Editor's Note:
Many new Latin American titles have been released over the past few months. We thought you would like to know about them. LAVA's web site (http://www.lavavideo.org) has more than 4,000 Latin American related titles listed. To purchase any of these titles send an email message to info@lavavideo.org or fax a purchase order to 212-243-2007.

Brazil

Pixote   Get Details
Hector Babenco
feature   127 minutes   1981
With English subtitles
One of the most remarkable and unsentimental films ever made on the subject of childhood. The children in question are homeless Brazilian youths, exploited by criminals, mistreated with offhand savagery in "reform" schools, then set loose in the Rio underworld where they complete post graduate work in purse snatching, drug dealing, pimping and murder. Babenco's outlook is neither depressing nor tendentious; the story's pitiless descent into hell is continually illuminated with lightning flashes of innocence, joy and compassion.


How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Nelson Pereira dos Santos
feature   80 minutes   1971
With English subtitles
A slyly entertaining mixture of anthropology, black humour, gorgeous color photography, ubiquitous nudity and unsettling prophecy about a 16th-century French explorer who tries to integrate himself into the Indian tribe that captured him, but who is finally incorporated only by being eaten.
Purchase Price: $ 49.95


Memories of Prison   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Nelson Pereira dos Santos
Feature   150 minutes   1984
With English subtitles
The prison is a metaphor for the society of Brazil. Everyone is there: the worker, black, white, old, young, poor, wealthy, military, peasant. The author depicts how each one works their own way out or tries to work his way out of prison, never to return again. It shows how Brazilian society is imprisoned by politics and social morality.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95

Ecuador

Between Marx and a Naked Woman   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Camilo Luzuriaga
feature   90 minutes   1996
With English subtitles
The center of the film is the "author" who narrates a book he is writing about himself, his friends, and their activism in the Communist party. There is Galo Galvez, a charismatic party activist who is eager to live life to the fullest, but is driven to despair by his party's bureaucracy and narrow-mindedness. His passionate relationship with Margamaria doesn't help things either. Galvez is confined to a wheelchair, which sometimes makes his night job of putting up campaign posters a bit difficult. Of course, he can count on the assistance of his life-long servant and friend, Falcon. The film intertwines realist sequences, such as military night raid, with sensuous dreams and bizarre episodes. During a confidential chat with Karl Marx, the "author" finally admits he is unable to tell fact from fiction.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95

MEXICO - The War in Chiapas

Hidden War, The   Get Details
Documentary   41 minutes   1998
Dubbed into English
The militarization of everyday life in Mexico is an important fact for the Mexican people. This video analizes and reflects upon this phenomenon, its different phases and objectives.


Acteal, Report From Chiapas   Get Details
Documentary   48 minutes   1998
With English subtitles
A recent report of the tragedies of Acteal, Chiapas.


War in Chiapas, The   Get Details
Carlos Mendoza
Documentary   40 minutes   1994
With English subtitles
A critical look at Mexican government leadership as a contributing factor to the Chiapas conflict, with footage of the original uprising in January 1994. The tape also explores the background of the Chiapas region and the problems which led to the uprising.


Cry for Freedom and Democracy, A   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Jose (Che Che) Martinez
Documentary   27 minutes   1994
With English subtitles
A look at the peasant rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico including explanation of what led up to the confrontation.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95

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