Sep 15, 2023

Documentaries to Watch for Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month History Month, we are highlighting a selection of award-winning independent documentaries that focus on Hispanic stories and voices. These films are available in a variety of streaming and purchase options for schools, non-profits, community organizations, libraries, and corporations. We hope you will utilize these important educational resources year-round to spark critical dialogue in your community or organization! Check out the full collection here.

Adios Amor showcases the discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot— Maria Moreno, a migrant mother who sacrificed everything but her twelve kids in the passionate pursuit of justice for farmworkers. Years before Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta launched the United Farm Workers, Maria picked up the only weapon she had—her voice—and became an outspoken leader in an era when women were relegated to the background. The first farm worker woman in America to be hired as a union organizer, Maria’s story was silenced and her legacy buried—until now.

Exiled tells the emotional and complicated stories of two deported U.S. military veterans living in Tijuana, Mexico. Although these soldiers had “lawful permanent resident” status in the U.S. and performed honorable military service, they have been sent back to their birth countries because of criminal convictions. Mauricio Hernandez struggles with severe PTSD as a result of his time as a U.S. combat soldier in Afghanistan, but in Mexico, he has no access to the mental healthcare that he is entitled to as a veteran. With sweat, tears, and grassroots organizing, deported paratrooper Hector Barajas is on a mission to raise awareness about the deported veteran issue, and reunite with his 11-year-old daughter in Compton, California.

La Bonga is a symbolic journey through the jungles of the Caribbean to resurrect a place that only exists in memory. On April 5, 2001, shortly after a nearby massacre at the hands of paramilitaries, two hooded strangers delivered a letter to the farming town of La Bonga. The note accused the people of sympathizing with the FARC, the largest guerrilla group in Colombia. They were given 48 hours to either leave or be forcibly removed. The entirety of La Bonga fled that same day. Prompted by the tenuous Colombian peace agreements of 2016 and led by the only person who has attempted to live there again––María de los Santos––the townspeople decide to resurrect a celebration honoring their patron saint. To do so, they must confront the jungle and face the realities of reconstructing a place that no longer is.

Unadopted follows Anaya untangling his own unique story. After 20 years in foster care, Noel Anaya was never adopted. He was determined to investigate what went wrong, and finds the answers in his first documentary film. This leads him to a wider examination that reveals the social welfare system’s silent but pervasive systemic bias against families of color, and teenagers aka “older youth". While most young adults look to their parents for answers about identity and upbringing, Anaya turns to court records, social workers, and most importantly, three California teens who reveal the critical decisions they’re currently making to secure a “forever family”—or not.

Landfall is a cautionary tale for our times. Set against the backdrop of protests that toppled the US colony’s governor in 2019, the film offers a prismatic portrait of collective trauma and resistance. While the devastation of María attracted a great deal of media coverage, the world has paid far less attention to the storm that preceded it: a 72-billion-dollar debt crisis crippling Puerto Rico well before the winds and waters hit. Landfall examines the kinship of these two storms—one environmental, the other economic—juxtaposing competing utopian visions of recovery. Featuring intimate encounters with Puerto Ricans as well as the newcomers flooding the island, Landfall reflects on a question of contemporary global relevance: when the world falls apart, who do we become?

In Powerlands, Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a young Navajo filmmaker, investigates the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where she was born. She travels to the La Guajira region in rural Colombia, the Tampakan region of the Philippines, the Tehuantepec Isthmus of Mexico, and the protests at Standing Rock. In each case, she meets Indigenous women leading the struggle against the same corporations that are causing displacement and environmental catastrophe in her own home. Inspired by these women, Ivey Camille brings home the lessons from these struggles to the Navajo Nation.

No Más Bebés tells the story of Mexican immigrant mothers who sued doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County General Hospital during the 1970s. Alongside an intrepid, 26-year-old Chicana lawyer and armed with hospital records secretly gathered by a whistle-blowing young doctor, these mothers stood up to powerful institutions in the name of justice. Their landmark 1975 civil rights lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, asserted that a woman’s right to bear a child is guaranteed under the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. This EMMY® nominated film lifts up the significant contribution of Chicana activists who sought to redefine reproductive politics — not only as the right to abortion, but also the human right to bear a child. Their demand that the needs of poor women and women of color be heard resonates powerfully, as women’s reproductive choice is under attack and the reproductive justice movement struggles to ensure that all women have a voice in the debate.

