Blog Post 4 – North Carolina Latin American Film Festival

For my blog post this week I decided I would write little reviews on all the movies I have watched during the North Carolina Latin American Film Festival. After browsing the selection of screenings available I picked a few films from different countries in Latin America. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the people, history, culture and much more.

Mugan Boe: El Llanto de la Abuelas 

This short film was shown before the movie Stateless. It is an animation of the spanish invasion of the “new world”. I enjoyed the film because it didn’t attempt to hide the truth, it showed the bloodshed and the fear caused by the invasion. I believe the message of the short film is to remind people to not forget the suffering experienced by the indigenous people.

Stateless (2020)

I enjoyed this political documentary about the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The action takes place after the Dominican Republic stripped Haitian’s and Dominican Republican’s of Haitian descent of their citizenship. It follows the story of Rosa Iris and her fight for social justice. The documentary deals with themes of racism, genocide, citizenship and identity. I think that the overall message is to never give up fighting for what you believe in.

La Casa de Mama Icha (2020)

Another documentary style production however instead of focussing on political themes like Stateless it instead tells a more nostalgic and emotional story. Mama Icha returns to Colombia after living in the USA for years and it shows the challenges she faces with the decision of moving back. The documentary raises questions of what it means to call somewhere or something a ‘home’ and in turn allows the audience to question it themselves.

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