Fall 2007: Migrations

Fall 2007

Special topic: MIGRATIONS... to, from, between, ...

Life Sciences Center Auditorium. Wednesdays @ 7 PM

Free and open to all ~ English Subtitles ~ Guest Speakers

Calendar:

September 5: Cosas que dejé en La Habana (Things I Left in Havana)

Dir. Imanol Uribe. Spain, 1996.

Speaker: Prof. Tom Harrington

Three Cuban sisters arrive in Madrid searching for a better situation. There they find an aunt of them who emigrated a long time ago and also a Cuban man who later tries to seduce and exploit them.

September 12: Alambrista! (The Illegal)

Dir. Robert M. Young. USA, 1977.

Speaker: Prof. Anne Gebelein

After the birth of his first child, Roberto, a young Mexican man, slips across the border into the United States. Seeking work to support his family back home, he finds only hardship and exploitation instead of opportunity.

September 19: Vientos de agua: ep.1 & 2

Dir.Juan José Campanella.Argentina/Spain, 2005

Speaker: Prof. Gustavo Remedi

This drama series by renowned director Juan José Campanella traces a Spanish man's emigration to Argentina in the 1930s, and, years later, his son's return to modern-day Spain. The two parallel stories offer an insight into the life of immigrants, with their triumphs, failures, struggles, sorrows and joys.

September 26: ¿Puedo Hablar? (May I Speak?)

Dir. Christopher Moore. USA, 2007.

Speaker: Christopher Moore

"¿Puedo Hablar? / May I Speak?", chronicles the 2006 Venezuelan presidential elections, in which Hugo Chavez was re-elected to a six-year term. The film offers its audience a snapshot portrait of a Venezuelan society at a crossroads; a re-elected president, challenged by a mounting opposition; a valuable starting block for any debate on current Venezuelan politics.

October 3: Vientos de agua: ep. 3&4

Speaker: Prof. María Silvina Persino

October 10: Fintar o Destino (Dribbling Fate), Dir. Fernando Vendrell, Portugal/Cabo Verde, 1998.

Speaker: Jason Azevedo

Life has moved too fast for Mane. His dreams have evaporated into the drought of the beaten earth of Mindelo. Now forgotten, with his past as a great football player for Mindelense, in Cape Verde, he only has the belated compassion of his friends, neighbors, and cafe companions. Rejecting the loss of his status as a hero, Mane begins training a youth team and sees himself again in Kalu, a rebellious but talented youth.

October 17: Vientos de agua: ep. 5&6

Speaker: Prof. Moisés Castillo

October 24: El Norte (The North)

Dir. Gregory Nava. USA/UK, 1983.

Speaker: Enrique Sepúlveda

Mayan Indian peasants, tired of being thought of as nothing more than "brazos fuertes" ("strong arms", i.e., manual laborers) and organizing in an effort to improve their lot in life, are discovered by the Guatemalan army. After the army destroys their village and family, a brother and sister, teenagers who just barely escaped the massacre, decide they must flee to "El Norte" ("the North", i.e., the USA). They make their way to Los Angeles, where they try to make a new life as young, uneducated, and illegal immigrants.

October 31: Vientos de agua: ep. 7&8

Speaker: Leonardo Palacios

November 7: Bolivia

Dir. Adrián Caetano. Argentina, 2001.

Speaker: Prof. Gustavo Remedi

A starkly realistic story of an illegal immigrant from Bolivia who lands a job with a greasy spoon on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, poignantly limns the world of poverty, racism and casual violence that characterize his newfound reality. Bolivia is an urgent and timely drama of life in Argentina, a nation in crisis that in the last few years has reached unprecedented poverty levels, vast unemployment, bankruptcy, and a dramatically shrinking economy.

November 14: Vientos de agua: ep. 9&10

Speaker: Prof. Tom Harrington

November 28: Vientos de agua: ep. 11&12

Speaker: Radost Rangelova

December 5: Balseros (Cuban Rafters)

Dir. Carlos Bosch. Spain, 2002.

Speaker: Prof. Luis Figueroa

In the summer of 1994, a team of public television reporters filmed and interviewed seven Cubans, and their families, beginning a few days before their risky venture of setting out to sea in homemade rafts to reach the coast of the United States. Once in the U.S., the film crew went with them to a string of cities that included Miami; the Bronx; York, Pennsylvania; Grand Isle, Nebraska; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a host of other places to which the lives of these immigrants carried them. Seven years later, the film crew visits them again, to discover what their destiny has been in the United States.

December 12: Vientos de agua: ep. 13

Speaker: Prof. Anne Lambright

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