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Margaret Mead Film Festival


This annual documentary festival offer several Latino films. A couple highlights:

Salero, Bolivia
Witness 4,000 square miles of pure white, stretched out in a radiant expanse—Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat. For centuries, day after day, the only workers on the Salar have been saleros, or salt harvesters. Following the discovery of giant untapped lithium reserves under the salt flat, Bolivia is poised to generate a fortune from this newfound resource, thrusting the Salar into the modern lithium-mining industry. Moises Chambi Yucra, one of the last remaining salt gatherers of the Salar, grapples with the desire to maintain a multigenerational tradition while feeling the pull toward new prospects and opportunities for his family. Stunning landscape imagery, coupled with Moises’s thoughtful ruminations and candid insights from his wife and family, create a poetic inquiry into the nature of identity and change in the modern world.

Das Nuvens Pra Baixo (Under the Clouds), Brazil
Carolina Maria de Jesus spent her life in a notorious favela (slum) in São Paolo. Her house was made of plywood, cans, and cardboard, and she supported her family by collecting and reselling paper. Her diary, documenting her difficult and violent daily life, was published as Quarto de Despejo and became a best seller in the 1960s. Meet five women in the Complexo da Maré slum in Rio de Janeiro, who draw parallels and contrasts between their experiences and Carolina’s. These women provide an invigorating depiction of life in the favela, subverting the usual themes of violence and male dominance.

Earlier Event: October 13
GEMS Festival
Later Event: October 13
Recent Spanish Cinema