. Tikal is shown in detail from every direction, and good explanations of many of the monuments are included. It also provides good background information on the Maya.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: At the end of the alpaca’s bearing season, the shepherds of Tata Wara-Wara, a highland village in the region of Arequipa, get ready to perform a deeply rooted Andean tradition known as the tinka de alpaca. This ceremony, in which the animals are paid homage and counted, is accompanied by rituals giving thanks to Pachamama, the earth goddess. The force of her fertility is sought to secure the abundance of pasture and an increase in livestock.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 17 minutes
Description: To Play and To Fight presents the captivating story of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra System – an incredible network of hundreds of orchestras formed within most of Venezuela’s towns and villages. Once a modest program designed to expose rural children to the wonders of music, the system has become one of the most important and beautiful social phenomena in modern history. The documentary portrays the inspirational stories of world class musicians trained by the Venezuelan system, including the Berlin Philharmonic’s youngest player Edicson Ruiz and world renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel. With interviews with many of the world’s most celebrated musicians including the great tenor Placido Domingo, Claudio Abbado, Sir Simon Rattle, Guiseppe Sinopoli, and Eduardo Mata, To Play and To Fight is an inspirational story of courage, determination, ambition, and love showing us that… only those who dream can achieve the impossible.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 70 minutes
Description: A documentary about Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 45 minutes
Description: For over four years, three Colombian filmmakers turned their cameras on themselves, using personal stories to expose the tough reality in their violent, war-ravaged country. Their portrayal does not aim to confirm the image the outside world has of Colombia as a hotbed of excessive political violence and drug traffic, but instead draws out the beauty and warmth of the people amidst the larger turmoil within their homeland.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 78 minutes
Description: Textbooks tell the dramatic story of the imprisoned Inca who paid a ransom of a roomful of gold to the Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro and, for most people, this event in 1532 and the subsequent fall of the Inca empire, marks the beginning of the history of Peru. However, Dr. Dwayne L. Merry, noted anthropologist and archaeologist, demonstrates that the Incas built their civilization on previous cultures dating back more than 3,000 years.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes
Description: Tour the natural and historical treasures of one of the world’s most diverse continents, including a meeting with two unique creatures of the Galapagos that intrigued Charles Darwin. Viewers will also travel to the ruins of the ancient Inca city of Cuzco, Peru, and see the majestic cataracts at Iguacu Falls, where water and gravity collide.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 26 minutes
Description: 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.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 108 minutes
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
Description: This documentary seeks to get beyond the cult of personality of Hugo Chavez to gain a deeper understanding of what the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has meant for many citizens at the local level. Through interviews with government officials, community memebers and scholars such as former Duke Mellon visiting professor Steve Ellner, the film examines political developments of the last twenty years from the perspective of popular participation. Beginning with a brief discussion of the Caracazo of 1988, the documentary looks at the role that grassroots mobilization in the form of cooperatives and other locally-based organizations in efforts to reshape Venezuelan economy and society.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 85 minutes
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)
Description:A project organized by the Centro de Trabalho Indigenista in which different indigenous groups in the Amazon have been provided with video training and equipment. Uses include recording ceremonies for future generations, taping political discussions, recording the promises of government officials, and documenting their struggles for the environment and their lands.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 10 Minutes
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
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
Description: In the Andes, the time for celebrating propitiatory rituals coincides with the carnival season. One such ritual is the wylancha; in which members of the community of MOLLOKO, in the Acora district of Puno, offer their alpacas to the mountains and the earth, their protecting divinities.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 28 minutes
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
Description: An EVA film intended for younger audiences. Short documentary traces the career of a young Mexican man trying for a career as a torero in the ring.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
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
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
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