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Hispanic/Latiné/x Heritage Month

This guide celebrates and honors Hispanic/Latiné/x Heritage Month.

Licensed Streaming Videos:

Who is Dayani Cristal?

The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.

Sleep Dealer

Set in the future, a young man looks for a better life outside his small rural village in Mexico-- but finds himself facing a technological dystopia when he attempts to cross the border.

Oaxacalifornia : the return / 212Berlin ; in collaboration with Faction Films

An intimate portrait of three generations of a Mexican-American family in California, Oaxacalifornia: The Return revisits the Mejía family twenty-five years after they were first portrayed negotiating their place in a new environment, digging deep into the complexities of multigenerational immigrant identities and the nuances of both belonging and otherness to become a moving epic about the fabric of this nation.

Latinos beyond reel : challenging a media stereotype

Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, and among the most diverse -- accounting for one-sixth of all Americans and tracing their origins to more than 20 countries. They are also a rising force in American politics. Yet across the American media landscape, from the broadcast airwaves to cable television and Hollywood film, the reality and richness of the Latino experience are virtually nowhere to be found. In Latinos Beyond Reel, filmmakers Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun examine how US news and entertainment media portray -- and do not portray -- Latinos. Drawing on the insights of Latino scholars, journalists, community leaders, actors, directors, and producers, they uncover a pattern of gross misrepresentation and gross under-representation -- a world in which Latinos tend to appear, if at all, as gangsters and Mexican bandits, harlots and prostitutes, drug dealers and welfare-leeching illegals.

The film challenges viewers to think critically about the wide-ranging effects of these media stereotypes, and to envision alternative representations and models of production more capable of capturing the humanity and diversity of real Latinos. Features commentary from Charles Berg, Otto Santa Ana, Angharad Valdivia, Federico Subervi, Mari Castaneda, Chon Noriega, Isabel Molina, Alex Nogales, Juan Gonzalez, Moctesuma Esparza, Josefina Lopez, Alex Rivera, Luis Ramos, Lisa Vidal, and others.

Aquí y Allá

"AQUÍ": Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the US. He finds his daughters older, and more distant than he imagined. His wife still has the same smile. Having saved some earnings from two trips to the US, he hopes to now finally make a better life with his family, and even to pursue his dreams on the side by starting a band: Copa Kings. He cherishes the everyday moments with his family. "ALLÁ": The villagers think this year's crop will be bountiful. There is also good work in a growing city an hour away. But the locals are wise to a life of insecurity, and their thoughts are often of family members or opportunities far away, north of the border. While working in the fields, Pedro meets and begins to mentor a teenager who dreams of the US. That place somehow always feels very present, practically knocking at the door. "Aquí y Allá" is a story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.

SONG FOR CESAR

A Song for Cesar, a documentary film by Abel Sanchez and Andres Alegria, presents a unique view of the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement. The film tells a previously untold story about the musicians and artists – including Joan Baez, Maya Angelou, and Carlos Santana, among others – who dedicated their time, creativity and even reputations to peacefully advance Cesar Chavez’s movement to gain equality and justice for America’s suffering farmworkers. The documentary also explores other facets of Cesar’s life – from childhood to his final days – revelations that, until now, have not been shared on screen.

El mariachi

When a wandering guitarist is mistaken for a hit man in a small Mexican town, it creates a lot of trouble as the body count rises.

In the Heights

Usnavi is a bodega owner who longs to go back to his native Dominican Republic. In the meantime, he spends his time in a small neighborhood in Washington Heights pining after Vanessa, a beautiful lady working at the beauty salon and looking after Abuela Claudia, the elderly Cuban lady living next door who raised him, among many others. One day, Usnavi's childhood friend Nina comes back from college with a secret, and Abuela Claudia wins the lottery.

El norte = The north

After an unsuccessful attempt by a community of Mayan Indians to improve their living conditions, the Guatemalan army destroys their village. Brother and sister are able to escape and begin their challenging journey towards a new life in the USA.

Diarios de motocicleta: The Motorcycle Diaries

Portrait of Ernesto `Che' Guevara as a young man on a life-changing journey across South America in 1952.

