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:
Posted in Brazil, Country/Region, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Language, Portuguese, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Social Movements/Resistance, Subject, Subtitles, Type, Zito Araújo, Joel
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A film on the lives of three women who live in contemporary Cuba.
Copies: 1 (DVD+R); Length: 106 minutes
Posted in Country/Region, Cuba, Documentary, Documentary, DVD-R, English, Format, Gender/Sexuality, Language, Music/Dance, Politics/Human Rights, Spanish, Stephan, Subject, Subtitles, Type, Weitzel
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In the film, Esteban returns home due to his father’s illness. Existential conflicts come back to life because little has changed since his departure.
Copies: 1 (DVD+R); Length: About 100 minutes
Posted in Country/Region, Cuba, English, Feature Film, Gender/Sexuality, Language, Politics/Human Rights, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Chijona, Gerardo, Country/Region, Cuba, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Format, Gender/Sexuality, Language, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Country/Region, Cuba, Documentary, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Format, Language, Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Social Issues, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Country/Region, Culture/Festivals/Food, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, Economics/Development, English, Environment/Geography, Format, Landau, Saul, Language, Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: SIN DEJAR HUELLA (WITHOUT A TRACE)
Description: Sin Dejar Huella uses drama and comedy in equal measure to tell the story of two women–one Spanish and the other Mexican–fleeing from their respective pasts. Ana, a con artist, and Aurelia, a young mother escaping from her drug-dealing husband, meet on the road by chance. Protecting one another from the dangers that pursue them, they travel from northern Mexico to Chiapas. Along the way they gradually learn the truth about one another.
Subject: Social Issues, Drama, Comedy, Travel
Type: Feature Film
Year: 2000
Director: María Novaro
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 744
Comments:
Created: 4/11/2011
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 109 minutes Copy ID: 1363 Comments: Source: Film festival Price: 0 Acquired: 4/11/2011
Posted in Comedy, Country/Region, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Format, Language, Mexico, Spain, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Travel, Type
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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
Posted in Colombia, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, English, Environment/Geography, Format, Language, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type, USA
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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
Posted in Docudrama, Docudrama, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Language, Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: ORFEU
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.
Type: Feature Film
Year: 1999
Director: Carlos Diegues
Country: Brazil
Film ID: 10
Comments:
Created:
Copy: 1 Format: DVD-R Language: Portuguese Subtitles: English Length: 112 minutes Copy ID: 1032 Comments: Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Posted in Brazil, Classic, Country/Region, Diegues, Carlos, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Feature Film, Language, Portuguese, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT
Description: For his new film director Patricio Guzmán, famed for his political documentaries (The Battle of Chile, The Pinochet Case), travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that it allows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century explorers and miners; and the remains of political prisoners, “disappeared” by the Chilean army after the military coup of September, 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, women, surviving relatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped here, search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, to reclaim their families’ histories. Melding the celestial quest of the astronomers
Subject: Environment/Geography, Politics/Human Rights
Type: Documentary
Year: 2010
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Country: Chile
Film ID: 785
Comments:
Created: 7/27/2012
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 90 Minutes Copy ID: 1413 Comments: Source: Icarus Films Price: 400 Acquired: 7/25/2012
Posted in Chile, Country/Region, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Environment/Geography, Format, Guzman, Patricio, Language, Politics/Human Rights, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Language, Mexico, Social Issues, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: LA PRISION INSOMNE
Description: This documentary gives the viewer the unfortunate important facets of life and the controversial work of the poet Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Plácido, during the first half of the turbulent and contradictory colonial nineteenth century in Cuba. The audiovisual speech reveals different nuances and mysteries about the identity of the bard and the essential features and significance of the poetry staff. The film also delves into their participation in the so-called Escalera Conspiracy against the Spanish government in power at the time.
Type: Documentary
Year: 2009
Director: Regino Olivar
Country: Cuba
Film ID: 757
Comments:
Created: 11/30/2011
Copy: M Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: 47 min. Copy ID: 1389 Comments: Source: M. Barret Price: 0 Acquired: 11/1/2011
Posted in Art, Biography, Biography, Country/Region, Cuba, Culture/Festivals/Food, Docudrama, Docudrama, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, History, Language, Literature, Politics/Human Rights, Social Life and Customs, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Brazil, Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Language, Portuguese, Religion, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: HISTORY OF A COMMITTED CINEMA
Description: This is a short fast-paced film displaying the work of the Nicaraguan Film Institute, INCINE, which is a part of the Sandinistan government in Nicaragua. It outlines the difficult technical, cinematic and political tasks confronting INCINE as it strives to build a native film industry.
Subject: Cinema/Theater, Comedy
Type: Documentary
Year: 1983
Director: Emilio Rodriguez
Country: Nicaragua
Film ID: 780
Comments:
Created: 4/10/2012
Copy: 1m Format: DVD Language: spanish Subtitles: English Length: 15 minutes Copy ID: 1407 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Icarus Films Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Posted in Cinema/Theater, Comedy, Country/Region, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Language, Nicaragua, Spanish, Subject, Type
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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
Posted in Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, English, Format, Language, Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type, USA
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Title: ENTRE LOS MUERTOS
Description: Entre Los Muertos is a documentary by Jorge Dalton which examines the way San Salvador’s citizens cope with the violence of devastating street crime, constant earthquakes and the ripple effects of decades long war. The film yields strong emotions as it explores the ways in which people perceive and deal with death. The film displays communities who live in cemeteries where tombstones are playgrounds, ‘funerary brokers’ who scout dead bodies for commission, families who bury kin in their backyard, and funerals and festivities on the Day of the Dead. It is an investigation of the economy of death, the value of life and how San Salvadorians walk a fine line between normalizing and desensitizing death, due to their historical roots in violence.
Subject: History, Latinos/Chicanos, Politics/Human Rights
Type: Documentary
Year: 2006
Director: Jorge Dalton
Country: El Salvador
Film ID: 782
Comments:
Created: 4/10/2012
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: spanish Subtitles: English Length: 60 minutes Copy ID: 1409 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Posted in Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, El Salvador, English, Format, History, Language, Latinos/Chicanos, Politics/Human Rights, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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Title: DENYING BRAZIL
Description: A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of Black actors in Brazilian television “soaps.” Based on his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyzes race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Black people’s identity-forming processes.
Subject: Cinema/Theater, History, Politics/Human Rights
Type: Documentary
Year: 2000
Director: Joel Zito Araujo
Country: Brazil
Film ID: 788
Comments:
Created: 10/16/2012
Copy: Master and Copy 1 Format: DVD Language: Portuguese Subtitles: English Length: 92 Minutes Copy ID: 1415 Comments: Source: Art Mattan/ AfricanFilm Price: 0 Acquired: 10/9/2012
Posted in Brazil, Cinema/Theater, Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, Drama, DVD, English, Format, History, Language, Politics/Human Rights, Portuguese, Subject, Subtitles, Type, Zito Araújo, Joel
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Title: BAJO EL TACANA
Description: Bajo el Tecana is a short documentary about a group of women migrants, who are interviewed by a group of researchers, before heading to the north. The film takes place in the village of Soconusco, Chiapas on the border between Guatemala and Mexico. Made with the support from Mexican Commission on Human Rights and the OIM ( International Organization for Migration), this film combines text, testimonials and images.
Subject: Border, Migration/Immigration
Type: Documentary
Year: 2007
Director: Isabel Vericat
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 781
Comments:
Created: 4/10/2012
Copy: m Format: DVD Language: SPANISH Subtitles: English Length: 26 MINUTES Copy ID: 1408 Comments: master copy for classroom use only Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Posted in Border, Country/Region, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, Gender/Sexuality, Guatemala, Language, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, Subject, Subtitles, Type, Women's Studies
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Title: AL OTRO LADO
Description: An aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico faces two choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or to cross the border illegally into the United States. From Sinaloa, Mexico, to the streets of South Central and East L.A., Al Otro Lado explores the world of drug smuggling, illegal immigration, and the corrido music that chronicles it all. Description from producer.
Subject: Migration/Immigration, Border, Economics/Development, Latinos/Chicanos
Type: Documentary
Year: 2005
Director: Natalia Almada
Country: Mexico
Film ID: 743
Comments:
Created: 4/4/2011
Copy: 1 Format: DVD Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: Copy ID: 1384 Comments: Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Copy: M Format: DVD-R Language: Spanish Subtitles: English Length: Copy ID: 1386 Comments: Source: Price: 0 Acquired: 9/9/9999
Posted in Almada, Natalia, Border, Country/Region, Director, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, Economics/Development, English, Language, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, Type, USA
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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
Posted in Brazil, Country/Region, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, Format, History, Language, Portuguese, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Subject, Subtitles, Type
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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
Posted in Colonial, Documentary, Documentary, DVD, English, English, Format, Haiti, History, Language, Music/Dance, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Social Movements/Resistance, Subject, Subtitles, Type, USA
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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
Posted in Docudrama, DVD, English, Feature Film, Indigenous Peoples, Mexico, Shorts, Social Issues, Social Life and Customs, Spanish, Various
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Description: This documentary combines social commentary with surrealism to explore the Cuban soul. The filmmakers take the viewer on a trip through the heart of twenty-first-century Cuba, making stops in Pinar del Río, los Acuáticos, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, and Guaraabuya. In each stopping place, local lore and characters help present an overall portrait of Cuban history, society, and culture.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 56 minutes
Description: A documentary about the Brazilian sex trade, Cinderelas, Lobos, e Principe Encantado explores how poor Brazilian women, mostly black, are lured by middle-aged European men into traveling to Europe with them. European, American, or Canadian men feel that European, American, or Canadian women are too cold and unsensible while the Brazilian women look for the security and freedom that Brazilian men cannot provide. The documentary interviews Brazilian women who were previously sex workers and have now moved to Europe with white men.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 106 Minutes
Description: Chigualeros is a documentary about one of the most famous orchestras in Ecuador. Chigualeros, founded almost three decades agos , fuses different sounds like son, marimba, guaracha, currulao, bolero, and the chigualo. Like many parts of Latin America, Ecuador has an African history that is evoked through the mix of sounds in the Chigualeros.The documentary presents the lives of the members of the group while also exploring the deforestation of the tropical forests of the region.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 80 minutes
Description: “Looking For You, Havana” is a documentary that follows a group of undocumented Cubans from the eastern province of Oriente looking for a better life in Havana. Without proper documents allowing them to legally live there, they often set up a home in areas close to the city, building with whatever they can get their hands on–wood, cardboard, sheet metal. These shantytowns, called fanguitos, are similar to Brazil’s favelas. Quite often lacking running water and electricity, without proper papers residents are not entitled to medical care or education and, if caught, are deported back to their province
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 30 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: Laura, a professor, conducts research for a PhD dissertation that delves into the Havana underworld in search of Albert Yanini, the most famous Cuban pimp from the turn of the twentieth century. Shot to death by his French rivals for control over the Havana prostitution business, Yarini’s power of seduction captivate the soul of a culture that both criticizes and reveres him. Recently submitted by Cuba for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, the film is an exploration of Cuban sexuality and masculinity.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 96 minutes
Posted in Biography, Cuba, Daramas, Ernesto, Drama, DVD, English, Feature Film, Gender/Sexuality, Social Life and Customs, Spanish
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Description: Milka has known Alexis since they were children, and loved him for as long as she can remember. When Alexis falls in love with and decides to marry another woman, Milka makes a deal with a mysterious stranger with unusual power in an attempt to win him back.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 105 minutes
Description: This new feature-length film by Cuba’s most recognized filmmaker, Fernando Pérez, won the most collateral awards at the 32nd International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. The film focuses on the childhood and adolescence of Cuba’s nineteenth-century hero José Martí, covering the years he lived in Cuba before being sent into exile for political sedition at the age of seventeen. The film has already obtained two awards at the Ibero-American Festival in Huelva, Spain. It has received top awards on the island and was named the best movie of 2010.
