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Editor's Note:
To order any of these tapes contact us by email at info@lavavideo.org, by phone 212-243-4804, or by fax 212-243-2007. Our website at www.latinamericanvideo.org unites the collections of all US distributors that handle Latin American titles, making it easy to locate the titles you are looking for.
Soccer Stories Get Details and Purchasing Info
Andres Wood
Feature 87 minutes 1997
With English subtitles
Latin America's passion for soccer is the central theme that ties together three very different lives in this film. From behind-the-scenes bribes paid to players to the unexpected outcome of bets placed on a game, this film explores the centrality of sports to everyday life with wisdom and humor. A smash hit upon release, Andres Wood's directorial debut has become a landmark in Chilean national cinema.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Sentimental Teaser, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Cristian Galaz
Feature 90 minutes 1999
With English subtitles
This beloved Chilean box-office smash hit tells three engaging tales of love, longing, family and housing. Anonymous callers ring in to tell all to a young, eccentric radio talk show host, recounting their most intimate stories to an eager listening public. In "Patas Negras," a provincial university student has a provocative encounter with his alluring neighbor; in "Secretos," a young woman must face the secret that has haunted her family; and in "Todo es Cancha," a young couple struggles with the nuisances of overcrowded project housing. This sincere crowd-pleaser is the most widely seen domestic film in Chile to date.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Clean Eye, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Magali Meneses
Documentary 25 minutes 1995
With English subtitles
"During the time that I fought with language... I
used to hear myself as I wrote. Teeth cracking
away with anger. Sandpaper screech of the blunt
edge of language..." This documentary provides an
overview of the life of the Nobel-prize-winning
Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, using photographs
and archival footage. Mistral was a path-breaking
woman who traveled extensively in Europe and the
Americas, serving as an educational advisor to
the post-revolutionary Mexican government and as
the Chilean consul to Mexico, Brazil, and the
U.S., among other countries. The centerpiece of
the film is the only surviving recorded interview
with Mistral, broadcast on the radio in
Montevideo in 1938, in which she displays her
prodigious talents as a poet, comic, and orator.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Remarkable Images: The Ecuadorean Indigenous-Military Uprising Get Details and Purchasing Info
Brian Selmeski
Documentary 28 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
Upset with the corruption and mismanagement of Ecuadorian president Jamil Mahuad, a group of indigenous people rose against him, to be joined by unlikely allies – the Ecuadorian military. This documentary is an up-close and on-the-scene depiction of the events that took place within 24 hours on January 21, 2000, and the ultimate result of the unrest.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Water is Ours, Damn It!, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Sheila Franklin
Documentary 33 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
Under pressure from the World Bank in recent years, Bolivia has privatized the country's oil and gas pipelines, airlines, railways, electric utilities and -- as shown in this documentary -- the water rights to the city of Cochabamba and surrounding areas. Following that sale, the Bechtel Corporation, while depressing labor standards and encouraging service reductions, increased water costs by as much as 400 percent. When a peaceful protest march was attempted, President Hugo Banzer summoned police, arrested protest leaders, and declared a state of siege. The Cochabambans made it clear they had reached their limit and fought back. After four days of strikes, Bolivian government officials were forced to nullify the contract they had signed. This documentary features interviews with a wide range of people who were directly involved and includes riveting original footage from street battles in Cochabamba, which at one point had up to 100,000 people confronting armed troops in the main plaza.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Water Willies in the Global Village Get Details and Purchasing Info
Greg Berger
Documentary 30 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
Welcome to Tejalpa, Mexico in the year 2000. It's one weird and dislocated place! This ancient Indian town has kept many of its traditions alive, including the fiesta celebrated each year on October 18th. On this day the very best of the year's agricultural harvest is offered to the spirits of the town's main spring and aquifier. The annual tradition survives despite a rapid process of suburban sprawl and less-than-responsible development, which pollutes the same water that is worshipped every year! Even the town's ecological reserve is not safe, invaded by landless squatters enticed by urban political bosses and unscrupulous developers. Using a mish mosh of aesthetics as diverse as the present day population of Tejalpa, the film demonstrates the clashes of modernity, tradition, communal stability, land disputes and ecological crisis that exist in the town of Tejalpa. It was produced with the help of various local civic organizations and NGOs and was made especially for the town's inhabitants, as a catalyst for debate on the town's future. But in this special version for international audiences, the film provides a bizarre visual perspective on the globalization debate, highlighting the real human cost of unregulated development.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories Get Details and Purchasing Info
Pam Sporn
Documentary 56 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
This documentary traces the tangled paths and multifaceted identity of a black Cuban family in the Bronx. The subjects of this film experienced firsthand some of the great historical events of the 20th century – they saw Castro’s arrival in Havana and had their neighborhood bombed in the Bay of Pigs invasion; one son fought in Vietnam and a daughter marched against it. Both working-class and professional, black and Latino, foreign and native, Spanish-speaking and English-speaking, the family is shown in the constant process of negotiating its identity. On their arrival in Miami, the family immediately encountered racial segregation, and as children in a mixed Puerto Rican/African-American neighborhood in the Bronx, they were forced by their playmates to choose their identity: “Are you black or Spanish?” Even the family’s roots in Cuba are complex - the grandfather was the son of Jamaican immigrants to Cuba – and their relation to the Cuban Revolution is complex and ambiguous. The film explores the various experiences that each family member had in dealing with the complex realities of life as black Cuban-Americans in the Bronx. One son, stuck between his family and the code of the streets, became a drug addict before he found religion. Another became a doctor, but his curiosity about his roots brings him back to a Havana very different from the one where he was born, and where he discovers he cannot fit in. The experiences of this one family speak to the larger issues of race, social class, and nation that help to shape the identities of everyday people.
Purchase Price: $ 225.00
Chronicles of an Endless Journey, part 1: from uyuni to machu picchu Get Details and Purchasing Info
Anibal Guiser
Documentary 32 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
This beautifully-shot road trip is a cultural homage to the Andean Highlands. Structured around a series of vignettes, including a trip to a salt mine in Bolivia and a portrait of a religious sect in Peru, the film gives viewers vivid insight into the Altiplano's history, collective memories, hybrid identities, and syncretic beliefs.
Purchase Price: $ 150.00
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