Browse Items (19 total)
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El Libertador
Starring Édgar Ramírez, The Liberator narrates the story of Simón Bolívar, who fought over 100 battles against the Spanish Empire in South America. He rode over 70,000 miles on horseback. His military campaigns covered twice the territory of Alexander the Great. His army never conquered - it liberated. (Pragda)Tags War Films -
Érase una vez en Venezuela
On Lake Maracaibo, beneath the mysterious silent Catatumbo lightning, the village of Congo Mirador is preparing for parliamentary elections. For streetwise local businesswoman and Chavist party representative Tamara every vote counts, fought by all means, while for opposition-supporting teacher Natalie, politics is a weapon unsuccessfully attempting to force her from her job. And with her sharp eyes, little Yoaini sees her community sinking from sedimentation, her childhood and innocence with it. How can a small fishing village survive against corruption, pollution and political decay – a reflection of all the flaws of contemporary Venezuela. (Film Website) -
Hermano
Hermano narra una historia sencilla y poderosa de dos hermanos: Daniel (Fernando Moreno) y Julio (Eliú Armas) que luchan por convertirse en futbolistas profesionales. Daniel es un delantero excepcional, un fenómeno. Julio es el capitán del equipo, un líder nato. Ambos juegan al fútbol en el Barrio La Ceniza. La oportunidad de sus vidas llega cuando un cazatalentos del Caracas Fútbol Club les invita a unas pruebas en el equipo. Pero la vida del barrio se interpone y una tragedia les sacude. Ellos tendrán que decidir sus destinos sobre una cancha. ¿Qué es más importante: la unión de la familia o el sueño de sus vidas? (El Mundo) -
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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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. -
Cenizas eternas
Cenizas eternas, protagonizada por la actriz y modelo venezolana Patricia Velásquez y ópera prima de la directora Margarita Cadenas, cuenta la historia de Ana, una mujer que durante los años 50 viaja al Amazonas y sufre un trágico accidente en el Río Orinoco. Sola en la selva, Ana es invadida por el miedo a lo desconocido. En la ciudad su familia la da por muerta, pero Elena, su hija, interpretada por Danay García, vive con la esperanza de encontrarla un día. Pasados los años, Elena crece y decide buscar a su madre. Con ayuda de su tía y un sacerdote, se interna en la selva para buscar a una napeyome, extranjera en lengua Wayúu, de la que hablan los niños yanomamis y quien Elena presiente es su madre. El drama y el suspenso se mantienen en todo el largometraje anunciando su inesperado final. (NativeAmericanFilms.org) -
Ya Koo
Pepiwe (played by Jose Gregorio Payema) is a Yanomami boy living in a Catholic mission. After getting into an argument with his teacher about the name of his river (she says Rio Siapa; he calls it Periquitos), Pepiwe decides to return to the jungle to look for his family. He paddles down the Orinoco with his dog and parrot, and during a stopover on land he meets yet another nun (Flor Núñez), but not one from his mission. She pays the boy to show him the way to San Carlos de Rio Negro (by the Colombian border). He reluctantly agrees, but after a day’s journey the nun tries to sneak away and loses the canoe. (The Movie Database)Tags Yanomami -
Dauna, lo que lleva el río
Dauna, se enfrenta a las convenciones de una cultura milenaria. Arrastra consigo la marca de ser diferente y con ella, un dilema: escoger entre amar a Tarcisio, con todas las responsabilidades que eso implica para una mujer warao o, por el contrario, seguir su vocación aún a riesgo de pagar las consecuencias. (Visor - Venezuela) -
La Soledad
La Soledad is a dilapidated villa located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Caracas. It used to be the home of director Jorge Thielen Armand’s great-grandparents, but when the owners passed away fifteen years ago, the property was unofficially inherited by their lifelong maid, Rosina, now 72, who remained to care for the house and raise her grandson, José, now 27, Jorge’s childhood friend. José works as a handyman, dreaming of a better life for his six-year-old daughter Adrializ, amidst Venezuela’s economic crisis. Waiting in long queues for food and the medicine Rosina so desperately needs is part of José’s routine. When he learns that the legal inheritors of the house plan to sell the estate, José struggles to try to find a solution that will keep his family away from the crime-ridden slums. Yet the house holds a secret that could save them all: a treasure that is rumored to be buried in its walls. Set in the beautiful derelict eponymous mansion and played by the real inhabitants, LA SOLEDAD (THE SOLITUDE) poetically depicts Venezuela’s socio-economic crisis through José’s struggle to save his family from homelessness. (Festival Scope) -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Maroa