Copies: 1 (DVD); 1 (DVD+R)
Length: 115 minutes
Description: Terras (“Lands”) is a documentary about the border of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, located in the heart of the Amazon. On this triple frontier the twin towns of Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil) form an urban island surrounded by forest. It is a region marked by a constant flow of people from diverse origins, where ancestral and contemporary cultures live side-by-side. Through photography and sound, Terras explores the concept of frontier beyond the territorial demarcations that divide nations. Immersing itself in the daily lives of the towns and their inhabitants, this documentary uses a poetic and reflective approach to reflect on the relationship and contact between different nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 74 minutes
Posted in Border, Brazil, Da-Rin, Maya, Documentary, DVD-R, English, Environment/Geography, Indigenous Peoples, Portuguese, Social Life and Customs, Spanish
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Description: In Mexico, the voices of the woman who have chosen to have an abortion are virtually absent from public debate. Aborto Sin Pena will introduce you to three of these women, from distinct cultural backgrounds. What they say will surprise you.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 20 minutes
Description: The Brazilian badlands, April 1910. Tonho is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother. The young man knows that if he commits this crime, his life will be divided in two: the 20 years he has already lived and the few days he has left to live, before the other family avenges their son’s death. He is torn between fulfilling his ancestral duty and rebelling against it, urged by his younger brother Pacu. That’s when a tiny traveling circus passes through the vast badlands where Tonho’s family lives.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 92 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: 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: 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: 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: Death in the Aymara culture is an experience in which the mourners, the community, the souls participate together. Age-old rituals, mixed with Catholic symbols assimilated by the people, frame the story of Andres and his young daughter Leonora. Upon drowning in Lake Titikaka, they must find their way to Korimarca (the Aymara Heaven) with help from the members of the community to which they belonged.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 29 minutes
Description: Aleida Guevara talks fondly about her father, the world famous Che. Aleida talks about the real Che, separating the myth from the man. This bilingual DVD contains a Spanish language version, and another version in Spanish with English subtitles.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 31 minutes
Description: Ordinary Nicaraguans narrate the story of 22 turbulent years (1979-2001) in their nation’s history, from the triumph of the Sandinistas, to the day they were voted out of office in 1990, to the tumultuous years since. This film, beautifully shot among the wreckage of Nicaragua’s disastrous war, the abandoned properties of its old landholders, and the urban slums of Managua, presents the story of Nicaragua from a variety of perspectives.
Copies: 1
Length: 51 minutes
Posted in Capelli, Luciano, Documentary, DVD-R, English, History, Nicaragua, Ruggeri, Andrea, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish
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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: A moving story about growing up in the pampas, based on the famous autobiographical novel of the same title. Through his deep friendship with an old "gaucho," a boy coming of age becomes fascinated with nature and the mysteries of the human soul.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 91 minutes
Description: An allegory about an idealistic ten-year-old peasant who dreams of flying like a condor. He eventually learns to fly when he joins guerrillas fighting in an imaginary Central American country.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 90 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: An informative and sensitive documentary that tells the story of Mayan women activists and their courageous fight for indigenous rights in Guatemala. Featuring several outstanding women that are playing an important role in this struggle, including 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 50 minutes
Description: A young man is in love with the daughter of a local bar owner in a Chilean village. The young man enlists the help of the famous poet Pablo Neruda to woo his beloved.
Copies: 2 (DVD)
Length: 76 minutes
Description: This documentary discusses Argentina’s current economic crisis by focusing on the effects of neoliberal economic policies implemented in the early 1990s. Subjects such as the “corralito”, pesification, devaluation, piqueteros, neighborhood associations, mass movements, occupied factories, and the effects of the crisis on education, and heath care are all covered in this thorough look at present-day Argentina.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 55 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: The documentary is about Jacques Monard/Ramón Mercader, the KGB agent who assassinated León Trotsky in Mexico. It is an account from the people who knew him during his childhood, and up to and after the crime. This film reconstructs his motivations and his destiny. Starring Elena Poniatowska, Carlos Moniváis, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 99 minutes
Description: Espinoza is a shy taxidermist who secretly dreams of executing the perfect robbery. On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the Patagonian forest, his dreams become reality when he accidentally kills a man who turns out to be a real criminal and inherits his scheme: the heist of an armored van carrying casino profits. Caught up in a world of complex new rules and frightening violence, Espinoza’s lack of experience puts him in real danger. And he has another, more dangerous liability: he is an epileptic. Before each seizure he is visited by the ”aura”: a paradoxical moment of confusion and enlightenment where the past and future seem to blend. Is a world of violence what he really wants and can he actually survive? Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 129 minutes
Description: The lively João Grilo and the sly Chicó are poor guys living in the hinterland who cheat a bunch of people in a small Northeast Brazil town. But when they die, they have to be judged by Christ, the Devil and the Virgin Mary, before they are admitted to paradise.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 104 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: The inhospitable backlands, or sertão, of northeastern Brazil was home to a fearsome group of social bandits – the cangaceiros. Among the most infamous of these outlaws, known by their hats covered with mystic talismans, was the bespectacled Lampião whose depredations became legend in the 1930s. The film portrays the filmmaker and photographer Benjamin Abrahão, a Lebanese immigrant, who captured the elusive bandits with his camera.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 93 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
Posted in Documentary, DVD, Economics/Development, English, English, Harpelle, Ron, Honduras, Saxberg, Kelly, Social Issues, Spanish
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Description: The second in a trilogy, Barrio Cuba tells a trio of stories, all dealing with commonplace Cuban social struggles. Solás and his superior cast pay tribute to the authentic slums of the Havana suburbs, stripping away the sheen of a world previously glamorized by touristy stereotypes.
Copies: 3 (DVD)
Length: 106 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
Posted in Cuba, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Gender/Sexuality, Politics/Human Rights, Schnabel, Julian, Social Issues, Spanish, USA
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Description: A period musical, based on the novel The Song of Rachel by Miguel Barnet, the film concerns a young woman who uses everyone to attain her dream of being a singer at the Alhambra, Cuba’s top burlesque theatre in the 1920’s.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 108 minutes
Description: A profile of the first black woman ever to be elected city councilor and member of the Brazilian Parliament from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Bene, as she prefers to be called, has lived her entire life in the favelas and worked for twenty-five years as a domestic servant before beginning her public life in 1982, when she won a post as city councilor and was elected a federal MP in 1986. She now devotes her efforts to fighting the racism and discrimination faced by Rio’s slum dwellers, and comments from community leaders and residents show the love and respect she has earned.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 29 minutes
Description: This docudrama about the life and art of the Brazilian artist Arthur Bispo do Rosário takes the artist’s imagination as its viewpoint. Bispo spent 50 years in a psychiatric hospital in Rio and his art was almost completely unknown before his death in 1989. He is now considered one of Brazil’s most important artists.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 46 minutes
Posted in Art, Biography, Brazil, Docudrama, Documentary, English, Martinho da Rocha, Helena, Portuguese, Przewodowski, Miguel, VHS
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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
Posted in Documentary, DVD-R and VHS, English, English, Gender/Sexuality, Gosling, Maureen, Indigenous Peoples, Mexico, Osborne, Ellen, Spanish, Women's Studies, Zapotec
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Description: La Boca del Lobo is fiction inspired by the Peruvian army’s November 1983 massacre of 47 men, women and children suspected of terrorism. When the news of the massacre came out, the army blamed Shining Path for the atrocities, but one eyewitness testified to the contrary. The movie portrays the moral and emotional disintegration of the members of a small army detachment sent away from any world they know to root out Shining Path missing in a remote mountain village.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 122 minutes
Posted in Drama, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, Feature Film, Lombardi, Francisco, Peru, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, Spanish
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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
Posted in Border, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, USA, Weyer, Hannah
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Description: An adaptation for ballet by Antonio Gades, Spain’s leading ballet and flamenco star, of Federico Garcia Lorca’s famous folk tragedy, performed in full costume in a bare Madrid rehearsal hall.
Copies: 1
Length: 71 minutes
Description: The actor, Santiago Miranda, abandons the set of a soap opera that he thinks fails to illustrate the real vision and dream of Bolívar. Miranda is determined to finish Bolívars dream of creating the Great Colombia. Wrapped in his own delirium, he kidnaps the President of Colombia and tries to start a revolution. However, Mirandas beloved, Manuelita Saenz, intervenes in his dreams.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 108 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
Posted in Border, Corcoran, Lynn, Documentary, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, English, Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, Spanish, USA
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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 creative film is shot from the perspective of a German shepherd on the streets of Havana. It is a comic portrayal of the idiosyncrasies, foibles, and hypocrisy of the human species, as seen from the obviously superior point of view of a dog. Interspersed interviews highlight peoples strange and excessive behavior toward their pets.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 22 minutes
Description: The German filmmaker Wim Wenders directs a documentary about the Cuban musicians in the group Buena Vista Social Club. This group has toured the U.S. and their albums have been best sellers for months. The elder members have many unique stories to tell from a country that has been sealed off to American citizens for decades.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 101 minutes
Description: A small-time traveling sideshow plays over 9,000 miles of backcountry Brazil, a mixture of primitivism and progress. One of the most original and entertaining films of recent years, it is an exotic, entertaining, exuberant, and often very moving film by Carlos Diegues.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 110 minutes
Description: Freely adopted from the book Naufragios by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (written in 1542). The film portrays the saga of the adventures of a group of Spanish soldiers in Mexico. Their leader, Cabeza de Vaca, is considered to be one of the first Spaniards to come to some appreciation of the native Indians.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 112 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
Posted in Cardona, Joe, Cuba, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, History, Latinos/Chicanos, Social Issues, Spanish, USA
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Description: Film adaptation of the Naguib Mahfouz novel. Set in downtown Mexico City, the film portrays three neighbors: Rutilio, whose emerging homosexual orientation destroys his marriage; Susanita, an old maid who falls prey to a thief; and Alma, a virgin (Salma Hayek) who becomes a cocaine addict and prostitute. The film is among the most awarded films of Mexican cinema, having received some 49 international prizes.
