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:
Raca tackles racial inequality in Brazil, via the lives of three black Brazilians: Paulo Paim, the only black senator of the republic; Netinho Paula, singer and TV presenter, and Tiny dos Santos, Maroon activist and granddaughter of slaves. The filmmakers followed these 3 people for a number of years – people they consider are on the frontlines of the country’s race debate/divide – in an effort to bring something unique to the public.
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: None Length: 42 minutes Copy ID: 1451 Comments: Source:
Raca tackles racial inequality in Brazil, via the lives of three black Brazilians: Paulo Paim, the only black senator of the republic; Netinho Paula, singer and TV presenter, and Tiny dos Santos, Maroon activist and granddaughter of slaves. The filmmakers followed these 3 people for a number of years – people they consider are on the frontlines of the country’s race debate/divide – in an effort to bring something unique to the public.
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: Portuguese Subtitles: English Length: 104 minutes Copy ID: 1438 Comments: Source:
Habanastation is a 2011 Cuban drama film directed by Ian Padron. Filmed in a slum in western Havana, the film addresses inequalities in Cuba through the relationship between two children of different social strata. The film was selected as the Cuban entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.
Copies: 1 (DVD+R); Length: 115 minutes
Cuba, 1993. Eunice, a motherless teenager, seeks to escape her father’s sexual harassment. So, she seeks out her sister who lives in a town near the capital. Alejandro, a young rock ‘n’ roll singer, is tired of being discriminated against. And after robbing a pharmacy, he departs for Havana with a pair of friends. Fate intertwines the lives of the two teenagers and they embark on a “ticket to paradise.”
Copies: 1 (DVD+R); Length: 88 minutes
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: WE DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE!
Description: Mexico serves as a Third World example of how “free market” economics distorts culture and environment. The construction of a golf course is more than the military trying to replace the democratic sport, soccer, with golf. It is how the golf course is going to affect the people in the surrounding area. Fertilizers and pesticides will pollute the nearby waters, Constructing the golf course would require the government to cut down trees, creating an environmental issue. People who believe in taking care of the natural forests around them were being punished by the military for not agreeing with their course of action. Without an individual voice the people of Mexico came together and had strikes against the golf company, the metal company dumping materials, in order to move toward a more democratic country. Despite globalizing efforts of the govenment, the people of Tepozitlan will always fight for what they believe in.
Subject: Culture/Festivals/Food, Economics/Development, Environment/Geography, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues
Type: Documentary
Year: 2007
Director: Saul Landau
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 789
Comments:
Created: 10/25/2012
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 33 Minutes Copy ID: 1416 Comments: Source: Donation Price: 0 Acquired: 10/25/2012
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: SOBADA
Description: Sobada is a documentary about the techniques used by midwives in Mexico in order to help a woman during her pregnancy. The specific technique discussed in the video is called sobada which is a type of abdominal massage. This technique is used by the indigenous midwives in order to make the process of birth easier.
Subject: Social Issues, Social Life and Customs
Type: Documentary
Year: 2007
Director: Erica Barbiani
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 779
Comments:
Created: 4/9/2012
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: Spanish Subtitles: None Length: 35 Minutes Copy ID: 1406 Comments: Source: Price: 0
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: Presumed Guilty
Description: In December, 2005, Tono Zuniga was picked up off the street of Mexico City, Mexico, and sentenced to 20 years for a murder he knew nothing about. A friend of Tono’s contacted two young lawyers, Robert Hernandez and Layda Negrete, who gained prominence in Mexico when they helped bring about the release of another innocent man from prison. Shot over three years with unprecedented access to the Mexican courts and prisons, this dramatic story is a searing indictment of a justice system that presumes guilt.
Type: Documentary
Year: 2009
Director: Roberto Hernandez & Geoffrey Smith
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 753
Comments:
Created: 11/28/2011
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 88 min. Copy ID: 1388 Comments: only checking out for classrooms Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 11/1/2011
Title: LIVING JUAREZ
Description: After Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels in December 2006, thousands of people have died in Mexico. Juarez is now considered the deadliest city in the world and where most of the casualties of the War on Drugs have occurred. Among those killed were youths from the neighborhood of Villas de Salvárcar, whom the government had described as gang members. Living Juarez follows the families of the victims as they speak out against Calderón and the violence in this area.
