Browse Items (18 total)
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El Norte
When a group of Mayan Indians decides to organize a labor union to improve conditions in their village, their community is violently destroyed by the Guatemalan army. Teenage siblings, Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) and Enrique (David Villalpando) manage to escape the massacre and decide to start a new life in El Norte -- the USA. The two trek through Mexico, meeting a variety of characters and facing trials and tribulations on their journey toward lives as illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. (IMDB)Tags Maya -
Hispanic Film
This course examines film by Spanish and Latin American directors. Students study films as an independent genre using specific structural forms as the means of analysis (close-up, soundtrack, frame, etc.). Students will formulate interpretations that move between the formal, technical composition of films and the concrete socio-historic and cultural reality to which each film refers and shapes. Course activities include screening of films, discussion of articles that focus on literary theory and film analysis, and writing short papers. -
Latin America through Cinema
In this course, we will explore cinema from and about Latin America to expand our understanding of this culturally diverse region comprised of more than twenty countries and territories. We will examine topics such as gender, humor, history, globalization, politics, memory, and religion through the lens of films by Latin American screenwriters and directors. Students will gain experience in film analysis, learning how to articulate the relationship between content and artistic form. Through this cinematographic encounter, we will begin to see and understand Latin America in a new way. -
Poetry and Politics in Latin American Cinema
By tracing a Latin American centric social, geo-political, cultural, historical, cinematic map, we will be looking at the praxis of key visionary filmmakers and cinematic movements. We will examine how these filmmakers, their films, their texts, and their legacies engage local and global contexts. Cinema from the global south is not an addendum to "First World Cinema"; the majority of world cinema is actually produced in the "Third World”. By mapping the vibrant, often neglected, legacy of Latin American cinema, we will revisit films from New Latin American Cinema to more contemporary films from the continent in order to delve into the poetry and politics of a subjective repertoire of films. By grounding our critical approach and analyses in the historical, theoretical, political, social, economic, and cultural framework that these films were created in, “Poetry and Politics in Latin American Cinema” aims to deconstruct some of the dominant, oppressive discourses and colonial systems that provoked the counter-narratives and resistance manifest in these cinematic works.
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Ixcanul
In director Jayro Bustamante’s feature debut, Ixcanul (2015), a Kaqchiquel-speaking family negotiates their survival as farmers on a landowner’s plot in Guatemala. Looming in the distance is the Pacaya volcano from which the film takes its name. (Ixcanul means “volcano” in Kaqchiquel.) At stake is the future of María, beautifully portrayed by first-time Mayan actress María Mercedes Coroy, who is to be wed to the landowner, Ignacio (Justo Lorenzo), in the interest of securing her family’s access to the land they work. In the distance, said volcano separates their world from Mexico and the United States, to which María’s lover, Pepe, soon migrates in search of an imagined better future, leaving her to grapple with his loss. What at first seems to be a community and family-driven drama, drawn in long shots across pristine highlands, takes a turn toward social realism once María’s actions catch up with her, putting her family’s future at risk. María’s quiet existence will suddenly implode as her acts of surrender—to her lover and to her fate—bring on both community and broader social interventions. María embodies the tense relationships between Mayan communities and the state, between labor and profit, and against the confines of both tradition and modernity. Source: Córdova, Amalia. "Review of Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul." NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 49, no. 1, 2017, pp. 114-115.Tags Maya -
La jaula de oro
Juan crosses the slums of his city in Guatemala to a dump, where he picks up his friend, the scavenger Samuel; meanwhile, Sara cuts her hair and bandages her breasts in order to pass for a boy - a step which, as will be seen some time later, is absolutely necessary, although perhaps not enough. Together, the three begin a long journey, first by boat and then across Mexico on top of freight trains, looking for a chance to cross to the United States illegally. At one point, they are joined by the Guatemalan Indian Chauk, a boy who does not speak a word of Spanish and is as poor as the trio. But still, he is rejected by Juan, who believes himself to be the leader of the group and, above all, is jealous of Sara. From this friction, some of the misfortunes they will face arise; others are simply the result of chance - especially accidents that usually affect the unprotected and poor. The film by Spanish director Diego Quemada Díez, however, is far from messy: it is, on the contrary, dry, economical, and uncompromising in its portrayal, making a lack of perspective so extreme that it defies the imagination. (Translation by Andrew Magel) -
Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Cinema
This interdisciplinary course seeks to review and analyze the complexity of contemporary society through the study of Latin American and Spanish film production. We will explore topics that relates to issues of ethnicity, class representation, immigration and exile, dictatorship, experiences of war and violence, globalization, gender, as well as sexual and racial identities, among other themes. The course has a transatlantic approach covering different genres, styles, and filmmakers from Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay. Class discussions in Forum, activities, presentations, reflections, and a final multimodal research project will help to improve and expand students’ analytical skills as well as their Spanish language proficiency. -
Cuando las montañas tiemblan
Los testimonios de Rigoberta Menchú, ganadora del Premio Nobel de la Paz en 1992, amplían el panorama sobre los abusos de las fuerzas de seguridad guatemaltecas contra su pueblo y otras comunidades indígenas en el despojo de sus tierras. El enfrentamiento en la Embajada de España en 1980 que tomó la vida de más de 30 personas, incluido su padre, acentuó la represión hacia la sociedad civil. El documental fue presentado en Estados Unidos en 1983 y ganó el Premio del Jurado en el Festival de Cine de Sundance, pero tuvieron que pasar 20 años para que pudiera estrenarse en Guatemala. (FilmInLatino) -
500 Years
The third film in a trilogy about Guatemala, this installment explores the sweeping historical significance of the war crimes trial of General Ríos Montt and the toppling of corrupt president Otto Pérez Molina. Sundance Film Festival veteran Pamela Yates gracefully engages the indigenous Mayan population who experienced genocide at the hands of a long-standing repressive government. Silenced family members and eyewitnesses come forward to share their individual stories with the desire that their underreported, horrific treatment receive the attention it deserves.