Cidade de Deus

Brazil, 1960s, City of God. The Tender Trio robs motels and gas trucks. Younger kids watch and learn well...too well. 1970s: Li'l Zé has prospered very well and owns the city. He causes violence and fear as he wipes out rival gangs without mercy. His best friend Bené is the only one to keep him on the good side of sanity. Rocket has watched these two gain power for years, and he wants no part of it. he keeps getting swept up in the madness. All he wants to do is take pictures. 1980s: Things are out of control between the last two remaining gangs...will it ever end? Welcome to the City of God.

La Llorna

Accused of the genocide of Mayan people, retired general Enrique is trapped in his home by massive protests. Abandoned by his staff, the indignant old man and his family must face the devastating truth of his actions and the growing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes.

Bacurau

A few years from now… BACURAU, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants (among them Sônia Braga) notice that their village has literally vanished from online maps and a UFO-shaped drone is seen flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries led by Udo Kier arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community. The mercenaries just may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little BACURAU.

Song Without a Name

Based on harrowing true events, SONG WITHOUT A NAME tells the story of Georgina, an indigenous Andean woman whose newborn baby is whisked away moments after its birth in a downtown Lima clinic - and never returned. Stonewalled by a byzantine and indifferent legal system, Georgina approaches journalist Pedro Campas, who uncovers a web of fake clinics and abductions - suggesting a rotting corruption deep within Peruvian society. Set in 1988, in a Peru wracked by political violence and turmoil, Melina León’s heart-wrenching first feature renders Georgina's story in gorgeous, shadowy black-and-white cinematography, "styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams" (Variety). SONG WITHOUT A NAME is a "Kafkaesque thriller" (The Hollywood Reporter) that unflinchingly depicts real-life, stranger-than fiction tragedies with poetic beauty.

Treading Water

A charming coming-of-age love story about a sensitive boy (Douglas Smith) whose rare disorder and eccentric family render him an outsider - until Laura (Zoë Kravitz) swims her way into his life.

Nominated for the Ibero-American Opera Prima Award at the Miami Film Festival.

Neruda

Directed by the award-winning filmmaker Pablo Larrain ("Jackie"), this Golden Globe-nominated film features international star Gael García Bernal as a policeman chasing Pablo Neruda, perhaps the most important poet of the 20th century and a hugely influential political figure.

Blending visual grandeur and literary wit, NERUDA is a beguiling reinvention of the 'standard' cinematic biography. Playfully confounding expectations at every turn, the film offers a startling rumination on the split between the person and persona, the man and the artist.

Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language. Winner of Best Actor and the Cine Latino Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

"Sweeping, poignant, bizarre, funny and unique." - Nicholas Barber, Newsweek

I am Cuba

Director Mikhail Kalatozov’s delirious masterpiece uses four stunning vignettes to paint a picture of pre-revolutionary Cuba, its culture, and the people who call the island home. Newly restored in breathtaking 4K with a single-language soundtrack, I AM CUBA has never looked better, with sweeping visuals lending grandeur to the film's outstanding cinematography, sound editing, and narrative heft like never before. Produced by Mosfilm and ICAIC, shooting began only a week after the Cuban Missile Crisis and was poised to be the island nation's response to both Sergei Eisenstein’s acclaimed propaganda piece (Battleship Potemkin) and Jean-Luc Godard’s recently acclaimed romance (Breathless). Instead, I AM CUBA turned out to be a wildly offbeat celebration of Communist iconography, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality in a combination that received two standing ovations at the San Francisco International Film Festival, as well as the first ever joint presentation from filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

Machuca

Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer), an eleven-year-old boy, studies at Saint Patrick’s, a reputable religious school whose students come from the upper middle class of Santiago. The headmaster, Father McEnroe (inspired by the rector of Saint George Gerardo Whelan and played by Ernesto Malbrán), brings a new group of children to the establishment, all of them from the popular class, in order to educate them without discrimination, in an attempt to promote mutual respect among students from different social classes. Among this group is Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna).

I Dream in Another Language

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for World Cinema/Dramatic, and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema, I DREAM IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE follows a young linguist into the jungles of Mexico as he tries to learn about and preserve a mysterious indigenous language. A language, as he discovers, at the point of disappearing since the last two speakers had a fight fifty years ago and refuse to speak a word with each other.

Trying to bring the two old friends back together, he discovers that hidden in the past, in the heart of the jungle, lies a secret concealed by the language that makes it difficult to believe that the heart of Zikril will beat once again.

Director Ernesto Contreras is a former winner of the Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, and this acclaimed film is his most accomplished to date.