Purgatorio is Rodrigo Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of caméra-stylo, PURGATORIO ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images.

To the End captures the emergence of a new generation of leaders and the movement behind the most sweeping climate change legislation in U.S. history. The award-winning team behind Knock Down the House follows four exceptional young women— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and political strategist Alexandra Rojas— as they grapple with new challenges of leadership and power and work together to defend their generation’s right to a future. From street protests to the halls of Congress, these bold leaders fight to shift the narrative around climate, revealing the crisis as an opportunity to build a better society. Including up-to-the-minute footage that culminates in 2022’s landmark climate bill, To the End lifts the veil on the battle for the future of our world, and gives audiences a front seat view of history in the making.

Ricochet is a documentary feature film about the trial of an undocumented immigrant, Jose Inés Garcia Zaraté, for the accidental shooting of a young woman, Kate Steinle on Pier 14 in San Francisco in July of 2015. The incident gains national attention when Donald Trump exploits this on the campaign trail for the anti-immigration movement that he rides to the Republican nomination and eventually, the White House. At the same time, the national media takes the story and makes it a referendum on San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy. So the stakes are high when the trial finally begins in fall 2017, with the defense led by two San Francisco public defenders: Chief Attorney Matt Gonzalez and Francisco Ugarte, head of the office’s Immigration Defense Unit.

The Unafriad is a feature-length documentary that follows the lives of three DACA students in Georgia, a state that has banned them from attending its top public universities, and from qualifying for in-state tuition at any other public college. Using observational footage shot over three years, The Unafraid tells the personal stories of a group of friends connected by an underground movement called Freedom University. Through the stories of Alejandro, Silvia, and Aldo, viewers learn what it's like to be both a young American and undocumented in the U.S. at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is growing, emboldened by a President who has issued orders to end DACA and restrict immigration. The narratives of their lives will intersect at protests and rallies, and then expand out from this unifying force to the personal daily challenges faced by them and their families. The Unafraid goes beyond the media’s portrayal of the ‘dreamer’ poster child and truly humanizes the experience of undocumented and DACA students, their families and communities.

The Last Out tells the very human story of people caught between countries who want nothing more than to make a better life for their families. Set against the backdrop of the dangerous Central American migrant trail, the film offers a rare window into the dark side of professional sports. Fleeing their homeland, three Cuban baseball players arrive in Costa Rica to showcase their skills for pro scouts. But when one of them is cut by their ruthless agent and evicted from the apartment, the others must decide if they can still trust the agent or if they should take the dangerous migrant trail north to the United States.

Personal Statement is an Emmy® nominated feature-length documentary that follows Karoline, Christine, and Enoch through their senior year and into college. They work tirelessly as peer college counselors to realize better futures for themselves and their peers. They struggle and they stumble, but refuse to succumb to the barriers that prevent so many low-income students from attending and graduating from college.

A Place to Breathe explores the universality of trauma and resilience through the eyes of immigrant and refugee healthcare practitioners and patients. This feature-length documentary intertwines the personal journeys of those who are transcending their own obstacles by healing others. Combining cinema vérité and animation, the film highlights the creative strategies by which immigrant communities in the U.S. survive and thrive.

The Pushouts examines crucial questions of race, class, power, and the American dream at a particularly urgent time."I was in prison before I was even born.” So begins the story of Victor Rios - a high school dropout, gang member, and three-time felon by 15. But when a teacher’s quiet persistence, a mentor’s moral conviction, and his best friend’s murder converge, Rios’ path takes an unlikely turn. Two decades later Rios - by then a 36-year-old tenured UC professor, author and national thought leader on the school-to-prison pipeline - gets a call. “Hey Hotshot.” It’s Martín Flores, Rios’ high school mentor, who he hasn’t heard from in 15 years. “I know you’re busy, but I need you to come down to Watts this summer and work with my kids.” It's a make it or break it moment for these youth, Flores - who directs a program serving 16 to 24 olds who haven’t finished high school - warns. “We get them on the right path now, or we lose them to the system.”