Subject: Social Issues
Type:
Year: 2010
Director: Alexandra Halkin
Country: mexico
Film ID: 769
Comments:
Created: 2/7/2012
Copy: 1m Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 21 minutes Copy ID: 1400 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: americas media initiative Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: LA CONJURA DE APONTE
Description: With the help of two important Cuban historians, La Conjura de Aponte describes the social context at the time of Jose Antonio Aponte’s rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba. Aponte, a free black, sought to unite slaves and free blacks in order to stop Spanish rule.
Subject: History, Social Issues
Type:
Year: 2010
Director: Regino Oliver
Country: Cuba
Film ID: 761
Comments:
Created: 1/13/2012
Copy: 1 m Language: Subtitles: Length: 24 minutes Copy ID: 1394 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Title: 6 HISTORIAS BRASILEIRAS
Description: ‘6 Brazilian Histories: Santa Cruz’ shows the development of an evangelical church in the Santa Cruz suburb of Rio de Janeiro Brazil and the transformations that the church has made in the lives its congregation. The director wanted to show point of views that are rarely shown in the news. The film was originally released as a television series in 2000.
Type:
Year: 2000
Director: João Moreira Salles
Country: Brasil
Film ID: 783
Comments:
Created: 5/3/2012
Copy: 1m Format: DVD Language: Portuguese Subtitles: English Length: 60 minutes Copy ID: 1411 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
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: EN EL CAMINO DE NUESTRAS ANTEPASADOS
Description: This film uses puppets to deliver lessons about Yucatec Maya language, culture, and history. It deals with issues of contemporary and ancient Maya heritage. The main characters travel to different sites including Chichen Itza, and learn about things such as traditional Maya farming practices, ancient Maya religion, and heritage site looting and preservation.
Subject: Animated, Anthropology/Archaelogy, Environment/Geography, Indigenous Peoples, Social Issues
Type: Documentary
Year: 2012
Director: MACHI
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 786
Comments:
Created: 7/27/2012
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: Maya Subtitles: English & Spanish Length: 60 Minutes Copy ID: 1414 Comments: Source: MACHI Price: 0 Acquired: 7/24/2012
Title: JOGO DE CENA (PLAYING)
Description: In this film, ordinary Brazilian women who have responded to a newspaper ad tell part of their life stories to director Eduardo Coutinho. In September of the same year, actresses interpret, in their own way, the stories told by those chosen. There are three levels of representation in the film. First, real people tell of their real lives. Second, these characters serve as a challenge to the actors. And third, some of these actors then act out or speak about their own real lives. This film was donated by Duke University Visiting Instructor Aaron Lorenz.
Type: Documentary
Year: 2007
Director: Eduardo Coutinho
Country: Brazil
Film ID: 795
Comments:
Created: 10/23/2013
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: portuguese Subtitles: English & Spanish Length: 107minutes Copy ID: 1424 Comments: Source: Aaron Lorenz Price: 0 Acquired: 10/21/2013
Title: BABAS
Description: This is a documentary about the history of wet nursing among Brazilian families. The film is a reflection on how it had developed over the years in different contexts throughout the twentieth century, from black slaves nursing white children to mothers hiring a nanny. The film uses subjective narration, autobiographical elements, photographs, domestic footage, and newspaper ads to reflect on how genuine affective relationships are nevertheless influenced by a long-range history of racial oppression in Brazil. This film was donated by Duke University Visiting Instructor Aaron Lorenz.
Subject: History, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs
Type: Documentary
Year:
Country: Brazil
Film ID: 799
Comments:
Created: 10/25/2013
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: portuguese Subtitles: English Length: 20 minutes Copy ID: 1423 Comments: Source: Aaron Lorenz Price: 0 Acquired: 10/21/2012
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
About mothers who are fighting for justice surrounding the murders of their children by police in Rio. The film looks at three massacres in particular, exploring these mothers’ stories and how they provide support to one another.
