MCHS Co-Sponsoring Two Films for Cinehassee Iberoamerican Film Festival
The Art History Museum & Cultural Heritage Studies (MCHS) program is proud to co-sponsor two films for the Cinehassee Iberoamerican Film Festival, which is organized annually by the Hispanic Graduate Student Association (HiGSA). MCHS will sponsor screenings of Guie’Dani’s Navel (October 26–November 1) and Negra (November 2–8). Drs. Kristin Dowell and Erika Loic will also host a Q&A discussion with Mehdin Tewolde Serrano, the filmmaker of Negra, on November 8.
For this year’s festival, the films will each be available asynchronously for one week, accompanied by synchronous Q&A sessions and other cultural studies resources. The event is free and the schedule of films is available below. Register here to receive information about access to the films.
Guie’Dani’s Navel (Xquipi’ Guie’Dani). 2019. Directed by Xavi Sala. 119 mins. Mexico. In Zapotec and Spanish with English subtitles.
Guie’Dani, Zapotec teenager, and her mother, Lidia, move from their native Oaxaca to Mexico City to work as live in housekeepers for an upper-middle-class family. Guie’Dani does not fit in and maintains her defiance and silence against the new family, who mock the Zapotec language and habits and inflict psychological and physical subjugation on the Indigenous pair. However, Guie’Dani rejects the life of servitude and seeks out her own identity, through her friendship with another rebellious teen maid living on her street.
Film Trailer for Guie’Dani’s Navel
Negra. 2020. Directed by Medhin Tewolde Serrano. 72 mins. Mexico. In Spanish with English subtitles.
I was seven years old when for the first time someone on the street called me “Black”. I turned around to see who they called, until I realized it was me. That day I knew I was Black, and the laughter around me made me think that maybe it was not a good thing….Had this happened only to me, or had it also happened to others? Negra is a documentary shows the director in her search of exploring what it means to inhabit Mexico as a Black woman. It tells the story of five Afro-descendant women from southern Mexico, exposing racism, resistance, and processes of self-acceptance, strategies for transcending stereotypes, and the celebration of their identity.
Film Trailer for Negra