¿Una niña de 11 años, audaz superviviente de la jungla de asfalto, fascinada por Mozart en medio de un acto delictivo? Imposible, o al menos improbable. Brígida, su abuela, adivinadora, tramposa y vendedora de lotería, la maltrata y le exige rendición exacta de las cuentas, la vida de Maroa no tiene futuro hasta el momento que escucha un clarinete. La conexión es mágica y profunda. Joaquín, el único que siembra esperanza en su abandono, descubre que, a través de Maroa, su mundo cambia para siempre. (Visor, Venezuela) -
Pelo malo
Junior tiene nueve años y el "PELO MALO". Se lo quiere alisar para la foto de la escuela y así verse como un cantante de moda. Esta situación generará un enfrentamiento con su madre Marta. Mientras Junior busca verse bello para que su mamá lo quiera, ella lo rechaza cada vez más. Finalmente Junior se verá obligado a tomar una dolorosa decisión. (Film's Official Website) -
Introduction to Spanish-Language Film
This course is an introduction to appreciating and understanding film art as it relates to the rich and diverse cinema history of Latin America. Conducted entirely in Spanish, the course focuses on students’ acquisition of knowledge on the material and principles of film form, or the basic elements of film narrative, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound. Students will be asked to put their new knowledge into practice by watching closely and analyzing major films produced across the Latin American regions in the 20th and 21st centuries, from Argentina to Chile to Bolivia to Chile to Brazil to Cuba to Mexico. A variety of film genres will be enjoyed, including the documentary, the musical, the comedy, the thriller, the coming-of-age movie and the road film. The “New Latin American Cinema” or the socially-engaged film of the 1960s and 1970s will also receive attention in the course. In addition to studying film as an art form we will also tackle prominent issues in contemporary film studies, including film theory, the history of audiences and the role of cinema as a form of mass media. -
Latin American Film & Television Studies
This course is an introduction to Latin American film and television studies. It is conducted in Spanish and is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates with the permission of the instructor. Students will acquire knowledge on contemporary trends in film and television studies, including film theory, the archival turn, and ethnographies of television reception, as they relate to the film and television cultures of the rich and diverse regions of Latin America. The course’s historical purview takes students from classical narratives of the 1930s and 40s to revolutionary cinema of the 1960s and 70s to melorealism and the telenovela of the contemporary period. -
Latin America in the Film Festival Circuit
The course will look at Latin American cinema (mostly contemporary films), and the associated ideas about the region, that circulate in the film festival circuit. Understanding the latter as a complex and dynamic phenomenon, the study of which has been tackled from a wide range of multidisciplinary approaches (from socio-economics to film studies, from anthropology to global studies), special attention will be paid to the political economies at stake in these transnational networks and their impact in terms of film distribution, exhibition and, perhaps more importantly, film production. -
Araya
Describe en clave poética y atemporal un día en la vida de las gentes que subsisten en las áridas tierras de la península de Araya, gracias a la explotación de su salina natural y de la pesca. Esta labor la han venido desarrollando manualmente y sin apenas modificaciones, desde la llegada de los españoles. (Portal del cine y audiovisual Latinoamericano y caribeño) -
Latin American Documentary
This course will investigate Latin American documentary by focusing on three important topics in Latin American cultural studies. We will screen recent and historical documentaries about (1) underdevelopment and poverty, (2) the history and memory of the Southern Cone military dictatorships, and (3) popular culture and folklore. These three topics will provide material for an investigation of documentary form. With respect to each topic, we will consider how the resources of documentary filmmaking are employed to frame the same subject matter in different ways.