Part 2 of a series of shorts from the 2004 Geografias Suaves regional film festival which feature Maya speaking peoples from Yucatan and Chiapas. The shorts include a video postcard documenting the lives and everyday experiences of children and their communities as well as stories based on folklore and oral tradition from the region.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: ___ Minutes
Description: In the 70’s and 80’s , Cuba had overcome the crises of the first decade of the revolution and had settled into realizing a new identity, creating the new man Che had envisioned.Despite the lask of many material comforts, the idealism if the people kept afloat their proud , shared conviction that a new type of society was possible.People were not obsessed with consumption and gain and the basic necessities were provided, along with free education and health care. Here is an intimate portrait of those who lived Cuba’s utopian dream during the golden era of the revolution.It is alos a lament for the end of that dream, which began to fizzle after the fall of the Berlin Wall and has since continued on a downward spiral. Through interviews we learn of the disillusionment of the Cuban people suffere- and continue to suffer – seeing the beloved island of their youth turn into a nightmare.
Copies: 1 (DVD master) – For classroom use only
Description: Follow filmmaker Monika Navarro on her eight-year journey to understand the tragedy and triumph of her family history – a history of immigration and deportation, substance abuse and absent fathers, old patterns and new beginnings. In this touching account, Monika manages to pain of her own father’s neglect by reconnecting with her Uncle Augie, a drug addict and distant father who had been deported to Mexico and was trying to forge a new life in the wake of his brother’s tragic heroin overdose. Taking viewers from San Diego to Guadalajara, to Tijuana and back again, Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas) demonstrates the complex struggle drug addicts and their loved ones must endure, and the importance of forgiveness and support in breaking the generational cycle of substance abuse.
Copies: 1 (DVD master) – For classroom use only
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: “Different skin tones, individual and collective stories. This is the content of the documentary, ‘The Americas Have Color: Afro-Descendants in 21st-Century Censuses.’ This documentary reconstructs the African Diaspora’s ties to the Americas and reveals the censuses’ strategic role for advancing the rights of Afro-descendants in Latin America. The documentary was conceived by the 2010 Census Afro-descendant Group, produced by TV Brasil International, and funded by UNIFEM Brazil and Southern Cone, through its Regional Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty Program.” Part of 4-DVD collection, “Coletânea Gênero, Raça e Etnia.”
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 29 minutes
Description: This feature-length film deals with 24 hours in the life of Santiago de Cuba, one of the main supply cities of the rebels led by Fidel Castro and of underground urban action perpetrated by the rebel and clandestine 26th of July Movement. Taking place in 1959, the movie narrates how escalating violence bursts out in the tranquil life of people and different social groups in the city. First-time director Rebeca Chávez participated in the clandestine struggle in her teenage years and has characterized the film as “a reflection on violence.”
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 90 minutes
Description: An award-winning and discerning depiction of the impact of migration on Mexican families and villages left behind by loved ones who have traveled north for work.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 96 Minutes
Description: “The Situation of Afro-descendant Women in Latin America” examines the correlation between race and poverty across the Americas with particular focus on the experiences of Latin American women. This UNIFEM-produced documentary features interviews with experts and activists from Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, all of whom highlight discrimination against women of color throughout the region. Part of 4-DVD collection, “Coletânea Gênero, Raça e Etnia.”
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 15 minutes
Description: "Domestic Work, Decent Work" portrays the reality of African descendants and indigenous women domestic workers in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, and Paraguay in their quest for rights, respect, and dignity. The documentary highlights opportunities and challenges for these countries in promoting women’s economic rights and empowerment. Part of 4-DVD collection, "Coletânea Gênero, Raça e Etnia."
