Events Calendar

The Politics of Memory on Screen: 21st-Century Latin America and Spain

Admission is free.

Join us for a weekend of screenings and discussions that will investigate how Latin American and Spanish cinema have documented and constructed collective and personal memory. The audience will engage our relationship to the past by viewing four films: Guillermo del Toro’s internationally acclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth (Spain, 2006), Natalia Almada’s award-winning documentary El General (Mexico/USA, 2008), Cao Hamburger’s The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Brazil, 2006) and Germán Berger’s My Life with Carlos (Chile, 2010). The festival will also feature screenings and announcements of the winning entries from the student video contest Los Angeles: Making Memory Visible.

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, February 25
Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall

4 p.m.: El General
Directed by Natalia Almada (Mexico/USA, 2008)
The past and the present collide as filmmaker Natalia Almada brings to life audio recordings she inherited about her great-grandfather Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924. In his time, Calles was called “El Bolshevique” and “El hefe máximo” (the foremost chief). Today, he is remembered as “el quema-curas” (the priest-burner) and as a dictator who ruled through puppet presidents until he was exiled in 1936. Through his daughter’s recordings, El General moves between the memories of a daughter grappling with history’s portrait of her father and the weight of his legacy on the country today. Time is blurred in this complex and visually arresting portrait of a family and country living under the shadows of the past.

6 p.m.: Reception, Queen’s Courtyard

7 p.m.: Pan’s Labyrinth
Directed by Guillermo del Toro (Spain, 2006)
Q&A and roundtable discussion to follow.
Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro delivers a unique, richly imagined epic—a gothic fairy tale set against the postwar repression of Franco’s Spain. Del Toro’s sixth and most ambitious film combines historic and moral themes with visual creativity. It is a timeless tale of good and evil, bravery and sacrifice, love and loss.

Sunday, February 26
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, School of Cinematic Arts 108

2 p.m.: My Life with Carlos
Directed by Germán Berger (Chile, 2010)
Q&A with director to follow.
My Life with Carlos is the voyage of a son in search of the memory of his assassinated father. It is also the emotional history of a country that refuses to remember. It is the intimate diary of a broken family struggling to overcome tragedy. It is the minimal story of a group of men and women as told by themselves.

4 p.m.: Los Angeles: Making Memory Visible
The finalists from the student video contest Making Memory Visible contest will be screened before an awards ceremony.

Organized by Sherry Velasco (Spanish and Gender Studies), Julian Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla (Spanish and Comparative Literature), Macarena Gómez-Barris (Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity) and Laura Isabel Serna (Cinematic Arts). Co-sponsored by El Centro Chicano and the Latina/o Student Assembly.

El General Image: Courtesy of FAPECFT

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu

Location: Eileen L. Norris Cinema Theatre (NCT) - and the Ray Stark Family Theatre (SCA 108)

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Daria Yudacufski