Latin film series coincides with Hispanic Heritage Month

By: Taniah Tudor

Posted: 9/17/08

Latin American cinema has arrived at the UA campus.

A film series set to coincide with Hispanic Heritage Month and sponsored by the Latin American Studies and Foreign Languages departments will air three different Latin movies for viewers, said Greg Buchanan, a Spanish instructor and one of the collaborators for the series.

The first film, "La Ley de Herodes" or "Herod's Law," directed by Luis Estrada, is set to show tomorrow. It is a black comedy about politics and corruption in late 1940s Mexico, according to the Multicultural Center flier.

The movie stars Damián Alcázar as Juan Vargas, a petty politician who becomes mayor of a small village and later transforms into a power-mad despot.

Temporarily banned in Mexico, the film directly criticizes the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Later, Estrada was able to re-release the film on his own terms, according to an article by Julia Preston in the New York Times.

"Come and see it, it's funny," Buchanan said. "You're going to laugh."

Buchanan said he and Sergio Villalobos, a UA professor of Spanish, chose films that are readily applicable to the courses they are teaching this semester. Buchanan suggested the first and third films, he said, while Villalobos recommended the docudrama.

The second film of the series, a docudrama by director Reymundo Gleyzer titled "La Revolución Congelada" or "The Frozen Revolution," will be shown Oct. 16 and is about the Mexican Revolution from the viewpoint of the indigenous and peasant communities, according to the flier.

The last film of the series is entitled "Canoa," from director Felipe Cazals and will be shown Nov. 6. It is based on a true story that happened two weeks before the Tlatelolco Massacre in a small town called San Miguel de Canoa, Buchanan said. While on a hiking expedition, university employees were mistaken for communist-sympathizer students and beaten by villagers, he said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre, when police murdered student demonstrators in the Plaza de las Tres Cultures in Mexico, which might be why all three of the movies chosen focus on Mexico, Buchanan said.

All showings will be in Kimpel Hall in room 310, he said.