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 31 minutes
Description: Eugenia Ramírez, a young dentist, returns home from a congress, only to find that her apartment has been ransacked. Furious, she tries to recover her childhood photo album at any cost, demanding that justice be done. However, she is unaware that this interferes with the interests of a gang of delinquents who turn her into the pursued instead of the pursuer.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 101 Minutes
Description: This film by Francis Negrón and Peter Biella examines the impact of AIDS within Hispanic-American communities, focusing on the specific economic, social and cultural factors which influence perception of the AIDS crisis.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 29 minutes
Description: In this groundbreaking satirical film about the Cuban Revolution, the craziest situations are seen as normal by most of the inhabitants of Wondertown. Alicia, however, struggles to make sense of what is happening around her from the moment she arrives. This film by Daniel Diaz Torres mixes absurdity, humor and horror, and was banned because it was believed to be anti-revolutionary.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
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: “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: “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:This film is a bold, intensely emotional, and ambitious story of lives that collide in a Mexico City car crash. Inventively structured as a triptych of overlapping and intersecting narratives, Amores Perros explores the lives of disparate characters who are catapulted into unforeseen dramatic situations.
Copies: 3 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 153 minutes
Description: A tragic urban story about the unfortunate life of a 13-year old circus girl in Mexico City. She is expelled from her job when the official of the circus finds out she is pregnant. She meets a troupe of traveling puppeteers preaching the word of God and joins them, eventually entrusting her son to God.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 90 minutes
Description: Two decades after the devastating region-wide political violence of the 1970s and 1980s, Central America now confronts other forms of violence that have proven to be considerably destructive in their own right. These forms include organized crime, gangs, poverty and marginality, and are exacerbated by the firearms that entered the region during the years of civil war. Las Armas de la Violencia explores the dimensions, effects, costs (both human and economic,) of these new forms of violence and the responses of Central American societies to their emergence.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 60 minutes
Description: This visceral, energizing look at contemporary Cuba is an impassioned love story set against the political and economic tensions of Havana. Gustavo, an idealistic young Communist with a glorified vision of the Castro regime, falls in love with Yolanda, a disenchanted dancer who longs to escape to Miami. Despite their radically opposed beliefs, Gustavo and Yolanda are inseparable. The city begins to erupt around Gustavo when his rebellious musician brother injects himself with the AIDS virus in suicidal protest, and his father realizes that he will earn more money as a hotel bar pianist than as a doctor.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 102 minutes
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: An impressionistic journey through the music of Cuba, Spain and Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present, on the occasion of the Fifth Centenary of the Conquest.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Length: 111 minutes
Description: This documentary is not only a chronological description of the controversy between the town and the group KS but a much more complex and critical description. It is a contrast between modernity and backwardness, richness and poverty, and what is legal and what is not in present civilization.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 57 minutes
Description: Episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reynaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. By 1964, he is in Havana where his writing and homosexuality get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. He befriends Lázaro Gomes Garriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, “Revenge.”
Copies: 2 (DVD)
Length: 133 minutes
Description: During a track and field meet a meteor strikes a stadium in Cuba, killing roughly 93 people. A round table of journalists has a discussion on the significance of the event, debating what the most important aspects of the event are. The film is a meditation on the role of journalism in contemporary Cuba; a practice that supposedly has to be combative, investigative, and neutral. What, then, is the real role of journalism?
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 25 minutes
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: 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: One of the first powerful statements about the repression of the student movement in 1968 in Mexico. This documentary-style film depicts the case of five young employees of the Autonomous University of Puebla attacked in the small town of San Miguel Canoa by locals who believed the group consisted of dangerous Communist agitators given the anti-student propaganda circulating at the time. Villagers killed two of the students, and almost burned the remaining three alive.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Description: This is a celebration of the death of the Aguascalientes and the birth of the Caracoles and the Good Government Assemblies. Zapatista leaders discuss how changes will affect internal political and economic processes, gender relations, and their relationship to international civil society. The video is an open call to join the Zapatista communities in their struggle for recognition of their autonomy and in their fight against neo-liberal economic policies and globalization.