Copies: 2 (VHS and DVD)
Length: 140 minutes
Description: Based on a true story from the 1800s, the film relates the tragic story of two young lovers: Camila, from a wealthy traditional family, and a young priest. They both defy family, church, and state in order to pursue their happiness. This is Maria Luisa Bemberg’s most acclaimed film, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 108 minutes
Posted in Argentina, Bemberg, Maria Luisa, Classic, Colonial, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, History, Spanish
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Description: Camino a la Escuela shows the journey of six kids and a teacher to the education center in the one of Perus most highest and iciest points.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 17 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: Produced by Ricardo Gaspar and Selma Santos under the auspices of the University of Bahia and the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, this video depicts the history of the 1897 massacre of thousands of followers of a millenarian movement in the backlands of Northeastern Brazil.
Copies: 2 (VHS)
Length: 90 minutes
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: A modern dance company rehearses a flamenco-ballet version of the Bizet opera, and the principal performers commence living out the scenario in the reality of their own daily lives. It is passionate, pulsating and beautifully danced: Gades is one of Spain’s most famous flamenco dancers the former director of the National Ballet.
Copies: 1 (VHS)
Length: 99 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
Posted in Biography, Brazil, Cinema/Theater, Documentary, English, English, Music/Dance, Portuguese, Solberg, Helena, VHS
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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: A discussion of the 1933 text Casa Grande & Senzala(Masters and Slaves) by Brazilian anthropologist and historian, Gilberto Freyre, this documentary consists of four 1-hour segments. The camera follows Prof. Edson Nery, friend and biographer of Freyre, on an exploration of Brazils colonial past that blurs the lines between history, art, and the social sciences. In addition to explaining the circumstances of colonization it also examines the darker, sensual side of Brazils past in an attempt to define what the country is today.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 120 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: Loosely based on the classic nineteenth-century Cuban novel, Cecilia Valdéz by Cirilo Villaverde. The movie is a reflection on the birth of Cuban nationality. A beautiful mestizo woman struggles to become a part of the world of the white aristocracy. She chooses Leonardo to accomplish her goals. Their tortuous passion is juxtaposed against the emergence of the nation and the struggle for independence.
Copies: 2 (VHS) Length: 120 minutes
Description: This educational video aimed at children is separated into three sections. The first section explains what Cinco de Maya is, why it is celebrated and its importance. The second section talks about the history of Cinco de Mayo. The third section talks about how the holiday is celebrated. It includes music, arts and crafts, food, parades and general festivities that take place on Cinco de Mayo.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 17 minutes Type: Documentary, Year: , Director: Sue Russell, Country: USA/Mexico, Format: DVD, Language: English, Subtitles: None
Description: One of Brazils most acclaimed films and winner of a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Inside Rio de Janeiros Central Station, two very unlikely souls are about to become inextricably linked. When a young boy witnesses his mothers accidental death, a lonely retired schoolteacher reluctantly takes the child under her wing.
Copies: 2 (VHS and DVD) Length: 106 minutes
Description: This film, based on ritual and legends from the Popul Vuh, as well as Tzeltal and Mayan stories, and shot in the Chiapas region of Mexico, focuses on a small Tzeltal village during a terrible draught. Desperate for relief, thirteen men set out on a quest to save their people from starvation.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 95 minutes
Description: This film centers around a young and eccentric radio show host who has a successful program on the air. His anonymous callers tell their stories of love, entanglements, misunderstandings and passionate affairs.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: In 2004, Aleida Guevara conducted an exclusive interview with Hugo Chavez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, exploring Venezuelas explosive revolutionary terrain post-April 2002 – when Chavez survived a coup attempt instigated by the United States. Featuring an interview with Jorge Garcia Carneiro, head of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, and with Venezuelans involved in the countrys many social programs, this film affords a rare opportunity to glimpse through the blockade of information imposed by the United States and into a country rich with hope, dreams and
oil. Chávez, Venezuela and the New Latin America" provides a unique insight into the changing political atmosphere in Latin America.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
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
Posted in Biography, Cuba, DVD-R, English, English, Feature Film, History, Latin America, Soderbergh, Steven, Spanish
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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
Posted in Bolivia, Cuba, Docudrama, DVD-R, English, English, Feature Film, History, Soderbergh, Steven, Spanish
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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
Posted in Docudrama, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Morales, Silvia, Spanish, USA, Women's Studies
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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: Critically acclaimed film about a cinema workshop that works with poor children in the slums, many of whom have never seen a film before, to understand cinema as a mode of expression. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 60 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
Posted in Bodanzky, Lais, Bolognesi, Luiz, Brazil, Cinema/Theater, Documentary, DVD, English, Portuguese, Social Issues
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Description: In 1942, Johann, a lonely German, travels through the Northeast of Brazil in his truck selling aspirins in small villages, using advertisement movies to promote the medicine. He meets and befriends a drifter but later must make a life changing decision between homeland and friends.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 99 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: A story about how cadets rebelling against authority in a military academy end up forming a junta with its own hierarchy and rules. Based on the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 135 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
Posted in Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Latinos/Chicanos, Migration/Immigration, Riker, David, Social Issues, Spanish, USA
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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
Posted in Documentary, DVD-R, English, German, Guatemala, History, Social Issues, Spanish, Stelzer, Uli, Walther, Thomas
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Description: An intimate portrait of the historic electoral campaign that made Evo Morales the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Through direct personal access to Morales, the filmmakers document his interactions with the union of Coca growers who formed his initial political base, the day-to-day management of the campaign, and attempts to educate voters about the electoral process. The film also explores connections between Morales and other leaders of the New Left in Latin America, as well as the conflicting views about his candidacy among more affluent Bolivians. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 94 minutes
Description: From the literary world of magic realism, this award-winning film adapted from the book by the same title chronicles life in Mexico near the Texas border in the early twentieth century. Unrequited passions, changing political situations and even madness emerge in this highly entertaining and endearing story. The cooking scenes and the portraits of food are spectacular, as are the romantic scenes. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 102 minutes
Posted in Arau, Alfonso, Drama, DVD, English, Feature Film, Gender/Sexuality, Mexico, Social Life and Customs, Spanish, Women's Studies
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Description: This delicious black comedy, set in the jungles of Brazil, tells the story of a French explorer who in vain tries to be accepted by the tribe of cannibals who has captured him. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: In the late 1990s and early 2000s the internal conflict in Columbia between the government, military groups and armed forces displaced many communities, mainly made up of peasant farmers. These farmers were forced to leave their homes. This documentary follows the stories and lives of some of the people from San Francisco de Asis. It lets us into their personal thoughts and opinions on the conflict, war, and their way of life. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 54 minutes
Description: An emotionally gut-wrenching drama from Colombia set during a violent civil war which occurred after the assassination of liberal leader Jorge Gaitán in 1948. Three people are trapped in Laura’s house during the Bogotazo riots, setting the scene for an unforgettable night.
Copies: 1(VHS) Length: 90 minutes
Description: Corazon Sangrante is a short film that uses various mythic elements of gender – the sacred heart, saints, la china poblana – all set to the music of an old Mexican ballad. Cuerpos de Papel, also set to music, explores the relationship between two lesbians.
Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 3 minutes each
Posted in Cuevas, Ximena, English, Feature Film, Gender/Sexuality, Mexico, Music/Dance, Religion, Shorts, Spanish, VHS, Women's Studies
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Description: A beautifully photographed and haunting tale of obsession and repressed desire played out against the backdrop of a decaying mansion in Santiago. Glum, middle-aged bachelor Don Andres hires Estela, a 17-year old country girl, to care for his wealthy and abusive grandmother. He grows increasingly obsessed with her, blinding himself to the threats around him and his own mental breakdown. Based on the novel by Jose Donoso.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 140 minutes
Description: Nena, Rosa and Ludmilla are three Cuban sisters that arrive in Madrid looking for a better life than the one they left behind in Havana. Their aunt, Maria, has lived in Spain for many years and has a business in which she intents to exploit her nieces for a roof to live in. A whole world of conflicts, deceits and comical situations face them, soon realizing that Madrid is not the paradise they intended to find.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 100 minutes
Description: An ingenious alchemist creates a device that grants him eternal life. Four hundred years later an elderly antique dealer discovers the properties of this unique invention. Though he grows younger every time he uses the device, there is a terrible price to pay. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 90 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
Posted in Arvizu, Laura Irene, Border, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, USA
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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
Posted in Documentary, English, English, Latinos/Chicanos, Literature, Migration/Immigration, Nye, Shane, Spanish, USA, VHS
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Description: With passion and uncertainty, Tzunami, a small-town Cuban girl prepares for her quinceañera. The celebration is for her fifteen birthday –the official crossroads between innocence and maturity. This short film won nine international film awards, including the 1998 Berlin Jury Prize for the best short film. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 12 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
Posted in Cuba, Documentary, Dolgin, Gail, DVD-R, English, English, Franco, Vicente, Latin America, Social Life and Customs, Spanish, USA
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Description: This program gathers together the most representative of exiled Cuban filmmakers, who recount their personal experiences of having to abandon their work and start a new life away from their country, culture and natural environment. The program features clips of their film and photographs as it takes viewers on a journey from Cuba in the late 1950s to the lives of the filmmakers today. Although Castro encouraged the development of a state sponsored cinema in Cuba, opening doors for many talented filmmakers, his policies towards intellectuals led many of these same filmmakers to abandon the island, leaving behind a broken image, an interrupted flow of creativity which some were able to find again abroad but others were not. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 46 minutes
Description: This is a collection of five short experimental videos made by Cuban directors. Here is a brief description of each film: DeMoler (12 min) is a short documentary directed by Angel González about a small sugar mill and its meaning to its workers; Horizontes (3 min) is a silent animated film directed by Yemelí Cruz Revero and Adanoe Lima Cruz; 25 KM (19 min) is a film directed by Jeffery Puento that follows the journey of two Cuban women on their way to church; Freddy o el Sueño de Noel (7 min) is an experimental film directed by Waldo Ramirez that shows short clips of men fishing; Todo Por Ella (20 min), directed by Pavel Giroud, tells the story of a 19 year old male who is caught up in the world of sex, drugs, and debts. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 62 minutes
Description: This documentary traces the tangled paths and multifaceted identity of a black Cuban family in the Bronx. Both working-class and professional, black and Latino, foreign and native, Spanish-speaking and English-speaking, the family is shown in the constant process of negotiating its identity. On their arrival in Miami, the family immediately encountered racial segregation, and they were forced to choose their identity: Are you black or Spanish? The film explores the various experiences that each family member had in dealing with the realities of life as black Cuban-Americans in the Bronx. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 56 minutes
Description: In this lively road picture, three friends are contracted by a notorious gangster to create a carved statue depicting the Virgin Mary for a religious celebration in Bolivia. Domingo is the one commissioned to carve the life-size figure. After carving it, Joaquin, a gambler manages to procure a truck to transport it. They are also joined by Domingo’s only friend Pepelucho. Loading the statue upright in the truck they set off on an incredible adventure. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 86 minutes
Description: A fascinating cinematic mix of documentary and fiction, Gómez (who died just before completing work on the film) looks at the marginal neighborhoods of Havana shortly after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution. With Mario Balmaseda and Yolanda Cuellar. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 79 minutes
Description: Marcello Mastroianni stars in this film by the late Maria Luisa Bemberg, one of Latin America’s greatest directors. Mastroianni plays Ludovico, a sophisticated world traveler who retires to a small town and is drawn to the most intelligent woman in the village, a dwarf who has been sheltered by her overprotective mother. A charming fable about love and the intrusion of society. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 102 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: 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 riveting documentary about the controversial and very important Colombian author and sometime filmmaker, Fernando Vallejo, begins with a powerful talk he gave to a crowd of youth in which he realistically told them that they were born into the most dangerous place on Earth. His points are illustrated with spliced footage of a country in disarray, full of poverty and assassinations. His speech and writings are laden with strong social and political commentary about his country. Included are home movies, interviews with his siblings, and the interspersing of poetry, politics, and discussion of Vallejos homosexuality. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 90 minutes
