Virtual Film Festival Week 2
Date: April 5, 2020 - April 12, 2020
This online festival has been custom curated for the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC-Chapel Hill. The link to the film festival is below at the Read More button! The password to access is isa-connect-20
Two films will be available each week from March 29 – April 18, 2020.
Week 2: April 5-11
“Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza De Mayo”
Film by Susana Blaustein and Lourdes Portillo. 1985. 64 minutes
This Academy award-nominated documentary about the Argentinian mothers' movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 "disappeared" sons and daughters remains as extraordinarily powerful as when it was first released. As well as giving an understanding of Argentinian history in the 1970s and 1980s, “Las Madres” shows the empowerment of women in a society where women are expected to be silent. “Las Madres” provides a banner of hope in the international struggle for human rights.
“Councilwoman”
A film by Margo Guernsey. 2018. 57 minutes.
“Councilwoman” is the inspiring story of Carmen Castillo, an immigrant Dominican housekeeper in a Providence hotel who wins a seat in City Council, taking her advocacy for low-income workers from the margins to city politics.
The film follows Castillo's first term as she balances her full-time day job as a housekeeper with her family life and the demands of public office. She faces skeptics who say she does not have the education to govern, the power of corporate interests who take a stand against her fight for a $15 hourly wage, and tough re-election against two contenders. As Castillo battles personal setbacks and deep-rooted notions of who is qualified to run for political office, she fiercely defends her vision of a society in which all people can earn enough to support themselves and their families.