Copies: 1(VHS)
Length: 42 minutes
Description: Based on the real life experiences of Doctor Drauzio Varella as a social worker inside the Carandiru state penitentiary in Sao Paulo, the largest correctional facility in Brazil. Hundreds of prisoners live in degrading conditions while an elite group of prisoners rule the actual prison based on their own codes and laws. This rule ends in bloodshed in October 1992 when 300 policemen storm the facility and kill 111 unarmed inmates.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 145 minutes
Description: This film investigates the origins and development of the international legal prosecution of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. It explores how a small group of people in Madrid laid the groundwork for his arrest. After Pinochets arrest by Scotland Yard, the film follows the workings of the British legal system that ensued. The film also movingly incorporates the stories of many Chileans who traveled to Madrid to testify, including relatives of the disappeared and others who survived horrifying torture in secret prisons. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 109 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: 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: Deco and Naldinho are best friends in a constant struggle to earn an honest living in the gritty world of Salvador de Bahias Lower City. When a beautiful prostitute named Karina asks to hitch a ride, the twosome quickly becomes a threesome. To survive life in the Lower City, the trio must learn to accept each other as lovers, friends and enemies. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 98 minutes
Description: In the midst of the streets of the world’s most notorious slum, Rio de Janeiro’s “City of God,” a frail and scared young boy will grow up to discover that he can view the harsh realities of his surroundings with a different eye: the eye of an artist. In the face of impossible odds, his brave ambition to become a professional photographer becomes a window into his world and ultimately his way out. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 130 minutes
Description: A pair of filmmakers journey to the interior of Brazil, screening short films to audiences in town squares. From Bahía to the Amazon, they discover a vast country going to the movies, seeing themselves on the big screen for the first time. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 56 minutes
Description: One could never admit to having seen enough of Mexico City." This innovative documentary is a collection of photographic images from Mexico City newspapers of the last ten years which people who travel through Mexico City daily identify as those which best typified the City. Using Nahuatl texts from Montezuma and, the poetry and music of Jim Morrison, the video explores the history of the use of Mexico City by its inhabitants. A collaboration by Nestor García Canclini and researchers at UNAM. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 32 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: German colonizers dominated many coffee estates in Guatemala during the early twentieth century. This documentary takes us through the old coffee baron’s plantations, and examines a new generation of entrepreneurs in key posts within the government behind anonymous company names. Maya peoples continue to contest the concentration of land, and military and police abuse. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 139 minutes
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Corto metraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: La suerte de la fea a la bonita no le importa; Benjamín; Adiós mama; Noche de bodas; Espías en la ciudad; Sr. X; Hombre que no escucha boleros; Pasajera; Ligerita. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 5 to 20 minutes (films vary)
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Corto metraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: De mesmer, con amor ó té para dos; Sístole diástole; El agujero negro del sol; ¿Que hora es?; El milagro; De jasmín en flor. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 9 to 22 minutes (films vary)
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Corto metraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: La maceta; La historia de I y O; Sus demonios; A la otra; Circuito interior; El columpio del diablo; Gertrudis Blues. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 5 to 21 minutes (films vary)
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Corto metraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: Azar; Rogelio; Ponchada; E pur si muove; Me voy a escapar; Una bala; Malos presagios; Peor es nada; El pez dorado; Juego de niños. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 5 to 14 minutes (films vary)
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Cortometraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: ¿Qué me va a hacer?; Cita en el paraíso; Otoñal; Malos hábitos; El árbol de la música; El valor de la amistad; Brusco despertar; La cumbre; Mantis religiosa. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 5 to 19 minutes (films vary)
Description: This collection of short films is part of the series Corto metraje, más que un instante from IMCINE and CinemaFilms. This original series showcases 51 short films by up and coming Mexican directors, cinematographers and actors. The films touch on a variety of subjects, people, and lifestyles. Some are comical, some are sad, and some are thought provoking. All of these films are very useful for Spanish Language classes. This specific volume contains the following films: Veneno; La tarde de un matrimonio de clase media; Lávelo y úselo; Un arreglo civilizado para el divorcio; Día de suerte; Encrucijada; El héroe; Contratiempo; El excusado; Pronto saldremos del problema. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 2 to 16 minutes (films vary)
Description: Individuals who leave their countries in hopes of a better life in the United States have a rough road ahead of them. Mexican filmmaker Tin Dirdamal follows a number of refugees in a refugee center in southern Mexico, from whence they hitch illegal rides on freight trains to the northern border. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 84 minutes
Description: This film is a portrait of two brothers who work deep in the silver mines of Cerro Rico, Bolivia. Raised without a father and living on the slopes of the mine, 14-year-old Basilio and his 12-year-old brother must work to support their family and afford supplies vital to their education Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 82 minutes
Description: When Lourdes Portillo receives a phone call informing her that her uncle was found dead she returns to Mexico. Her investigation of the circumstances of her uncle’s death takes us deep into the land of Northern Mexico, inside the life of her family and her community, to a place between reality and fiction. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 82 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: 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: In Mexico City, a second layer is being built atop the Periférico freeway, which inscribes a massive circle on the metropolis. Despite the project’s enormity, the workers who are building the freeway are barely noticed by drivers who roll by endlessly. Rulfo’s film places us among these workers. The film chronicles long days of arduous work, risk taking, joking, swearing, and philosophizing.
Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: During the Pinchet Regime, opposition politicians were often sent into internal exile to small rural towns. This film tells the story of such a relegado in a remote southern fishing village (Puerto Saavedra) where he finds mystery, love, and a new way to see the world. La Frontera is the most awarded Chilean film in history. Copies: 3 (DVD and 2 VHS) Length: 120 minutes
Description: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s last film before his death, Guantanamera is a romantic, fluid road-trip movie set in contemporary Cuba amid economic crisis and crumbling infrastructure. In a tribute to the resilient spirit of Cubans in trying circumstances, and a sly critique of the regime, Alea masterfully weaves in tributes to Death of a Bureaucrat and other works. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 104 minutes
Description: The generation gap is taken to the extreme by a group of young people. They have decided to exterminate all senior citizens. Isidro Vidal, the protagonist, is a middle-age man thrown in the midst of this absurd and merciless war. Ultimately, the love of a woman shows him that happiness is possible only for those who show the courage to live fully to the end of their days. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: This documentary portrays the lives of Chiles estimated 15 – 20,000 Romanies (Gypsies) by documenting the stories of three families and their everyday struggles to reconcile their traditional culture with the advantages offered by cultural assimilation. The film brings us into the families homes, their places of worship, the childrens schools, and the markets where the men trade, where the protagonists speak, in the Romani language as well as Spanish, about their lives and their concerns as Chileans and as Romanis. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 62 minutes
Description: Based on the research of Felipe Vázquez Palacios and his team in the state of Veracruz. This documentary depicts the daily life of those whom society considers to be old. The testimonies of these men and women teach us that the process of growing old is a construction that combines biology with work, family and society. Due to their diminishing status and lack of social support, these older adults invent survival strategies while they wait for their death. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 27 minutes
Description: Argentine director Eliseo Subiela’s stunning and powerful masterpiece. A man named Rantes suddenly appears in a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital expertly playing the organ. But who is he –this man with no recorded identity? Beatriz, his only visitor, sees him as an intimate and knowing companion. The other patients, intrigued by his mysterious intelligence, see him as their only source of hope. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 105 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: In a mens bathroom a discussion takes place. One member of a committee votes against a presidential proposal, and suddenly becomes the hero of the democratic process. What seems to him to be a perfectly reasonable and ordinary act strikes others as a courageous and noteworthy gesture, raising questions about the true nature of popular political participation. He ultimately finds himself in an awkward position with respect to the reality he lives in. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 11 minutes
Description: This film examines the now vibrant hip-hop community that has emerged in Cuba since the onset of the special period, interviewing numerous artists and getting their perspectives on a number of issues, including racism, issues of censorship, economic conditions, gender and sexuality, and relations with the United States. In many ways the Cuban hip-hop scene evokes memories of the culture when it first emerged in the United States in terms of its grassroots character as a form of expression for marginalized youth. Rappers comment on the significance the genre has as a form of cultural expression and social commentary, as well as the danger of Cuban hip-hop progressing down the same path of commercialization that has become so prominent in the United States. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 70 minutes
Description: An eight-year-old boy tired of living in an orphanage and working in a tortilla factory decides to search for the guardian angel his mother promised to send. The angel appears to him as a grumpy old Mexican man who teaches him the values of life, work, family, and friendship while they embark on an adventure through tropical paradises. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 98 minutes
Type: Documentary, Director: Dinamu-SNV, Country: Ecuador, Format: DVD-R, Language: Spanish, Subtitles: None
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
Type: Documentary, Year: 2005, Director: Chiapas Media Project, Country: Mexico, Format: DVD, Language: Spanish and Tzeltal, Subtitles: English