Description: This richly allegorical film, set amid bandits and prophets in arid Northeastern Brazil of the early twentieth century, is a classic work of cinema novo by one of Brazil’s premier directors, Gláuber Rocha. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 120 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: Diana is a ‘Devoradora,’ a man-eater. Men who fall in love with her get chewed up and spit out without any regard for their feelings. Diana an ambitious and frivolous woman, committed a crime and tried to blame some one else for the murder, and succeeds in some way, but she never thought her punishment would be just as big. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 117 minutes
Description: El Día que Me Quieras is a meditation on the last picture taken of Che Guevara, as he lay dead on a table surrounded by his captors. Freddy Alborta, the photographer of the famous image, gives an interview as part of this documentary investigation of the power of photography. The film provokes a sense of loss and mourning, grounded, however, in Ches placement in the context of Latin American intellectual life. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 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: The Motorcycle Diaries is an adaptation of a journal written by Ernesto Che Guevara when he was 23 years old. He and his friend, Alberto Granado are typical college students who, seeking fun and adventure before graduation, decide to travel across Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru in order to do their medical residency at a leper colony. The two best friends start off with the same goals and aspirations, but by the time the film is over, it’s clear what each man’s destiny has become. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 128 minutes
Posted in Argentina, Biography, Brazil, Chile, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Literature, Peru, Salles, Walter, Spanish
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Description: Includes thirty-five interesting scenes and situations from a love story where the heartbeat ups and downs of a couple; Diastole and Cistole is a creative sample of couples relations; their happy moments, misfortunes and the games we play. Humor, jealousies and crazy ideas are the main ingredients of this funny and awarded comedy. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: Funny, sexy, and intoxicating. A ribald folktale about a young widow, her respectable new husband, and her dynamic but dead first husband who refuses to stay buried, featuring the sensual Sonia Braga as Dona Flor. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 106 minutes
Description: The great Soviet filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein went to Mexico in 1929 to shoot the film Qué vive México using surrealist and muralist influence. The project was never finished. However this documentary film follows the work of Eisenstein including stills of footage, interviews with collaborators, and photographs and studies of the project. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 90 minutes
Description: The psychological study of a man who pursues and marries a young woman only to become obsessed with insane jealously over her supposed infidelity. As in other Buñuel films, beneath the calm and predictable world presented is the surreal logic of a dream which becomes a nightmare. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 88 minutes
Description: This rare example of classic Mexican cinema examines the corrupted ideals of the Revolution in the story of an opportunistic landowner who faces the choice of remaining loyal to a general in Zapata’s army and being financially ruined or saving his own skin. The character of the general is clearly modeled on Zapata himself. Copies: 3 (DVD and VHS) Length: 81 minutes
Posted in Classic, de Fuentes, Fernando, Drama, DVD and VHS, English, Feature Film, History, Mexico, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish
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Description: A portrait of a country under assault from Washington and the World Bank. This documentary shows the impact of structural adjustment, privatization and the global sweatshop economy on the people of El Salvador. It also explores the posible alternatives through interviews with activists in the women’s movement, labor leaders and the FMLN. Historical footage takes you from the start of the civil war in 1980 to the economic war of the ’90s, including new and inspiring images of strikers inside a Free Trade Zone.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 30 minutes
Description: This film documents the womens movement in Ecuador and womens increased importance in the community and the economy in which they live. This film explores how womens roles have increased by forming organizations and by obtaining jobs previously only open to men such as teaching and medicine.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 20 minutes
Description: This powerful and personal documentary tells the story of Elvia Alvarado, a peasant woman who has been struggling for years to enforce an agrarian reform law that has been in the books since 1972. The video provides historical background about the need for agrarian reform in Honduras, explaining the dependence on export crops, the powerful military, and control by U. S. aid. It also gives a perspective on other social issues in the country. Copies: 1 Length: 27 minutes
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: The story of five women’s lives interwoven with festivities, music, poetry, and art in the historically matrifocal Zapotec region of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 15 minutes
Description: Based on a short story by Gabriel García Márquez. A teenage girl is exploited as a sexual slave by her greedy grandmother. An erotic black comedy laden with sexual fantasy, bawdy humor and sly political allegory. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 103 minutes
Description: There are over 800,000 students enrolled in migrant education programs in the United States and, of those, only 45-50% ever finish high school. “Escuela”, the sequel to Hannah Weyer’s critically acclaimed documentary “La Boda”, personalizes these glaring statistics through the honest portrait of a teenage Mexican-American farm worker, Liliana Luis. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 minutes
Description: Based on a true story, this film is set in the beautifully majestic landscape of rural Brazil. Darlene, a determined woman, abruptly uproots herself from her small town to find a man who can fulfill her desires. Three years later and still single, Darlene returns to her hometown and accepts a modest marriage proposal from her humble neighbor Osias. Before long, Darlene finds herself in a grueling work routine while Osias oversees from the comfort of a hammock. The film portrays Darlene’s struggle to find happiness and love in this isolated town in Brazil. Best Pictures and Best Actress at Cinema Brazil Festival. Official Selection 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 107 minutes
Description: A film biography about Evita Perón, the work seeks to portray the political acumen and skill of a consummate politician–"the power behind the throne"–of the populist Argentine, Juan Perón. The film represents an Argentine perspective grounded in history rather than treatments of Evita such as Andrew Lloyd Weber musical and Madonna versions. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 114 minutes
Description: Two of Cubas leading hip-hop groups, Obsesion and Doble Filo, have formed the collective La Fabri_K to showcase their art. This film follows the artists from their homes in Havana through their eye-opening concert tour in the United States, exploring the conflicts they confront along the way. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 62
Description: Based on a fragment from his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, this film was conceived and co-written by Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez. It tells the story of Orestes, a wealthy factory owner who falls madly in love with a married pigeon breeder. Part of the film series Amores Difíciles. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 73 minutes
Description: Favela Rising documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of his family and many friends, Anderson Sá is a former drug-trafficker who turns social revolutionary in Rio de Janeiros most feared slum. Through hip-hop music, the rhythms of the street, and Afro-Brazilian dance, he rallies his community to counteract the violence and oppression. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: This documentary is a personal profile of Fidel Castro and a view of the developments since the revolution 10 years before. There are a lot of images of Fidel: listening to complaints, arguing, laughing, and philosophizing. There is beautiful footage of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and of Fidel and Che Guevara in the mountains. Also there are interviews with political prisoners. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 96 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: Two sisters from the state of Minas Gerais are reunited after several years apart when their father dies and are forced to confront each other about the ill feelings generated by the hurts of the distant past. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 84 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
Posted in Cardona, Joe, Cuba, de Varona, Mario, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Latinos/Chicanos, Politics/Human Rights, Religion, Spanish, USA
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Description: A single, iconic image of Ernesto Che Guevara has been remembered, revered and reproduced over the years. In this documentary, photographer Alberto Korda recounts his feelings at the moment he snapped the world famous photo. A fast-paced collage of images follows, showing how this photo was used internationally as a symbol of inspiration in liberation and human rights struggles. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 15 minutes
Description: This thriller is based on the true-life events. In 1969, the MR-8 urban guerrillas kidnap the US Ambassador to Brazil (Alan Arkin) to demand the release of prisoners held by the military junta. The dictatorship’s secret police close in on the bungled operation while time runs out. Now, the diplomats life hangs in the balance, caught between a government unwilling to cooperate, and his fear for the captors themselves. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 107 minutes
Posted in Barreto, Bruno, Biography, Brazil, Drama, DVD, English, English, Feature Film, History, Portuguese
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Description: This award-winning film raises issues of tolerance and diversity by presenting sexual, artistic, and ultimately political struggles in Cuba through the story of several individuals. Through the touching relationship of a middle-aged gay artist and a young idealistic student, Alea portrays many of the current debates and ideologies impacting the lives of Cubans. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 112 minutes
Description: On her deathbed artist Frida Kahlo (played by Ofelia Medina) conjures up images and memories of her life as a painter, revolutionary and woman of the world. Her stormy relationship with muralist Diego Rivera, her tender hospitality for exiled Leon Trotsky, her struggle for acceptance as an artist, and the travail of her illnesses and injuries are all recalled in a style reminiscent of her own work, simultaneously sophisticated and primitive, flamboyant and delicate. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 108 minutes
Posted in Art, Biography, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Leduc, Paul, Mexico, Spanish, Women's Studies
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Description: The story of two Brazilian families who put everything at risk to cross the border into the United States from Mexico, in search of a better life. Having gotten over the first leg of their journey, they all confront unexpected obstacles as they struggle to both reach their goals and adapt to their new reality. They fight for their dreams with the same courage and determination with which they cross new frontiers that appear on their way. Entirely based on true stories that were compiled to make up this beautiful and moving story. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 106 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: Based on a story by Juan Rulfo. A poor man is given a near-dead fighting cock and he nurses him back to life. While this brings him life, he finds that when he forgets his roots and he soon runs out of luck. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 minutes
Description: The treatment of gays and lesbians in Cuba after the Revolution has been a topic of great controversy. This film depicts, through personal experiences, the conflicts arising in this marginalized sector of Cuban society. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 57 minutes
Description: 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: 69 minutes
Posted in Culture/Festivals/Food, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Indigenous Peoples, Mexico, Shorts, Social Life and Customs, Spanish, Various, Yucatec Maya
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Description: Gertrudis Bocanegra Lazo de la Vega–played by award winning actress Ofelia Medina–a criollo woman who participated in the Mexican war of independence, is the central character of this film. Gertrudis becomes acutely aware of the social injustice prevalent in Mexico in the late Colonial period and gets involved in the Hidalgo’s movement for independence. Using the technique of flashback, she tells her story from her prison cell in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 98 minutes
Posted in Biography, Colonial, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, History, Medina, Ernesto, Mexico, Spanish
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Description: A tragicomedy about the foibles of a petty Government official, who becomes a casualty of consolidation under the Salinas administration. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 108 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
Posted in Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, Gomez-Pena, Guillermo, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Spanish, USA, Valquez, Gustavo
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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: During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a misplaced gringo in Mexico City helplessly watches the atrocities through Mexican television news. Taking a tip from his local neighbors, he begins to sell chewing gum and wash car windows in the streets…to raise money for a guerrilla army to take out Bush. “Gringo-thon” is a personal expression of protest of an expatriate living abroad and a meditation of the complexities of “gringo” identity. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 17 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: 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
Posted in Documentary, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, English, Hill, Cynthia, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Spanish, Thompson, Charles, USA
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Description: This film presents a revisionist view of the life Ernesto Che Guevara. Various interviews with former comrades of Guevara present a portrait of the man that is a stark contrast to the official mythology of Ches historical role in the revolution. Their stories present a cruel, vindictive side of Ches personality responsible for a number of botched revolutionary ventures, including the campaign in Bolivia that led to his death. Far from the selfless hero of official Cuban history, viewers are presented with a cowardly, incompetent ideologue whose disregard for the views of others led to his downfall. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 71 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: Cuba is a land of music and consequently a land of musicians. Habana Blues is full of lots of extraordinary music, but what makes it so special is the way Zambrano details the lives of the protagonists and the choices they are forced to make regarding their music, their families and their country. Cannes Festival Official Selection, 2005. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 115 minutes
Type: Documentary, Year: 2008, Director: Jose Araujo, Country: Brazil, Format: DVD, Language: English, Subtitles: None
Type: Documentary, Year: 1990, Director: Felipe Bernaza, Country: Cuba, Format: DVD-R, Language: Spanish, Subtitles: English
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
Type: Documentary, Year: 2001, Director: Cecilia Ricciarelli and Diego Malquori, Country: Cuba, Format: DVD-R, Language: Spanish, Subtitles: English