Spoken in Spanish and native Mayan languages, 500 YEARS delicately weaves archival footage with new interviews and emotional courtroom scenes to shine light on a growing movement to fend off the systematic aggression toward an underrepresented people. Focusing on the recent events of a country that has suffered for generations at the hands of a ruling elite, the film hails the nation’s citizens banding together on a quest for justice—and emerging as a beacon of hope. (Sundance) -
Nuestras madres
The country is riveted on the trial of the military officers who started the civil war. The victims’ testimonials keep pouring in. Ernesto, a young anthropologist at the Forensic Foundation, identifies people who have gone missing. One day, through an old lady’s story, Ernesto thinks he has found a lead that will allow him to find his father, a guerillero who disappeared during the war. (Film Affinity US) -
El camino es largo (Nim Pey)
Un niño Maya Kaqchikel va por primera vez al colegio enfrentando al sistema educacional de Guatemala. Para él, el despertar a un nuevo mundo, lejos de su comunidad y saberes ancestrales, donde normas y reglas desconocidas están a punto de cambiar de su vida para siempre. (Festival Internacional de Cine y las Artes Indígenas en Wallmapu) -
Hispanic Film (*modified for remote learning, fall 2020)
In our Hispanic film course we examine diverse cinemas made in the region and how Latin American filmmakers represent, reject, reconstruct, maintain or challenge their realities. We look at how films are made, how they are funded, and how films reach audiences to question which films we see, and which ones are hidden from our view. The most accessible films available on major US platforms such as Netflix and Hulu do not begin to represent the diversity of world cinema, nor that of even US cinema.
In this course we examine works from the region to see how artists use cinema to challenge, break with, or redefine their realities sharing complexities beyond the limited roles of Latin Americans in Hollywood film. In these examples of more nuanced representations of Latin Americans, we see the crucial importance of self-representation, and diversity in front of and behind the camera.
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Latin America through Cinema (*modified for remote learning, fall 2020)
In this course, we will explore cinema from and about Latin America to expand our understanding of this culturally diverse region comprised of more than twenty countries and territories. We will examine topics such as gender, humor, history, globalization, politics, memory, and religion through the lens of films by Latin American screenwriters and directors. Students will gain experience in film analysis, learning how to articulate the relationship between content and artistic form. Through this cinematographic encounter, we will begin to see and understand Latin America in a new way. -
Cine y revolución en América Latina: Política, cultura e historia de las imágenes en movimiento
La intención del curso es hacer un recorrido por la historia de América Latina y por su producción cinematográfica, teniendo como eje rector las diversas maneras en que se ha expresado la idea de revolución en el cine latinoamericano, tanto en términos argumentales, como en cuestiones estéticas y técnicas, enfatizando su relación con lo social. En el curso se abordarán teorías y metodologías que problematizarán el cine como fuente para la historia cultural y política, tratado de rescatar la incipiente teorización latinoamericana sobre el tema. Así mismo, se emprenderá un recorrido por el cine social latinoamericano y sus distintas corrientes y manifestaciones hasta la década de los años ochenta.
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Los gigantes no existen
Guatemala, años 80. Los peores días de la guerra civil. Andrés tiene 9 años. Vive con Pedro González, uno de los hombres que mataron a todas las mujeres y niños de su aldea. Andrés ha sobrevivido, pero tiene miedo. La esposa de Pedro, María, también tiene miedo, miedo de salir de casa, miedo de perder a Andrés, a quien considera "su nuevo hijo"… hasta Pedro tiene miedo, miedo de sí mismo y de lo que el ejército le obliga a hacer. Andrés quiere huir, pero también quiere quedarse con su nueva familia... hasta que aparece su hermana. (Cineteca) -
Indigenous & Afro-descendant Representation in Contemporary Latin American Film
This course serves as an introduction to film analysis by studying Latin American cinema, with a focus on Afro-descendant and indigenous communities. We will analyze the representation of indigenous people in contemporary Latin American cinema, and highlight the contributions of indigenous media to current discussions about indigeneity and decolonization. In addition, we will examine the cinematic representa-tion of Afro-Latin Americans and explore the cultural legacy of the African diaspora through Latin American film. The course will highlight important social and political issues concerning historically marginalized voices in Latin America, as well as how cinematography, as an artistic medium, grapples with questions of representation, identity, memory, and activism. Movies will be screened in Spanish (in some cases, Portuguese and indigenous languages, with Spanish subtitles). Class conducted in Spanish.
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Kat Waj
Ixcamuné es una niña de 12 años, que a pesar de su corta edad posee fascinacion por la vida y la lectura. Vive en una familia de escasos recursos, pero tiene la posibilidad de ir a la escuela, aunque su padre se reniega a eso. Su vida cambia inesperadamente cuando uno de sus padres toma una decision sobre la vida de Ixcamuné y esto hace que la pequeña se rebele contra ese destino que se les quiere imponer. Buscando ese cambio, libertad, toma una decisión que cambiará su vida. (Ojo de Agua Comunicación) -
José
José lives with his mother in Guatemala City, where, dominated by conservative Catholic and Evangelical Christian religion, living one’s life as an openly gay man is hard for José to imagine. His mother has never had a husband and is determined to hold on to him. José fills his free time with dating apps, but when he meets attractive and gentle Luis, they pursue an unexpected relationship with more emotion than José has ever felt. He is thrust into new passion and pain, and self-reflection, that push him to rethink his life. (Strand Releasing)Tags Youth / La juventud