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The Work of Rafael Rebollar
Afromexico Series

February 2003



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Editor's Note:
Rafael Rebollar is one of Mexico's most accomplished documentary directors. His past work includes a series on indigenous culture in Mexico, and a documentary on the cultural and political changes of the 1960s. His films have been invited to participate in festivals in Mexico, Brazil, and the United States.

The two documentaries listed below form part of a trilogy on the history of Africans in Mexico; Rebollar is currently at work on the final documentary of the series. "The Forgotten Roots" received its US premiere in December 2002 at New York's African Diaspora Film Festival. In February 2003, he presented both "The Forgotten Roots" and "From Florida to Coahuila" at the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles, to great acclaim.

To order any of these videos, contact us by email at info@lavavideo.org, by phone 212-243-4804, or by fax 212-243-2007. Our website, www.latinamericanvideo.org, allows for secure purchases by credit card.


African Roots


Forgotten Roots, The   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Rafael Rebollar
Documentary   50 minutes   2001
With English subtitles
Mexico has always imagined itself a nation forged from the encounter between Spaniards and indigenous people in the colonial past. But there are roots that have been forgotten, if not deliberately erased. This impressively researched documentary, the first of a three part series, acknowledges and explores the history and influential cultural heritage of Africans in Mexico. It tells how African people were brought as slaves and servants to the conquistadors, and came to occupy a variety of places in Mexican colonial society, from exploited mine and plantation workers to wealthy landowners. Their story in Mexico is one of both resistance and acculturation, as some slaves rebelled against their masters and others had children with them to advance themselves socially. This video uses both historical documentation and the example of Mexico’s dazzling hybrid traditions to illustrate the deep and pervasive footprints left by African culture in Mexican culture and society. The crowning example is the city of Veracruz, that bustling port of the “Afro-Andalusian Caribbean,” with its bubbling hodgepodge of faces, races, and musical expressions that was the point of entry for the majority of the slaves to enter Mexico. But the video emphasizes that Africans were present throughout the country, and works towards a reconciliation with those African roots of Mexican culture that have been forgotten for too long.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95


From Florida to Coahuila (The History of the Black Seminoles)   Get Details and Purchasing Info
Rafael Rebollar
Documentary   50 minutes   2002
With English subtitles
This documentary tells the remarkable story of a rebel people – the Mascogos, known in the United States as the Black Seminoles. This exceptional community, whose history crosses, borders, languages, and cultures, is descended from escaped slaves who made common cause with the Seminole Indians of Florida. The fierce battles of the Black and Indian Seminoles with the United States in the mid-1800s ended in truce rather than defeat, and they resettled along both sides of the Mexican border. These furious fighters – the only Native American group which never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. - were recruited by both the Mexican and U.S. governments to defend the border from bandits, and served as an elite battalion attached to the U.S. Army. They continue to live in towns like Nacimiento in Coahuila, Mexico, and Bracketteville, Texas. The exceptional Mascogo/Black Seminole culture combines African-American spirituals, Indian fry-bread, and Tex-Mex cowboy culture. Their old religion was based in dream divination, and their old language combined West African, Native American, English, and Spanish. But these old ways have been dying along with the elders who practiced them, and young Mascogo and Black Seminoles have lost touch with a heritage which is not taught in school and which risks total assimilation into mainstream Mexican and U.S. culture. Filmed on both sides of the border, this video documents the complex history of people of African descent caught between national boundaries, and the efforts of their descendants to maintain their culture and instill a sense of pride in future generations of this warrior people.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95




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