Description: Set in pre-revolutionary Cuba (late 1950s), this winner of the 1990 Grand Coral Prize in Havana deals with the inner conflicts of a young girl’s coming of age, her identification with a Hemingway she never meets, and a society she finds confining. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: Rafael Belvedere makes his living running a restaurant and the combination of a stressful job and familial tensions are wearing him down to a frazzle. It’s been almost a year since he last paid a visit to his mother, who is battling Alzheimer’s in a retirement home. When his father decides that he wants to renew their wedding vows the affair turns out to be far more complicated than Rafael imagined. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 124 minutes
Description: Set in the 1980s, the film follows the sheltered wife of a wealthy businessman who finds herself face to face with a legacy of terror as she begins to discover that her adopted daughter may have been stolen from a family "disappeared" during the Argentine military dictatorship in the 1970s. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 112 Minutes
Description: This film includes three stories about football, one of the most important twentieth-century rituals. A third division player from Santiago de Chile is bribed, but does not realize that his behavior betrays more than the loyalty of his team-mates. A boy from Calama, Chile wins the local derby pichanga, a soccer match that can last all afternoon, but he loses the few pesos he acquired by pawning his mother’s last possessions. Francisco, a boy from the city, is stuck in a remote corner of the southern island of Chiloé on the day that Chile has to play its qualifying match for the World Cup. The only TV is in the house of the Serón sisters. While the local male population gathers to watch the match, the sisters decide which of them will initiate the young Francisco into love. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 87 minutes
Description: Three people travel along the lonely roads of Patagonia. Don Justo (80), the retired owner of a warehouse, flees to look for his long-missing dog. Roberto (40), a traveling salesman, follows the same road with an awkward load: a birthday cake for the son of a young widow. Traveling with her young daughter, María Flores, is a poor woman who has won the lottery on a TV program. Through traveling on their own, their paths eventually cross one another. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 93 minutes
Description: With César Evora, Jorge Trinchet, and Daisy Granados. A young ambitious man begins climbing the social and political ladder in Cuba in the 1930s. After the fall of Machado in 1933, his political career takes off, his ethics and scruples continue to decline, and his connections to family and friends deteriorate. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 106 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: Amid the debris of a Colombian cyclone lands an old man with enormous wings, whose seemingly miraculous anatomy attracts the curious and devout from around the world. Silent and disheveled, this fantastical “creature” is housed in a chicken coop as his host and the onlookers wait for his heavenly message, which turns out to be a mixed blessing. Original story by Gabriel García Márquez, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Part of the film series Amores Difíciles. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: In this film based on the book by Clarice Lispector, Macabea is a young woman from the countryside of northeast Brazil who lives in the sprawling city of Sao Paulo. The mixture of bitter reality and gentle, humorous fantasy has been compared with the works of Fellini, Chaplin and DeSica, and earned Suzana Amaral’s first feature status as an instant cinematic classic. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 96 minutes
Description: How can it be that after Pinochet’s repressive regime the former general can still count on the unconditional support of so many Chileans? Constructed from a series of portraits that reveal the breadth and complexity of Pinochetism in Chile, I LOVE PINOCHET offers a unique look at the social and political system left by Augusto Pinochet, as seen from his followers point of view. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 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: Six short documentaries about the protests and populist movement taking place in Oaxaca. Interviews, photographs, and documentation of particular events, like the attempted takeover of Benito Juarez Autonomous University by the Federal Police on November 2nd 2006 are included. Various struggles and themes are analyzed in these short productions that document and present images of the current repression of Oaxacan citizens. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 5-12 minutes
Description: Based on a short story El Gallo de Oro by Juan Rulfo, this film tells the story of Dionosio Pinzon, a Mexican peasant living with his mother. Born with a deformed hand, and living a very meager life, Dionosio’s luck turns around when he is given a losing gamecock which he nurses back to health. He trains the bird for fighting, begins to make money, and begins a relationship with a gold-digging singer. As he makes money, though, he begins to become more and more corrupt–and it becomes apparent that his winning streak will not last. Remake of the 1964 film El Gallo de Oro. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 130 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
Posted in Boden, Anna, Cuba, Documentary, DVD-R, English, Fleck, Ryan, Music/Dance, Social Issues, Spanish
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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: Cuban boxing legend Kid Chocolate was the first Cuban to win a world boxing title, and is still considered by many as the best Cuban boxer ever. In this documentary produced by the Cuban film institute ICAIC, Chocolate recounts tales of his boxing career and experiences as a celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 19 minutes
Description: Milka has known Alexis since they were children, and loved him for as long as she can remember. When Alexis falls in love with and decides to marry another woman, Milka makes a deal with a mysterious stranger with unusual power in an attempt to win him back. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 minutes
Type: Documentary, Year: 1998, Director: Bran Taylor, Country: Mexico, Format: DVD-R, Language: English and Spanish, Subtitles: English
Type: Feature Film, Year: 1993, Director: Eliseo Subiela, Country: Argentina, Format: DVD-R, Language: Spanish, Subtitles: English
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
Posted in Comedy, Drama, DVD, English, Estrada, Luis, Feature Film, History, Mexico, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Spanish
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Description: This is a series of short film clips that tell stories about people who, in one way or another, are affected by the Olympics. These 11 short stories bring out a lot of different emotions in the viewer; they are comical, sad, and informative. The cortometrajes range in length from 4 to 20 minutes. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 77 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: Dolores Chimal–known as "Lolo"–lives on the outskirts of Mexico City. He lives a normal life with his family, until one day he is assaulted upon leaving the factory where he works. As a result of the beating, he remains in the hospital for a week and loses his job. This unleashes a series of violent events which causes "Lolo" to lose his sense of right and wrong. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 88 minutes
Description: The mystical story of the Virgen of Guadalupe unfolds as Huan Francisco Urrusti identifies and explores an important aspect of Mexican culture. Through interviews with historians, priests, anthropologists, and psychologists, the role of religious syncretism in Mexican culture is analyzed, explaining the relationship between the collective unconscious and the history of the country. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 96 minutes
Description: A classic of Cuban cinema, which looks at the lives of three women, an upper class Lucía in the 1890s, a middle class Lucía in the 1930s, and a working class Lucía in the 1960s. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 160 minutes
Description: Breaking new ground in the world of Cuban art, this is the first documentary to focus exclusively on the art and artists from Cuba’s easternmost region: Oriente. This film takes the viewer on an insightful journey where one will be introduced to Eastern Cuba’s most highly acclaimed painters in this culturally rich region by way of studio visits and interviews as well as excursions into the countryside. A unique and delightful brand of Cuban humor often permeates the content and adds to the emotional and intellectual impact of the story. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 43 minutes
Description: Set on the vast and beautiful plains of central Brazil, LUZIA is a movie in the tradition of the American western. Luzia is a cowgirl caught in a clash between squatters and the powerful ranch owners. Her extraordinary rodeo skills and stunning beauty attract the attention of the landowners whose history of marauding returns to gain revenge. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 112 minutes
Description: A playful comedy about infidelity and jealously set among members of the urban middle class. Gerard is a young attractive gynecologist who takes advantage of his profession to seduce the women of the neighborhood. His escapades set off a tragic chain of events as one woman’s husband confronts the possibility that his wife has been unfaithful. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 93 minutes
Description: The talents of top director Roberto Gavaldon, novelist B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa combined to produce this gentle, moving fable on human morality. Macario is a young peasant, despondent over his inability to provide for his family. On the Day of the Dead, he meets Death, disguised as another peasant, who trades him the power to cure the dying for a portion of turkey. Macarios fame spreads around the country, and he soon has a flourishing business until a local doctor decides to call in the Inquisition. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 minutes
Description: Set in 1973, in Santiago, Chile, Machuca is a poignant coming-of-age film, drawn from the filmmakers childhood. Two boys from different economic backgrounds become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets lead Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup, changing forever their lives, their relationship and their country. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 115 minutes
Description: Nominated for best film award and recipient of the Special Jury’s Prize in Havana’s 1994 film festival, this movie tells the story of a Havana University Physics Professor’s torturous relationship with her daughter during the special Period in Cuba. Based on the 1984 short story by Mirta Yáñez "Beatles Contra Duran Duran," the film marks a departure from director Fernando Pérez previous style of documentary-like realism and evokes a hypnotic trance-like feel as it presents generational conflict and the adolescent search for identity as metaphoric representations of post-revolutionary Cuban society. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 58 minutes
Description: This Academy award-nominated documentary about the Argentinean mothers’ movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 "disappeared" sons and daughters is extraordinary. As well as giving an understanding of Argentinean history in the 70’s and 80’s, it shows the empowerment of women in a society where they are expected to be silent. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 64 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: As one of the most prominent Afro-Colombian figures of the 20th century, Manuel Zapata Olivella did many things to promote Colombian culture and the history of African-descended peoples in Colombia. This documentary deals with various aspects of his versatile and prolific career. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 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
Posted in Angulo, Sonia, Documentary, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, English, Landau, Saul, Mexico, Social Issues, Spanish, USA
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Description: When María Cano (Maria Eugenia Dávila) was recruited into the labor movement in Colombia in 1925 she was prepared for the revolution to come. She worked strenuously to organize workers becoming something of a folk hero. What she was not prepared for, after her five years of imprisonment (beginning 1928), was that the whole movement would lose steam and that she would have to live the rest of her life with her lost dreams of what might have been. These feelings are very strongly represented in her poetry. This biographical movie shows her life during those years, and considers her bitterness in later life Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 106 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: A rare view of what day-to-day life is like for the gay and drag community in modern Cuba. This award-winning documentary is the first since the 1959 revolution to examine the issues gays and transvestites face in the context of evolving attitudes towards homosexuality in Cuba, where people are judged first on what they achieve for their country. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 74 minutes
Description: In this rare exclusive interview, Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Márquez speaks about his best -selling novels, his role in the Latin American cinema, and his recent foray into–of all things–melodramatic soap opera. By mixing material shot in Colombia and Cuba, with historical footage and clips from his films, this video paints an impressive portrait of one of South America’s most expressive novelists. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 59 minutes
Description: "O Massacre de Corumbiara" advocates the need for radical agrarian reform in Brazil through an emotional examination of a massacre of peaceful, landless rural laborers by the military police in the Amazonian state of Rondônia in August 1995. It includes testimony from witnesses to the massacre and provides a side of the story ignored or simplified by most of the mainstream press. Filmed by Georges Bourdoukan and the Chico Mendes Committee three days after the killings, the video brings the plight of landless Brazilians to non-Brazilian eyes. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 16 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: 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: Made by Raul Ferrera-Balanquet. An exceptionally lyrical and visual video about the encounter of two young gay Mexican men in the city of Mérida, Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 7 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: 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: This film is a musical road trip deep into the heart of Brazil. Along the trip, the director showcases the diversity and richness of the Brazilian Music. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 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: Seventeen-year old Natividad is bored with her life in her village. Meanwhile Benjamin, fifty something, fat, and the fool of the village, is in love with Natividad. Incited by his friends, Benjamin decides to kidnap her. Leandro, Natividad’s boyfriend, interferes in the kidnapping and unleashes a violent episode which determines the fate of Natividad and restores the deteriorated image of Benjamin in the eyes of the villagers.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: They were the women a man would silence. Robbed of their dignity and hope, they became his anonymous victims. Political prisoners, wives, mothers, writers, artists, children, lost at sea
Forgotten over and over. Once deprived of their voices, they now speak.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 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
Posted in Biography, Drama, DVD-R, English, Environment/Geography, Feature Film, Godoy, Armando Robles, Peru, Social Issues, Spanish
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Description: An intriguing documentary on the life of the renowned and vibrant filmmaker. Landeta is seen in her 70’s remembering her productive years. Includes interview with filmmaker Marcela Fernandez Violante.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 30 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 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: The charming story of the brief meeting of two children from opposite socioeconomic status. One is a girl from the countryside, the other, a boy from the city on his way to the United States.
Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 17 minutes
Description: After choir rehearsals, two teenage girls, Amalia and Josefina, get together in the parish church to discuss faith, vocation and kissing. Not far from Josefina’s house is the run-down Hotel Termas, owned by Amalia’s family, where she lives with her mother Helena. A chance encounter between Amalia and Dr. Jano, who is attending a medical conference at the hotel, allows the young girl to at last find her vocation.
Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 100 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: A documentary about the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s struggle to attain justice for the Maya Indians of Chiapas. The film includes footage of various figures in the movement, including the elusive subcomandante Marcos. Produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 24 minutes
Description: Petty rivalries erupt into a local civil war in this satire of political and human follies. Based on the novel by Osvaldo Soriano.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: The brutal kidnapping, torture, and killing of six out of seven high school students in 1976 is the subject of this powerful docudrama, a highly-charged, emotionally gripping condemnation of Argentina’s military rulers at that time. One of the students survived the ordeal, and this story is based on his experiences and knowledge of the tortures they endured under a military government that laid down oppressive restrictions on student activities
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 95 minutes
Description: Mayan Indian peasants organize in an effort to improve their lot in life. After the army destroys their village and kills their family, a teenage brother and sister decide they must flee to El Norte. After receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant on strategies for traveling through Mexico, they arrive in Los Angeles, where they try to make a new life as young, uneducated, and illegal immigrants.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 139 minutes
Posted in Border, Drama, DVD, English, Feature Film, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Nava, Gregory, Spanish, USA
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Description: Two young Jewish girls, born Mexican, shape their lives under the pressures of the early sixties and their own awareness of conflicting loyalties. The subject of the life of the Jewish community within the ethnic complexity of modern urban Mexico is new to the Mexican cinema. Novia que te vea reveals the cultural diversity of the Jewish community and the social and political attitudes that flourish in it.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 115 minutes
Description: In this comedy, a Dominican widower, Balbuena (Luisito Martí), decides to leave the economic strictures of island life behind for the streets-are-paved-with-gold promise of the Big Apple.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 104 minutes
Description: In this comically-numbered sequel, Balbuena (Luisito Martí) returns to New York, where he must marry an American citizen to remain in the country legally.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 117 minutes
Description: A poetic documentary exploration of efforts by members of the Afro-Brazilian communities in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil to combat the spread of AIDS by drawing from their own cultural and religious traditions.
Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 60 minutes
Description: In Oggun, Gloria Rolando relates the mythical story of the Yoruba god Oggun, the tireless warrior who, enamored of his mother, decided as punishment to imprison himself in the mountains: Only Ochun, goddess of love, succeeded in captivating him when she let fall a few drops of honey on the lips of the god of metal, war, progress, and civilization. This documentary includes chants, dances, a “tambor” (Yoruba religious ceremony with the bata drums), and the experiences of Lázaro Ros, a legendary Akpwon, or lead singer in the Yoruba tradition, who not only made his the beauty of the African chants, but had the opportunity to sing them in trips throughout the world.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 55 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: A historical discussion among North American and Mexican historians about the diary and life of Rosalie Evans, a disgruntled North American property owner who lost her land during the Mexican Revolution Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 60 minutes
Description: This is a comedy drama that captures the joy and sadness of life in much of South America. It is based on the true story of four friends who decide to install a communal pirate radio station. Called Rádio Favela, this station is erected in a shanty-town to give voice to the outcasts’ complaints. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 93 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: Feature film by Fina Torres, director of the international hit Celestial Clockwork, and winner of the Camera dOr at the Cannes Film Festival. An important historical milestone in Latin American cinema, Oriana is a film about Maria, a young woman who returns to the home of her aunt Oriana in the Venezuelan jungle, where she spent summers as a child. Oriana has passed away and willed the house to Maria. When Maria returns to prepare the house for sale, she is struck by various memories of her time there as a child, memories that gradually lead her to discover a secret that had been kept for decades. Copies: 1( DVD) Length: 88 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
Posted in Bolivia, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Indigenous Peoples, Pinto, Marcelino, Quechua, Social Issues, Spanish
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Description: The synthetic cultural identities resulting from the forcible conversion of Mexicos indigenous people by the Spanish are explored through the eyes of Cortezs mistress Tecuíchpo and a fictional half-brother, the illegitimate son of Montezuma II. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 110 minutes
Description: An impassioned exploration of the roots of black rebellion in nineteenth-century Cuba, based on a famous Cuban anti-slavery novel of the period. Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 98 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
Posted in Brazil, Documentary, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, English, Environment/Geography, Graham, Laura, Indigenous Peoples, Portuguese, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish, Venezuela
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Description: In Colombia’s Cauca region, the Nasa (Paez) people’s movement known as “Freedom for Mother Earth” has long fought to recover their lands. This video documents the group’s recent protest, which resulted in harsh reprisals and suffering for the community. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 22 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: Awarded best film in 1990 at the New York Festival Latino. A theater group in crisis is the setting for this story. Its aging actors, on stage as in life, confront their fears and failures. The story takes a new twist when a group of young actors join the group, unleashing a chain of unexpected events. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 110 minutes
Description: These are two short animated films set in Bolivia, one made in Bolivia and the other in Switzerland. In “Paulina,” a condor saves an Aymara girl from being obliged to become a maid in La Paz. In “En camino,” a highland family moves to the big city to find a better life, but ultimately settles in the jungle, growing coca. (En camino is a silent film, with the German title Unterwags.) Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 9 minutes; 10 minutes
Posted in -Silent, Animated, Bolivia, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Indigenous Peoples, Shorts, Spanish, Switzerland
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Description: Based on one of the masterpieces of Spanish American literature, the novel by Juan Rulfo was adapted for the screen by Carlos Fuentes. Juan Preciado travels to the town of Comala to find his father, Pedro Páramo (John Gavin); instead he finds a phantom town where death is the reigning presence. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Posted in Classic, Drama, DVD and VHS, English, Feature Film, History, Literature, Mexico, Spanish, Velo, Carlos
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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: Based on The Pearl by John Steinbeck, who also assisted with the cinematography, this stunning film portrays the struggles of a poor Mexican family. Set in a community in Baja, the film centers around the family’s efforts to survive and save their baby by diving for pearls. A disturbing vision of poverty and racism, and a visual masterpiece, due to the direction of Emilio Fernandez and the photography of Gabriel Figueroa. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 77 minutes
Posted in Classic, Drama, DVD, English, Feature Film, Fernandez, Emilio, Indigenous Peoples, Literature, Mexico, Spanish
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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
Posted in Art, Documentary, Drama, DVD-R, English, English, Guzzetti, Alfred, Meiselas, Susan, Nicaragua, Rogers, Richard, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish, USA
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Description: Ten-year-old Pixote (Portuguese slang for Peewee) is one of three million homeless children in Brazil. Hauled off to a crowded detention center, wide-eyed Pixote witnesses rapes, beatings and other acts of random violence by both the guards and the inmates. With the tranvestite Lilica and his lover Dito, Pixote escapes from the reform school and embarks on a life of violence and crime. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 127 minutes
Description: This comedic film gives us a nonconformist view about everything. The heroine (Daisy Granados, in the role of a lifetime) is constantly attacked by a mysterious hand that throws eggs at her house. Limited by her prejudices and fears and incapable of finding a way out of her internal conflicts, she comes to a tragic and unexpected end. Tabío also shows and criticizes real characters and situations of contemporary Cuban society. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 98 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
Posted in Bergan, Renee, Creole, Documentary, DVD-R, Economics/Development, English, English, Haiti, Schuller, Mark, Social Issues, Women's Studies
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Description: This is a silent film that focuses on opium addiction in early twentieth century Mexico. It is combined with stories of bandits and a poor detective who strives to be like the then famous Nick Carter. EL PUÑO DE HIERRO was the first movie that touched upon the issue of drug addiction in Mexico. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
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: This film by a young Brazilian woman deals with racism as it impacts and is expressed through the daily lives of black Brazilians. It demystifies the idea that Brazilian society is without racial prejudices. Bronze medal winner at the International Film and TV Festival of New York. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 50 minutes
Description: Sergei Eisenstein’s lost masterpiece documents the history of Mexico and its people. With sequences devoted to the Edenic land of Tehuantepec, the savage majesty of the bullfight, the struggles of the noble peon and the hypnotic imagery of the Day of the Dead “Qué viva México!” is a vivid tapestry of Mexican life. The film was shot on location in Mexico by Edouard Tisse and financed by American novelist Upton Sinclair. It was later reassembled and restored by Grigory Alexandrov. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 50 minutes
Posted in Art, Cinema/Theater, Drama, DVD and VHS, Eisenstein, Sergei, English, Feature Film, History, Mexico, Russian
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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
Posted in Cuba, Drama, DVD-R, English, Feature Film, Marcovich, Carlos, Mexico, Social Issues, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish, USA
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Description: A handsome tale of revolution and conflict, set in the mid-1600s. Disgruntled slaves in northeastern Brazil leave their plantations and form Quilombo de Palmares-their own democratic nation in the jungle. This doesn’t sit well with the Portuguese landowners, who send in their troops to restore control. This historical saga is a stirring fusion of folklore, political impact, and dynamic story-telling, realized in vibrant colors and set to the pulsing beat of Gilberto Gil’s musical score. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 114 minutes
Posted in Brazil, Colonial, Diegues, Carlos, Drama, DVD, English, Feature Film, History, Portuguese, Social Movements/Resistance
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Description: From the heart of the Altos in the Chiapaneco province of Chenalho, this community and indigenous oriented radio station broadcasts in Tzotzil and Tzeltal. The radio is an effort to strengthen their fight for justice and defend their culture and dialect. This documentary will take us on a journey through the Chiapas mountains with indigenous voices Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 19 minutes