Zero Gravity follows a diverse group of middle school students from San Jose, CA, who compete in a nationwide tournament to code satellites aboard the International Space Station. Their mission: compete with teams across the country to write the most strategic code for surveying satellites, known as SPHERES. These satellites will help map out a GPS system to successfully orbit Mars in the future, opening the door to infinite opportunities and exploration on the Red Planet. Each coder-in-the-making brings their own strengths, unique perspectives, and boundless curiosity to their team, together embarking on an out-of-this-world STEM quest that celebrates space, teamwork, and the triumph of the human spirit. Featuring astronauts Steve Smith, Cady Coleman, and International Space Station resident Jack Fischer, who performs the students’ incredible achievements in orbit 250 miles above the Earth‘s surface, this inspiring documentary highlights the importance of empowering the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators who will fearlessly lead us into the future and the unknown.

Voice From Texas probes the cultural and historical factors that have shaped this unique and vibrant voice within the American mosaic. Featuring: Sandra Cisneros, Raul Salinas, Pat Mora, Tammy Gomez, Carmen Tafolla, Jesse Cardona.

Street Heroines is an award-winning feature-length documentary celebrating the courage and creativity of women who despite their lack of recognition have been an integral part of the graffiti and street art movement since the beginning. With authentic vérité storytelling woven between an interview-driven narrative, Street Heroines juxtaposes the personal experiences of three emerging Latina artists from New York City, Mexico City, and São Paulo as they navigate a male-dominated subculture to establish artistic identities within chaotic urban landscapes.

Toofly, born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, NY, is determined to use her art to help others and embarks on a journey that leads her back to Ecuador after establishing a unique friendship with the first female of graffiti, Lady Pink. Fusca, a talented painter who moved to Mexico City inspired by its embrace of muralism, becomes dismayed by the machinations behind the urban art scene and is forced to reanalyze her passion. In the concrete jungle of São Paulo, Brazil Magrela expresses her feelings on the complexities of being a woman through vibrant colors and radical imagery painted across city walls only to one day be confronted by the very authorities that make her feel unwanted in the public space. Combined with historical anecdotes from pioneering artists including Lady Pink, Swoon, Lady Aiko, Nina Pandolfo and iconic graffiti photographer Martha Cooper, among others, Street Heroines is the first-of-its-kind documentary to capture the collective outcry of female street artists.

Decade of Fire tells the story of the South Bronx that you’ve never heard before, and offers us a roadmap for building the American communities we want and truly deserve. In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Abandoned by the city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multi-ethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Puerto Rican residents bore the blame. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx-born Vivian Vázquez Irizarry exposes the truth about the borough’s untold history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild.

On the Divide follows the stories of three Latinx people living in McAllen, Texas, who, despite their conflicting views, are connected by the most unexpected of places: the last abortion clinic on the U.S./Mexico border. Despite their pro-life or pro-choice views, Mercedes, Rey and Denisse do not fit neatly on either side of the abortion debate, and their stories reveal that the issue is not as black and white as it might seem. As threats to the clinic and their personal safety mount, these three are forced to make decisions they never could have imagined. On the Divide goes beyond the clinic walls to explore the complex stories of those who have an unlikely stake in the issues surrounding abortion. In a community lacking healthcare options, what does it mean to go against your beliefs in order to survive?

Give and Take is an inside look at the community fridge movement in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. After seven of their drivers died from COVID-19, a car service in Queens, NY started hosting a community fridge on the sidewalk outside their offices. A small business started by immigrants, Fenix XL now serves a largely immigrant community with 24hr access to free food. Fanny, who lost her cleaning job when schools were closed, now relies on this fridge to survive. The first community fridge in NYC started outside a Bed Stuy apartment in February 2020; there are now over 100 across the city, inspiring a movement around the world.

Nuyorican Poets Cafe features veteran/founding poets like Miguel Algarin and Pedro Pietri. The film also showcases a new generation of wordsmiths, featuring Willie Perdomo and Carmen Bardeguez-Brown and includes poetry reading in the raucus Cafe’s open mic night and stylized renditions of iconic poems like Perdro Pietri’s “Puerto Rican Obituarty”. Puerto Rican cultural and literary traditions are explored, as is the unlikely mentorship of a young Willie Perdomo by a school custodian into the world of poetry.

In Silent Beauty, director Jasmin Mara López bravely films her story as a willful act to accept difficult truths while finding beauty in the process of healing. As she defies the cultural silence that pervades her family and confronts her abusive grandfather, who is a Baptist minister, a world of generational abuse unfolds, and she quickly discovers she is not alone. Through archival family footage and intimate moments with her family, López has created a film about confronting painful truths and the beauty one can feel when they reach the other side of grief.