Description: A dramatic and sensitive analysis of the lejanía, the distance or separation among members of the same family, created by the Cuban revolution. A Cuban mother, now living in Miami, returns to visit her son whom she abandoned 10 years earlier. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: La Ley de Herodes is a hilarious, outrageous satire set in a tiny Mexican town in 1949. Damián Alcázar stars as Juan Vargas, a junkyard operator is recruited as a temporary mayor following the demise of the latest corrupt town leader. At first, Vargas is the ideal politician: hes honest, desperate and not terribly ambitious – or so it seems. But eventually, Vargas gives in to overwhelming temptation, bribery, and even violence in this brilliant, tongue-in-cheek story about government treachery. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 122 minutes
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: A diverse group of Cubans finds itself stuck at a remote bus station. Their shared situation brings them together such that they transform the bus station into a kind of socialist utopia, and when they can finally leave, they dont want to. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 106 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: Maria Alvarez, a bright, spirited 17-year-old Colombian is desperate to leave her job stripping thorns from flowers. Maria accepts a lucrative offer to transport packets of heroin – which she must swallow – to the United States. The ruthless world of international drug trafficking proves to be more than Maria bargained for. This dramatic thriller builds toward a conclusion so powerful and revealing it could only be based on a thousand true stories. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 101 minutes
Description: The critically-acclaimed film debut from Robert Rodríguez, shot with no second takes using borrowed equipment and a talented cast of unknowns. A case of deadly mistaken identity leads the protagonist, who aspires only to be a mariachi, to trade his guitar for a gun and play for his life in this vision of bandido violence in Mexico. Copies: 1 (DVD)
Description: Set in the early 1960s, the film centers on the Europeanized Cuban intellectual, too idealistic (or lazy) to leave Miami, but too decadent to fit into the new Cuban society. This is both a critique of Revolutionary society and a critique of that critique. It is also the first film from post-revolutionary Cuba to be released in the U.S. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 97 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: Taken from Cuba as a child by his father, Roberto returns to the island 32 years later in search of his mother. He soon finds his American customs in conflict with those of his birthplace. Also, he discovers new revelations about his family history: though told his mother had abandoned him, Roberto learns from his cousin Pilar that his wealthy father had kidnapped him when fleeing the Revolution- leaving behind his poor black mother. Roberto, Pilar, and a driver named Antonio then take up a journey through Cuba to track her down, only to make more shocking discoveries along the way. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 123 minutes
Description: Gerardo, a gay teenager, roams the streets of Mexico City in search of someone able to reveal the secret, hidden between the lines of a goodbye letter from his ex-lover. In his journey through barren alleys and roadways, he is haunted by images: each masculine body he sees reminds him of his lover. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: Between pre-war Buenos Aires and the turbulence of Peron’s Argentina are remembrances of things past. This is the story of Miss Mary (Julie Christie) the compassionate English governess and the wealthy family that lives and dies by their inflated sense of tradition and of the broad political events and intimate personal dramas that will carve their destinies. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 100 minutes
Description: The story of a young man’s attempt to fight the system is an entertaining, hilarious account of galloping bureaucracy and the tyranny of red tape.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 87 minutes
Description: A young family, determined to escape the pressures of life in Lima, struggles to exist in the exotic, overgrown Peruvian jungle. Godoy’s autobiographical story is perhaps the most honored Peruvian film of all time.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 112 minutes
Description: This documentary deals with the development of the life of a group of children living in the street. It reflects diverse individual and group stories revealing the codes that exist between them. The film was shot with two cameras, one of them used by the children and the other by the directors.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: A polished, vastly entertaining and elaborate caper film, as well as a sharp character study that examines the question of honor among thieves. Juan is a small-time crook who gets caught conning a convenience store clerk, and Marcos is a big-time swindler who steps in to "arrest" him with the hope of recruiting him for a bigger job obtaining a counterfeit collection of some extremely rare stamps known as the Nine Queens.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 115 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: This 1950 masterpiece, directed by Luis Buñuel, portrays the misery of poverty with an astounding starkness. Poor children of Mexican slums are the primary subjects of this unconstrained vision of poverty. In many big cities, behind the large buildings are areas of complete misery. Children are malnourished, there are no schools, sanitation is not up to par and delinquents abound. Los Olvidados has been called a work of free art, a testimonial, an aesthetic expression of moral conscience. The film is an effective protest against human cruelty. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 90 minutes
