By Edna Horton/managing editor
Learning by watching, listening and practicing is the goal of a NW Campus film series.
Cine Para Todos will present diverse Latino, Latin American and Spanish-language perspectives.
Alejandro Garza, associate professor of Spanish, and Kristina Elizondo, humanities instructor, started the project as a learning tool for Garza’s Spanish and Elizondo’s Mexican-American Studies classes.
“Alejandro Garza was interested in doing a Spanish-language film series,” Elizondo said. “I wanted to do a film series specific to Mexican-American themes. We thought these two things are so close maybe we could join them together.”
Three films are planned this spring and will be shown on Friday afternoons. Beginning the series is Bajo la Misma Luna at 10:10 a.m. March 5. The film tells the story of a Mexican boy who crosses the U.S. border to find his mother after his grandmother dies.
“We decided on Bajo La Misma Luna because we felt it provided a clear point of view and an individual story about what has become a very heated and timely political issue,” Elizondo said.
NW Campus offered the film series in the fall semester for the first time. The two films chosen were The Motorcycle Diaries and Maria Full of Grace. Elizondo said the films are good and have some deeper meaning students can identify with.
She said they showed The Motorcycle Diaries because it was about revolutionary figure Che Guevara. In the movie, Guevara leaves his neighborhood for the first time, and the suffering he sees around South America shapes who he became.
“I thought that was cool for students to see since they are at that same place right now,” she said.
Garza said he wants the series to become a way for students to learn the Spanish language by watching and listening. He said students also can get exposed to many different cultures of Latin America, Spain and Hispanics in the United States.
“I chose the name Cine Para Todos because everyone is welcome to join us,” he said. “Everybody can also participate and learn by interacting during and after the films.”
Garza said students continue to ask about the films weeks after they are shown.
After each film, the audience discuss relevant topics that affect people in Spanish-speaking countries.
“Students always want to know more,” he said. “I think this is a great opportunity to see what is happening in our societies. Movies transport viewers to so many different places. Movies are also educational and fun.”
Elizondo and Garza would like the series to continue growing with a student organization that would choose the films.
The next film in the spring series has not been chosen, but Elizondo said they are looking for something lighter, maybe a comedy to balance the seriousness of the first film. The showing will be at 10:10 a.m. April 30.
Free drinks and popcorn are provided at each showing.
Locations for the showings will be announced. For more information, send an e-mail to kristina.elizondo@tccd.edu or to alejandro.garza@tccd.edu.
