17^th annual Latin American Film Festival will focus on 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile

By STEPHANIE GUNTER
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL – On Sept. 11, 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende lost his life in a bloody coup staged by Gen. Agosto Pinochet’s army. Thousands of citizens disappeared as Pinochet’s secret police force prowled the country, and family members fought to keep the memory of their missing loved ones alive.

This year’s Latin American Film Festival, Nov. 2-17 on college and university campuses in the Triangle, the Triad and the Charlotte area, will commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the coup. The festival will screen 20 films, all free and open to the public, with discussions and with numerous showings led by filmmakers and writers.

"Chile: 30 Years of Memory: A Focus on Latin American Dictatorships and Power Struggles" will be the title of the 17^th annual film festival presented by the Consortium in Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Charlotte-area events are titled the William Brown Jr. Latin American Film Festival.

Sharon Mujica, the consortium’s director of outreach and education programs, said the festivals tend to build community and help create interest in Latin America. "They also have become a venue for young Latin American and Latino filmmakers to show their work, which probably would not be previewed anywhere else in the state," she said.

The festival will open at N.C. State University’s Witherspoon Student Center at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 with "Missing – United States." The film, based on a true story, stars John Shea, Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon. It tells a story of a young American journalist who mysteriously disappears during the coup and the disturbing realities discovered by his wife and father when they try to find him.

Another festival highlight will be a speech by Peter Kornbluh, director of Cuban and Chilean documentation projects for the National Security Archive, at 4 p.m. Nov. 4 at UNC-Chapel Hill’s University Center for International Studies, located at 223 E. Franklin St.

Kornbluh will speak on U.S. involvement in Chile after the coup and share excerpts from his new book, "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability." Also on Nov. 4, at 8 p.m. in Duke’s Richard White Auditorium, Kornbluh will introduce the film "El Caso de Pinochet" (The Pinochet Case). Book signings will follow both events.

The festival will highlight the work of a variety of Chilean writers, directors and professors, as well that of five U.S.-based filmmakers. Schedules, venues, phone numbers and information about the films and speakers are detailed at http://www.unc.edu/depts/ilas/LAFF/index.html. For more information, call the consortium at (919) 843-8888.

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(Gunter, of Raleigh, is a senior majoring in journalism and mass communication.)

Contact: Sharon Mújica, (919) 962-2414, smujica@email.unc.edu
News Services Contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu