Latin American Studies

Films

Between Light and Shadow: Maya Women in Transition This vibrant, wide-ranging documentary examines the impact on contemporary Maya culture of changes in the lives and expectations of Maya women in Guatemala.

Birdsong and Coffee: A Wake Up Call This incisive and multifaceted documentary powerfully demonstrates how coffee drinkers in this and other developed countries hold in their hands the fate of farm families, farming communities, and entire ecosystems in coffee-growing regions worldwide.

Carnival in Q'eros This groundbreaking documentary, by renowned filmmaker and musician John Cohen, shows the remarkable Carnival celebrations -- never before seen by outsiders -- of a remote community of Indians high in the Peruvian Andes.

Cashing in on Culture: Indigenous Communities and Tourism This insightful documentary, filmed in the small tropical forest community of Capirona, in Ecuador, serves as an incisive case study of the many issues and potential problems surrounding eco- and ethnic tourism.

Choqela: Only Interpretation This provocative and profound film documents the Choqela ceremony, an agricultural ritual and song of the Aymara Indians of Peru. By offering several different translations of the proceedings, the film acknowledges the problems of interpretation as an inherent dilemma of anthropology.

Dancing with the Incas This extraordinary film documents the most popular music of the Andes -- Huayno music -- and explores the lives of three Huayno musicians in a contemporary Peru torn between the military and the Shining Path guerrillas.

Daughters of Ixchel: Maya Thread of Change This illuminating documentary explores the lives of Maya women today, portrays their ancient weaving processes, and examines the economic, political, and cultural forces that are profoundly affecting the women and their weaving.

Discovering Dominga This unforgettably dramatic and powerful documentary relates the extraordinary story of a young Iowa housewife who discovers she is a survivor of one of the most horrific massacres in Guatemalan history, committed in 1982 against Maya Indian villagers. The film follows her remarkable journey of transformation and discovery as she returns to Guatemala in search of her heritage and ultimately joins efforts to bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

Festive Land: Carnaval in Bahia This perceptive and engaging documentary examines one of the largest and most extraordinary popular celebrations in the world, the week-long Carnaval that brings more than two million people to the streets of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil.

The Five Suns: A Sacred History of Mexico This much-honored animated film employs authentic pre-Columbian Aztec iconography to depict the most important creation myths and sacred stories of the Aztecs and other Nahuatl-speaking peoples of ancient central Mexico.

The Last Zapatista This remarkable documentary examines the profound and enduring legacy of Emiliano Zapata in contemporary Mexico. The film focuses on Emeterio Pantaleon, a 97-year-old Mexican farmer and one of the last living veterans who fought with Zapata during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920.

Mas Fever: Inside Trinidad Carnival Carnival in the New World is a synthesis of European elements -- Christian traditions and the masquerade -- and African elements -- primarily music and dance. In Trinidad, Carnival is a colorful, exuberant celebration of national focus and pride.

Mi Puerto Rico This wide-ranging and much-honored documentary explores Puerto Rico's rich cultural traditions and untold history, revealing the remarkable stories of its revolutionaries and abolitionists, poets and patriots.

Mined to Death Working at an elevation of 16,000 feet, Quechua-speaking miners in Potosi, Bolivia, dig out zinc, tin, and silver much like their Incan ancestors did more than five centuries ago. This poignant documentary explores the lives and work of the miners as the veins of ore in the sacred mountain they are mining become increasingly depleted and ever more difficult to discover and remove.

Mountain Music of Peru This classic documentary on the centuries-old music of the Andes demonstrates the importance or the region's musical heritage in preserving the cultural identity of the impoverished native peoples.

Peruvian Weaving This informative documentary examines warp pattern weaving in Peru, an ancient Andean Indian tradition handed down from woman to woman for some 5,000 years.

Popol Vuh: The Creation Myth of the Maya This much-honored animated film employs authentic imagery from ancient Maya ceramics to create a riveting depiction of the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth and the foundation of most Native American religious, philosophical, and ethical beliefs.

Popol Vuh: The Creation Myth of the Maya (Spanish Version) This much-honored animated film employs authentic imagery from ancient Maya ceramics to create a riveting depiction of the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth and the foundation of most Native American religious, philosophical, and ethical beliefs. This is the Spanish-language version.

Q'eros: The Shape of Survival This classic documentary, by renowned filmmaker John Cohen, provides a multifaceted exploration of the way of life of the Q'eros Indians of Peru, who have lived in the Andes for more than 3,000 years.

Salsa in Japan: A Japanese and Latino Mix This remarkable documentary on multiculturalism explores the growing subculture of salsa dancing in Japan, where salsa dancing and salsa clubs serve as a source of interaction and cultural mingling between native Japanese and Latino immigrants to Japan.

The Toured: The Other Side of Tourism in Barbados Tourism is the second-largest industry in the world and the "touristic encounter" may be the most important contact front today between differing cultures. But such encounters, especially between people of the First and Third worlds, are often characterized by strikingly unequal power relations.

Transnational Fiesta: 1992 Until recently, it was widely assumed that Native communities throughout the Americas would be absorbed into the mainstream or otherwise disappear. But 500 years after the beginning of the Conquest, indigenous peoples are asserting their presence and identity with renewed vigor. This remarkable video illustrates this by exploring the multicultural and transnational experiences of a family of Peruvian Andean immigrants living in Washington, D.C.

Voices of the Orishas This innovative ethnographic documentary demonstrates the survival and strength of the Yoruba cultural and religious heritage in the contemporary life of Caribbean African-Hispanics.

Voices of the Sierra Tarahumara This powerful and eye-opening documentary examines the plight of the indigenous Tarahumara people of northern Mexico, who are oppressed by criminal drug lords and and trapped in a web of rampant deforestation, crippling drug wars, and governmental corruption.