Description: It focuses on the upheaval that the people of the isolated village of Rapayan are experiencing. Living in Peru’s highlands, they are the direct descendants of a once great civilization. As we follow Canadian archaeologist Alexis Mantha and his team searching their ancestors’s ruins, we discover a culture that has forgotten its past. Conflict arises. The ruins threaten to crumble and Rapayan’s peace is now in jeopardy. The village is going through a turning point. The signs are there. A foreigner is unearthing mummies. Past, present and future are becoming blurred as a paved road advances towards Rapayan and modernity is catching up with it’s people. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 52 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: A remarkably complicated documentary that took more than five years to complete, Recuerdos centers on Luis Frank, a Lithuanian immigrant who serves as an American spy in Paris during WWI and a republican militant in the Spanish Civil War before seeking exile in Mexico. Taking a detailed journey through Luis Frank’s rich and varied past, the film offers a remarkably personal journey through a century marked by war, remembrance, and rebirth. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 86 minutes
Description: A dramatization on John Reeds newspaper account of the Mexican Revolution. This film explores the young journalists adventures with Pancho Villas army in 1913-1914. Through encounters with Generals Villa and Urbina as well as ordinary soldiers, Reed sheds his journalistic impartiality and becomes a potent advocate of the Revolution. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 104 minutes
Description: A depiction of the Aztec myth of the creation of the Fifth Sun. It also explains why the Aztecs were cast out of their "Eden" resulting in their eventual conquest. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 91 minutes
Description: Shot in fluid vérité style, the film focuses on the stubborn survival of deeply-ingrained traditions of machismo and sexism in post-revolutionary society. Teresa is a housewife and mother whose involvement in political and cultural groups incurs the displeasure of her husband. This film is most appropriate for university students and adults, but may also be used in high school classroom settings. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 120 minutes
Description: This daring documentary about political muscle and media manipulation captures the short-lived overthrow of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Two independent filmmakers were present in April 2002, when the president’s powerful political enemies forcibly removed him from office, and when 48 hours later he remarkably returned to power amid cheering aides. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 74 minutes
Posted in Bartley, Kim, Documentary, DVD-R, English, English, History, O'Brian, Donnacha, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, Spanish, Venezuela
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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: Betty Faria stars as Fausta, a quirky cleaning lady whose sexy swinging hips open the door to a more comfortable life. When an old widower breaks the ice and buys Fausta perfume and a drink, she sees a way out of her dead-end marriage and the shanty town that traps her. The bawdy sitcom hilarity of Fausta and her relationships are infused with a deeper message in the film’s startling conclusion.
Copies: 1 (DVD)
Length: 90 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: A poet from the shadows, a filmmaker with no films and an enigmatic muse. Inspired by the work of Brazilian writer and poet Rodrigo Garcia Lopes, it is a sort of “false documentary” about the poet’s time in the city of Londrina in the fifties as told through the eyes of American filmmaker Jim Kleist. Neither the poet nor the filmmaker actually existed – they are both fictional characters. Satori Uso, the poet, was invented in 1986, and his haikus were published in the literary section of local Brazilian newspaper Folha de Londrina. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 17 minutes
Description: This blockbuster Brazilian feature uses soap-opera melodrama to tell the story of a beautiful romance between a reporter and a mining company executive. But the romance crumbles when the executive’s wife, long presumed dead, returns and drives the couple, the company, and the country to the brink of a national disaster. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 86 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: A comedy about the politics of exchanging residences, which reveals the practical problems of everyday life and the conflict between traditional and revolutionary values in modern Cuba. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 minutes
Description: Directed by Karim Ainouz, a young Brazilian American filmmaker, who traveled back to his home in Brazil to interview on film his five delightfully eccentric unmarried or widowed aunts on their views of love, family and marriage. These women all in their eighties or nineties seem more liberated and more at ease with certain issues than many people of today.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS)
Description: Three generations of women reflect the spiritual and social differences among traditional Mexico, the period of the Lázaro Cárdenas regime, and Mexico today. Based on Rosario Castellanos’ short story El Viudo Román. Copies: 1 (VHS) Length: 100 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: This drama centers around the friendship of two young wealthy provincial girls of the 1950s to depict a tale of seduction and infidelity, intimacy and melancholy. Through the classic Mexican game of "chance and destiny," this film by the acclaimed director Busi Cortés seeks to portray women of another time. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 86 minutes
Description: This film tells the story of two Sertanejos, the inhabitants of Sertão. Maria is the female reincarnation of Jesus, representing the strength of the Sartanejo women. She invites the Beatas (holy women) on a mission of prayer for which they journey through the countryside, witnessing social unrest among the population. Maria meets the hero of the peasants, the strong worker Antero whose history intermingles with hers. Through mythical dreams, visions, and stories heard along their journey, we witness the unfolding of Biblical prophecy in which Old Testament texts mingle with the folktales of the Sertão Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 102 minutes
Description: Shot in streets of Sao Paulo, THE SHOESHINE PRESIDENT asks Brazilians what they think about their new president, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva. From the heart of the celebrations, this film captures the heady atmosphere of history in the making–the most important chapter in Brazilian history for a generation. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 15 minutes
Description: A film director embarks upon a search for black women actresses to play the central dramatic role in his next project ? a musical comedy. Rather than opt for an experienced actress, he searches for the freshness and spontaneity of inexperience. By way of interviews with candidates, and the film crew, we are drawn to the underlying conflicts inherent in Cuba today. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 87 minutes
Description: With the old maestros of the tango on the verge of dying off, a young musician, Ignacio Varchausky, forms the Tango School Orchestra to ensure that the true spirit of the music is passed on to the next generation. This engaging film documents the efforts of Ignacio and Emilio Balcarce, a retired legendary violinist, bandoneonista and composer. Emilio collaborates with notable figures such as Pepe Libertella, Raúl Garello, Néstor Marconi and Ernesto Franco, amongst many more. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 79 minutes
Description: The first Guatemalan feature film. Neto is the eleven year old son of a Guatemalan official in the mid-fifties, during a period of turmoil when the elected government was threatened by a U.S. backed invasion. While political unrest forms a tense background, Neto – with only a child’s understanding of the adult world – tries to enjoy his youth anyway. He naturally gravitiates toward his flamboyant, irresponsible uncle more than his plodding, earnest father. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 106 minutes
Description: After the revolution of 1959 and the U.S. embargo that followed, the people of Cuba were left to fend for themselves. Deprived of even the most basic goods, many scavenge alleys and scrap heaps, giving new vitality to the discarded. Their recycled products are often remarkably ingenious and creative. For Andres the sculptor, Tomas the canary breeder, and the other subjects of Sin Embargo, even the greatest pressure – whether levied by government or circumstance – cannot crush the spirit nor quash the desire to forge a better life for themselves and their families. Shot entirely in Cuba, Sin Embargo is a look into the hearts and dreams of a struggling people and a tribute to their optimistic and resourceful determination to survive. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 49 minutes
Posted in Cheng, Katherine, Cuba, Documentary, DVD-R, English, Grey, Judith, Orner, Eva, Spanish
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Description: This chronicle of NAFTA and the Zapatista uprising includes interviews with key figured and grounds the conflict in questions of democracy and social change. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 56 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
Posted in Border, Cinema/Theater, Drama, DVD-R, English, English, Feature Film, Latinos/Chicanos, Mexico, Migration/Immigration, Rivera, Alex, Spanish, USA
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Description: In May 2006, indigenous and social organizations in Colombia were concentrated in the National Summit Traveling with sectoral actions. They demanded a national referendum against the Free Trade Agreement and the fulfillment of agreements signed with the Government for twenty years. This film tells the contempt, betrayal and brutality of the Colombian state against communities that were peacefully demanding their rights. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 24 minutes
Description: Ex-cop turned private eye Fernando Solórzano gets roped into investigating the murder of unidentified hooker Flora Martínez at a cheap Bogotá hotel; and, as the flashbacks unreel in classic film noir fashion, he starts to piece together her life through her relationships with a failed boxer, a blind lottery salesman, a cowardly bullfighter and a corrupt politician. However, as her real identity starts to emerge, Solórzano gradually realizes that he will have to take a personal interest in the case. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 110 minutes
Description: A musical documentary about choro, the first genuinely urban Brazilian music, which blended European, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous elements and formed the basis for popular musical styles such as Samba and Bossa Nova. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: Music is an important expression of Mexico’s cultural richness, and has always accompanied mostly all the activities of the Mexican people. Get to know through this program the most representative music, complemented with typical handicrafts and regional dresses of Mexico, in a magnificent colonial setting. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 45 minutes
Description: A visually stunning film that was made in Cuba between 1961 and 1964 by the acclaimed Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying). The camera work is amazing in this propaganda epic that portrays four vignettes of Cuba in the period immediately prior to the 1959 Revolution. The film is a rivetingly beautiful examination of the social and economic conditions in Cuba during the Batista era. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 141 minutes
Description: Silent motion picture footage of the Spanish-Cuban-American War and the subsequent Philippine insurrection produced by Edison pictures between 1898 and 1901. The two conflicts were the first in which the motion picture camera played a role. Most footage is staged for the hand-cranked camera, but views of ships, parades, and notable figures is also included. Silent with English captions Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 70 minutes
Description: In Uruguay in the early 1970s, an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods) is kidnapped by a group of urban guerillas. Using his interrogation as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between Uruguay’s government and the leftist Tupamaro guerillas. Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 115 minutes
Posted in DVD-R and VHS, English, Feature Film, French, Gavras, Costa, Montand, Yves, Salvatori, Renato, Uruguay, USA
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Description: The Stories of My Grandparents is a long-term project that brings to life the Mayan legends that are such an important part of the Yucatec Maya oral tradition. The project is inspired in Ana Rosa Suarte’s first attempts to put the stories that she heard as a child in video. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 15 minutes
Description: Filmed on location in Durham, North Carolina, Los Sueños de Angélica follows the life of a Latino couple striving to enter the mainstream of American society. Angélica and Roberto work multiple jobs and take English classes as a means of realizing their desire to move ahead financially in the United States. At the same time they are torn between their new lives and a desire to return home to the land of their birth and recreate a new life there. Unexpected changes bring these tensions to the fore and push the couple to decide between these two desires. This film provides a window into the everyday lives and consciousness of Latino immigrants while exploring the process of buying a home in the United States. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 82 minutes