Description: Themes of greed and redemption weave through this story of a young man’s obsessive search for gold. His quest takes him deep into the jungle and into fateful encounters with other “beings” in Bolivia’s tropical region of Cochabamba. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 35 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: A humorous portrayal of romance, this light comedy presents a typical young Cuban couple, sexually liberated, who nonetheless cannot cope with the affair between his mother and her father. A commentary of the generation gap and machismo. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: This film portrays the true story of Yessica and Miriam, two teens from Mexico city that start a profound friendship in middle school. The friends share notebooks, games, likes, make-up, and perfume until Jorge and El Topi, two violent accomplices, kidnap Yessica. The indifference and selfishness of the adults break the friendship of the two young girls and carry them to the brink of tragedy. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 88 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: This is a fiction film based on a short-story from Bolivian Andean region. Fulo, a man from a small village in Bolivia not believe old traditions regarding the existence of souls and spirits. He has to face his wife’s mysterious disappearance as a punishment for challenging these ancient beliefs. Winner of the best scenic production award at the 1999 Latin American Film and Video Festival of Indigenous Communities. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 35 minutes
Description: Shot in Cuba and the US over a period of three years, this film features remarkable cinematography by first time director Carlos Marcovich. Winner of the Latin American Cinema Prize. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 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: A documentary exploring what Cubans think and believe about race today. The film intersperses opinions expressed by everyday citizens with interviews of prominent Cuban intellectuals and artists to explore the issue of racial discrimination and inequality, a subject that is often considered taboo and divisive. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 35 minutes
Description: The brutal tale of a teenager making a go of it in one of the world’s toughest town’s: Medellin, Colombia. Rodrigo dreams of playing rock and roll. He rallies his friends into a punk band. From a web of violence, fear, aimlessness, drugs, and jail, rock and roll emerges as salvation, escape, hope –and agony. Employing a cast of young actors and real-life street toughs – some of whom meet violent ends before the film was released – Rodrigo D invites comparisons to Luis Buñuels classic Los Olvidados. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 minutes
Description: In this mix of live action and comic book style animation, five masked activists fight against corruption, homophobia, animal rights, pollution and poverty in Mexico City. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 70 minutes
Description: Every night a special white train makes its way from the Tucumán province to Buenos Aires. Its passengers are an alternative army of workers who make ends meet by collecting paper and cardboard. The directors observe their engaging protagonists busily going about their work to try to make a living in a country wrecked by financial chaos and economic instability.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: This film portrays daily life in an underdeveloped and overpopulated city on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Tumaco is a city inhabited mainly by Afro-Colombians which depends on fishing as its principal economic activity, a way of life threatened by the accumulation of pollution in the sea and connected waterways. Residents live in houses standing on stilts over the ocean, with no proper water or sanitation systems. Residents of the town share their life stories, their modes of earning a living and reflections on their struggle to secure improved working and living conditions and overcome poverty. Award winner, 26th Latin American Film Festival Bordeaux, France (Public Award) & First Award best feature length documentary film 2009 FESALP Film Festival, La Plata. Argentina.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 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: Released in 2001 in Mexico, where it broke box-office records, director Alfonso Cuarón’s sexy comedy follows two teenage boys who go out on the road with an older Spanish woman they both lust after. Sumptuous cinematography, wonderful performances by the young cast and a subtle glimpse into Mexican life and its politics.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 100 minutes
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