Latin-American Studies

Visually interweaving the Mayan past and the Mexican Revolution with contemporary reality, this documentary portrays an epic confrontation pitting impoverished peasants against large landowners and government forces in Mexico's poorest state.

This documentary examines the human side of Mexico's informal economy, which is estimated to comprise some two-thirds of the country's working population. Featuring interviews with five street vendors and a resident economics scholar, the video will stimulate discussion on government regulation, economic sustainability, environmental health, and the NAFTA debate.

This video shows why young, idealistic students, well-to-do lawyers, priests, and poor working people often become identified as enemies of the state and, subsequently, torture victims. It features interviews with former political prisoners who recount their experiences of torture administered by Brazil's political police during the Sixties, when the country was ruled by a right-wing military regime.

This documentary follows farmworkers from California's Salinas Valley back to their roots in the fields of rural Mexico, where they recount their everyday struggle to cope in the midst of the globalization of agriculture and the impact of NAFTA.

In 1985, Monica Frota, an independent Brazilian filmmaker, collaborated with the Kayapo people of the Brazilian rain forest to develop Mekaron Opoi D'joi (He Who Creates Images), the first Kayapo media project.

This video chronicles the history of the Mayans, the most sophisticated civilization among pre-Columbian societies.

Filmed at a center for street children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, founded by former President Aristide in 1986, this video interviews five young children.

Chronicles events in Haiti since the collapse of the Duvalier regime, from the downfall and ignominious flight into exile of "Baby Doc" Duvalier and his wife (seen arriving in their BMW with military escort in predawn darkness at Port au Prince airport), moving first-person accounts of the brutality of the tontons macoutes and the regime's other human rights abuses, to the nation's first democratic election, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide's halting rise to power with the assistance of U.S. military intervention, and the September 1991 military coup.

This emotionally devastating feature documentary examines political repression and the situation of the 'disappeared' during Argentina's 'dirty war' in the late Seventies.

A dramatic reenactment of the historic 1967 massacre of 'The Night of San Juan,' when the Bolivian army launched a surprise nighttime attack upon striking tin miners and their families.

This video chronicles the 1998 return to Cuba of an American college professor, Dr. Magaly Lavendenz, forced as a child to leave Cuba in 1962, and who grew up in the U.S., but with a distinct Cuban identity.

This four-part series examines changes in Cuban society during the post-Soviet economic crisis between 1994-98.

In 1975, the first Cuban soldiers went to Angola to help defend that newly independent government from invasion by South African troops. After nearly fourteen years of bitter conflict, the Angolan War ended, Namibia was established as an independent state, and Cuban and South African troops have returned home. Filmed on location in Angola, South Africa and Cuba, this documentary examines the politics of the war from both sides and features remarkable combat footage, archival material and interviews with Cuban and South African soldiers as well as grieving families of those who died in the war.

Examines women in Latin America and the cultural values that shape their lives. Scenes of urban slums, abandoned children, reform schools and broken homes are juxtaposed against romanticized media images.

Puerto Rico has the highest incidence of female sterilization in the world. Over one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age have been sterilized. So common is the operation that it is simply known as ‘la operacion.' Using newsreels and excerpts from government propaganda films, plus interviews with Puerto Rican women, doctors, birth control specialists and politicians, this film explores the controversial use of sterilization as a means of population control.

Dramatizes the life and work of Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922), a Puerto Rican journalist, writer, suffragist, and labor organizer.

Examines the U.S. Navy's control and use of Vieques, a satellite island and municipality of Puerto Rico, as a military training, exercise and deployment base.

Examines the centuries-old tradition in Puerto Rico of using hand-carved santos in Catholic religious practices. The film visits an elderly santero (carver) and his teenage apprentice, revealing the skill and artistry of this ancient craft as well as the importance of the saints in the lives of the faithful.

Surveys the activities of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in the 1950s, including the background to the shooting incident in the U.S. Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists in March 1954, and the contributions of the movement's leading figure, Don Pedro Albizu Campos.

Examines the history and present-day reality of Puerto Rico, including the history and the contemporary relationship between the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the U.S.; the impact of industrialization on the island's economy, ecology and social life; economic exile and life in New York City; and the history of the Puerto Rican independence movement.