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: A humorous and touching view of Cuban exiles living in a basement apartment during a snowy winter in New York, El Super is the story of Roberto, a superintendent who dreams of his warm and friendly homeland and stubbornly refuses to assimilate into the new culture. Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: One of the most purely joyful pieces of cinema in year. A tango dancer falls in love with his beautiful partner and clashes with her gangster boyfriend. Using a variety of tempos, pairings, and rhythms, the many breathtaking tango numbers illustrate the complexity and depth of the dancers’ emotions as well as the tango’s lush appeal.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 115 minutes
Description: The story of a Brazilian monk’s quest to be ordained as a priest against a backdrop of personal crises, war, and social collapse. Brother Sebastian confronts numerous obstacles, including his guilt at being raped as a child, his attraction for the beautiful, androgynous Gabriel, doubts about his faith, the torments of a mysterious demon, and the growing jealousy of the man who raped him, now a fellow brother in Sebastian’s order. The year is 2030.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 147 minutes
Description: One of the great art films of the Brazilian Cinema Novo, director Rocha’s 1967 work is a meditation on the ambiguities of political power, revolutionary ideologies, and the transformative potential of art. It is a satirical film, based on a real life politician. The political allegory follows its protagonist narrator, a fictional poet, as he recalls the events leading up to his demise.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 115 minutes
Description: A story about a young girl, Tieta thrown out of her house for sexual indiscretions, only to return 26 years later triumphantly as the rich and powerful widow of an industrialist. Tieta and Leonora, whom she introduces as her stepdaughter, inspire an upheaval in the Life of SantAna. In the midst of all the uproar, the darkest secret of Tietas life is revealed and she is forced to leave the village once again. Feature.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 115 minutes
Description: This film was a major watershed for the New Latin American Cinema, the source of a renovating movement that some years later spread throughout Latin America. With a new documentary style, the film focused on the undeveloped suburbs of a city, Santa Fe, Argentina. Birri and his crew succeeded in filming a moving document about extreme poverty, and the main protagonists were children with no future. One of its main sequences — in which children run barefoot beside a train and along a very narrow and dangerous bridge begging for a dime (“tire dié”) — is one of the most memorable scenes.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 33 minutes
Description: This documentary represents the culmination of four years of investigation into the military operations behind the October 1968 massacre of students at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlateloco, Mexico. It incorporates all known film footage related to the events of October 2, 1968 and presents evidence that documents the steps taken by the government and other repressive forces against the student movement.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 57 minutes
Description: A young musician from the poor suburbs of Rio searches for his lost love. From Guadalupe to the cosmopolitan south zone, Vinicius embarks on an almost mythic urban odyssey. Vinicius’ journey, both tragic and comic leads ultimately to redemption. For having lost all innocence, he is redeemed by the irrepressible life-forces of poetry and the wailing of a single saxophone in a Brazilian night.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 103 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: The grim and bitter detective Ferran decides the murder of a prominent mobster was not a crime of passion but the result of a deeper conspiracy. He sets out on a journey through the strange universe of Latin American nightclubs to solve the murder.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 105 minutes
Description: This film reveals the story of how the Huaorani–known as the fiercest tribe in the Amazon–are attempting to survive in the Petroleum Age on their own terms, and to outwit and outfight the forces of change.
Copies: 2 (DVD and VHS) Length: 52 minutes
Description: This black and white documentary travels to La Tropical, a Cuban dance club just outside of Havana, where dance, passion and music take precedence over the politics of the nation.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 93 minutes
Description: In this first volume of the three part film series about Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina and his thirty year dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, the focus lays in the Trujillo’s rise to power and the early years of his rule.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes
Description: In the second episode of this film series detailing Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina and his thirty year dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, the director focuses on the bulk of Trujillos reign, and how it impacted the Dominican people.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 95 minutes
Description: In the conclusion to this trilogy of documentaries about the thirty year dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic, we see the end of an era, as the final years of Trujillos rule play out and end with his assassination.
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: 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: When someone makes a brief visit in the Yucatan Peninsula, it is called a visit of a “turix.” When one sees a dragonfly, it is considered good luck. The video-magazine Turix is like the dragonfly; it is an open space for creative, audiovisual expression of the indigenous inhabitants of south-southeastern Mexico. This video is divided into eight short sections, each one the work of independent film makers and rural media workshops with children and adolescents of rural communities. They are produced by and for the people of these communities and spoken in the languages of the region.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 35 minutes
Description: Based on an incident in Cuban colonial history, this masterful film tells the story of a pious 18th century slave owner who reenacts the last supper, portraying himself as Christ, and with twelve slaves selected to play the disciples. He selects a rebellious slave to be Judas, leading to the brilliant supper scene with ominous undercurrents of imminent reckoning.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 110 minutes
Description: A critical comedy of the pain and frustration encountered by a mother of a low income family when she attempts to throw a costly party for her daughter’s fifteenth birthday. The father’s objections (he sees such celebrations as antiquated and petit bourgeoisie) highlight the contradictions of family and social relations in modern day Cuba.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 84 minutes
Description: This hilarious animated spoof of horror and gangster movies, presented in an outrageously caricatured style reminiscent of Fritz the Cat, features Professor Von Dracula, a vampire scientist who leaves Transylvania for Cuba, where he invents "Vampisol," a potion that allows vampires to survive in sunlight. The action escalates crazily with bad guys, police, vampires and other monsters all caught up in a crazy chase.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes
Description: Thirteen year-old Monica survives the urban Columbian streets by selling flowers to couples at local bars and restaurants. She is befriended by 10 year-old Andrea, who left her home to flee from her abusive mother. Together, with other friends, they sniff glue and puff cigarettes and marijuana. The film is a portrayal of 24 hours of Monicas life–on Christmas Eve–as she dreams of spending Christmas with her boyfriend. In reality, it is just another day of misery lost in the swirl of glue intoxication.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 116 minutes
Description: This documentary narrated by three small children examines different aspects of indigenous communities within México. The indigenous groups portrayed are the Lancadones, Maxahuas and Otomies. In each community the children narrate their surroundings, traditional ways of making a living and other aspects specific to their communities, including how to make tortillas, how to make paper, etc.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 6 minutes; 13 minutes; 12 minutes
Description: After having spent part of her life in an orphanage/reform school (where she learned that this is a man’s world), Vera attempts assimilation into polite Brazilian society. However, by the time she leaves the orphanage she is convinced that she is a man inhabiting a woman’s body. A movie about gender formation and deformation.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 87 minutes
Description: Written by Nobel Prize winning Gabriel García Márquez, this is a wickedly black comedy about two children plotting to kill their authoritarian nanny, reminiscent of the work of the legendary film maker Luis Buñuel. Directed by Humberto Hermosillo. Part of the film series Amores Difíciles.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 85 minutes
Description: The most honored Argentine film of 1990, directed by Miguel Pereira won four Silver Condors and a Silver Bear. It is the story of the life of an Indian boy from birth in one of the most remote parts of Argentina, the province of Jujuy, until his death in the far-off south Atlantic during the Malvinas/Falklands War. Veroníco’s mother does not survive his birth and he is left in the care of his grandmother to grow up in solitude and isolation. How Veroníco’s dreams affect his fate forms the crux of this beautiful film.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 90 minutes
Description: This documentary explores from the beginnings of the Zapatista uprising until the National Democratic Convention that took place in Aguascalientes, Chiapas in 1994. This journalistic documentary attempts to capture, from the middle of the jungle, a moment of contemporary Mexican history.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 95 minutes
Description: An absurd, slyly critical film in which Bebe takes us on a taxi ride through Havana on the day of Santa Bárbara/Chango. Set to the music of Bola de Nieve and Benny Moré, the characters of Mariana, a ballerina, Julia, a middle-aged woman, and Elpido, a musician, intersect in a surreal, dazzling slice of life.
Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 106 minutes
Description: A raucous home video is the focus of this hilarious film. What begins as a simple taped message to an expatriate son unveils the complexity and often humorous travails of a contemporary Cuban family. On the eve of Raulitos birthday, his family decides to send a videotaped greeting from Cuba to his home in the United States. Everything goes well with the videotaping until his sister reveals a secret: Raulito is gay. Family chaos ensues, and as the videotape rolls Raulitos outing brings forth his fathers bitterness toward his son for leaving Cuba.
Copies: 2 (DVD) Length: 47 minutes
Description: Jorgito (age 12) and Malú (11) are neighbors, classmates and best friends. When Malú’s mother decides to marry a foreigner so she can leave Cuba Malú is deeply upset and hopes to reach her father before he signs an agreement allowing her to emigrate. She runs away from her home with Jorgito, her traveling companion. Thus begins their adventure. The film was shown in the San Francisco International Film Festival, and was nominated for the 2006 Oscar.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 80 minutes
Description: This film is a look at the decline of Uruguayan middle class through the life of Jacobo, a lonely sock factory owner in Montevideo. When he hears about the impending visit of his irritatingly cheerful brother, he enlists his faithful assistant Marta to pretend to be his wife.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 94 minutes
Description: A short drama set in the past tells a story of how the Mapuche dealt with wrongdoing in the community.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 27 minutes
Description: A diamond rush in the 1700s transformed Brazil’s interior into a place of fabulous wealth and excess. In this unrestrained atmosphere, the slave Xica uses her iron will and her unique sexual talent to seduce her way into becoming the unofficial Empress of Brazil, lording it over her former masters and gleefully emptying the crown’s treasury.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 109 minutes
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
Description: Documenting the most important ritual of the Enauêne-Nawê Indians, the seven months every year that the spirits of the dead are venerated with offerings of food, song, and dance so they will protect the community and bless it with an abundant harvest and great quantities of fish.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 75 minutes
Description: A musical phenomenon in 1960’s Cuba, Los Zafiros brilliant mix of American-inspired Doo-Wop and traditional Latin forms caused an international sensation. Music from the Edge of Time explores the memories of Manuel Galban and Miguel Cancio, the two surviving members of Los Zafiros, as they are reunited in Havana. The film also features the perspectives of numerous Zafiros family members in Miami and Havana, international musicologists, and musical colleagues of the group. In evoking the Cuban post-revolutionary epoch of the 1960s, this feature-length documentary presents a vivid, moving, and balanced portrait of the remarkable musical success story that was Los Zafiros.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 84 minutes
Description: In 1994 the Zapatistas reclaimed land in Chiapas’ Lacandon jungle in southern Mexico to found the Autonomous Municipality of Emiliano Zapata. Since then, they have been building a new society in which there are neither servants nor bosses. Members of the community ensure their autonomy by tending to an organic vegetable garden and working collectively in all endeavors.
Copies: 1 (DVD) Length: 19 minutes
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