Latin American Film Series Spring 2010
CUSLAR is proud to provide the Ithaca community with special programs and events throughout the year. The events deal with important issues in Latin America and are a wonderful way to experience the issues through people who first handedly live with them every day. CUSLAR's programs this year include:
Wednesdays * 7:00PM * Uris Auditorium
Free and Open to the public For more information, download the poster at:
February 10th
abUSed : The Postville Raid
(USA, 2009) by Luis Argueta
Discussant: Luis Argueta - Director/Producer
AbUSed tells the story of one of the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the history of the United States. By weaving together the personal stories of the individuals, the families, and the town directly affected by the events of May 12, 2008, the film presents the human face of the issue of immigration reform and serves as a cautionary tale against abuses of constitutional human rights. abUSed - The Postville Raid Archives is an audio-visual collection of the interviews recorded in the making of the documentary that will preserve the voices of the victims and witnesses of the events of May 12, 2008.
www.abusedthepostvilleraid.com
February 24th
Crude
(Ecuador, 2009) 105 mins by Joe Berlinger
Discussant: Kenneth Roberts - Department of Government, Cornell University
This film is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous Amazon Chernobyl case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.
http://www.crudethemovie.com
April 7th
Linha de Passe
(Brazil, 2008) 108 minutes by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas
Discussant: Patricia Rodriguez, Department of Politics, Ithaca College
In the periphery of Sao Paulo, the pregnant single mother Cleuza works as a maid in the apartment of a middle-class family. Each of her sons has a different unknown father: the oldest, Denis, has a baby son that lives with his mother and he works as a motorcycle courier; Dinho is a converted Christian and works as an attendant in a gas station; Dario is an aspirant soccer player that is getting older without the expected chance in a team; and the youngest, Reginaldo, is obsessed about finding his father who works as a bus driver, and spends most of his spare time traveling by bus. Along the months, each brother experiences new deceptions and expectations while the family fights to survive.
April 14th
Southern Crossroads: Indigenous Shorts from Latin America
(Chile, 2004) 4 mins by Jennifer Aguilera Silva, (Mexico, 1999) 8 mins by Dante Cerano Bautista, (Colombia, 2006) 24 minutes by Mauricio Acosta, (Brazil, 2002) 35 minutes by Kumare Txicao, Karane Txicao, and Natuyu Yuwipo Txicao
Discussant: Amalia Cordova, Smithsonian national Museum of the American Indian
Curator Amalia Cordova is the Latin American Program Manager at the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in NYC. She has presented traveling video showcases of works and directors, and coordinates Latin American participation at NMAI's hemispheric Native American Film and Video Festival. She brings a selection of compelling shorts from Chiloe, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.
April 7th
Linha de Passe
(Brazil, 2008) 108 minutes by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas
Discussant: Patricia Rodriguez, Department of Politics, Ithaca College
In the periphery of Sao Paulo, the pregnant single mother Cleuza works as a maid in the apartment of a middle-class family. Each of her sons has a different unknown father: the oldest, Denis, has a baby son that lives with his mother and he works as a motorcycle courier; Dinho is a converted Christian and works as an attendant in a gas station; Dario is an aspirant soccer player that is getting older without the expected chance in a team; and the youngest, Reginaldo, is obsessed about finding his father who works as a bus driver, and spends most of his spare time traveling by bus. Along the months, each brother experiences new deceptions and expectations while the family fights to survive.
April 21st
Lucanamarca
(Peru, 2009) 69 mins by Carlos Cardas and Hector Galvez:
Discussant: Fernando Perez-Romance Studies, Cornell University.
In the 1983, the Peruvian militants known as Shining Path massacred scores of Andean peasants in a period of violence infamous in the region. This documentary follows the efforts of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to dig up the bodies of the slain in an effort to come to terms with the past as well as to help prosecute those responsible. Nevertheless-as interviews with survivors, villagers, and experts show retribution and reconciliation are more complicated than might first appear.