SECOND ANNUAL
LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN FILM SERIES
SPRING SEMESTER PROGRAM

February 13, 2003 - 7:00 pm
International Cinema Auditorium (Bailey 135)
THE OFFICIAL STORY (Argentina, 1985; 112 minutes)
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1985, this powerful Argentinean drama is the true story of a comfortable middle-class couple and their adopted daughter. As the film progresses, the wife gradually begins to suspect that their daughter may be one of the many Argentinean infants who, separated from their parents as they were detained or tortured by government officials, were given away to well-connected, childless couples. The wife's journey of self-discovery reveals the horrors of the military dictatorship in Argentina. Spanish with English subtitles.
Discussant: David Aagesen

March 13, 2003 - 7:00 pm
International Cinema Auditorium (Bailey 135)
CENTRAL STATION (Brazil, 1998; 106 minutes)
This moving drama centers on a young boy whose mother is killed in front of Rio de Janeiro's Central Station. Homeless and with nowhere to turn, he is reluctantly befriended by a lonely and hardened woman (Fernanda Montenegro, in a universally acclaimed performance). Resisting her initial impulse to make a quick profit of the child, she commits to returning him to his father in Brazil's remote Northeast. Their journey --set against an epic backdrop of vast, majestic landscapes-- becomes a quest for their own identities. Portuguese with English subtitles.
Discussant: Margaret Matlin

April 17, 2003 - 7:00 pm
International Cinema Auditorium (Bailey 135)
SUGAR CANE ALLEY (France, 1984; 107 minutes)
Euzhan Palcy's lyrical village drama is set in French-occupied 1930s Martinique. The story examines the relationship of Jose, a determined,
impoverished 11-year-old, and his equally difficult and shrewd grandmother, who sacrifices everything for the boy's happiness. Documenting Jose's life from the canefields to his high school years in Fort de France, the film offers a wonderful lens into Afro-Caribbean culture and the lives of sugar cane workers, illustrating the racial and social class tensions and the lack of economic and social mobility that descendants of African slaves experienced even after emancipation. French with English subtitles.
Discussant: Rosemarie Chierici