Lupe Under the Sun is a neorealist film following an aging migrant worker living in California, who longs to return to Mexico before it is too late. Featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors, real farmworkers and authentic locations, Lupe Under the Sun tackles issues of depression, homesickness and the immigrant myth of the American Dream.

Long estranged from his family in Michoacán, migrant laborer Lupe finds relief from the backbreaking work of harvesting peaches in California’s Central Valley through camaraderie and a quiet love affair with fellow immigrant Gloria. Soon the stability of his daily routine begins to crack under the weight of a life scarred with regret and missed opportunities. Filmed in a classic neorealist style, director Rodrigo Reyes’s deeply moving debut fiction feature, inspired by the life of his own grandfather, is at once an intimately drawn meditation on life’s missed chances and a tale of the universal struggles of immigrants. Winner of Film Independent’s Canon Filmmaker Award, Reyes’s unforgettable film heralds the arrival of an important new voice in American cinema.

Building the American Dream captures a turning point as a movement forms to fight widespread construction industry injustices. Grieving their son, a Mexican family campaigns for a life-and-death safety ordinance. A Salvadorian electrician couple owed thousands in back pay fights for their children’s future. A bereaved son battles to protect others from his family's preventable tragedy. A story of courage, resilience, and community, the film reveals shocking truths about the hardworking immigrants who build the American Dream, of which they are excluded.

The feature documentary, Calavera Highway (Skeleton Highway), traces the odyssey of two brothers as they decipher their family’s story—why their mother Rosa was outcast by her own family, and what happened to their father Pedro, who disappeared during the notorious 1954 U.S. government deportation program, “Operation Wetback,” in which over a million Mexican and Mexican Americans were forced across the border. Calavera Highway s a sweeping story of a family of seven men grappling with the meaning of masculinity, fatherhood, and a legacy of rootless beginnings.

Memories of a Penitent Heart is a documentary that cracks open a Pandora’s box of unresolved family drama. The intimate lens of the film refracts on a wider cultural context: the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and in particular, how families treat their LGBT members in a Latin American cultural and religious context. A story about the mistakes of the past and the second chances of the present, Memories of a Penitent Heart is a cautionary tale about the unresolved conflicts wrought by AIDS and a nuanced exploration of how faith is used and abused in times of crisis.

Missing in Brooks County follows the journey of two families who arrive in Brooks County to look for their loved ones, only to find a mystery that deepens at every turn. A gripping drama, it is also a deeply humane portrait of the human rights workers, activists, and law enforcement agents who confront the life-and-death consequences of a broken immigration system.

Los Hermanos/The Brothers offers a nuanced, often startling view of estranged nations through the lens of music and family. Virtuoso Afro-Cuban-born brothers—violinist Ilmar and pianist Aldo—live on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half-century wide. The film tracks their parallel lives in New York and Havana, their poignant reunion, and their momentous first performances together.

Singing Our Way to Freedom chronicles the life and music of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez from his humble beginnings as a farmworker in Blythe, California to the dramatic moment when he received one of his nation’s highest musical honors at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. As a young man in the 1970s, Chunky joined the picket lines in California and became Cesar Chavez’s favorite musician. His journey is a remarkable lens on a time when young Mexican Americans became Chicanos. Chunky learned how to employ humor, honesty and music to inspire folks to stand up and speak truth to power. His arc of transformation from marginalized farm kid to charismatic social activist shows how one person can mobilize people to change the world, reminding us that the battle for freedom has to be fought anew by every generation.

Siquieros: Walls of Passion is an hour-long documentary that profiles Mexican visual artist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) and the resurrection of his Los Angeles mural América Tropical, located at the birthplace of Los Angeles and later championed by the Chicano movement as a symbol of its oppressed culture. One of the great Mexican artists of the 20th century and one of the three great Mexican muralists along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, Siqueiros was a controversy-stirring revolutionary and activist who lived with theatrical flair and painted on an epic scale. As one of the primary advocates of modern public art, Siqueiros painted murals in Mexico, the U.S., Cuba, Chile, and Argentina.

Sepa, Nuestro Señor de los Milagros is the name of an open air penal colony created in 1951 by the Peruvian Government within the national effort to colonize the Amazon territories by promoting agricultural practices amongst inmates in a 37.000 hectares piece of land in the jungles of Central Peru. The 1987 documentary directed by Walter Saxer is the only window into this experimental penal colony in Peru, where no camera has ever entered and little has been written about.