As a perfect follow-up to the recent Festival of New Spanish Films 2010, Rice Cinema now hosts The Mexican Revolution Film Series. The three-day festival screens the 2007 Pueblo de Madera (Village of Wood) by Juan Antonio de la Riva on Friday. It’s a hard look at life in a lumber-mill town, where the antics of schoolchildren reflect their dreams for the future. On Saturday, it’s the 1949 La Negra Angustias (Black Angustias) by director Matilde Landeta. Made in the Golden Era of Mexican cinema, Angustias is considered a classic. The film centers on a young woman, the daughter of an infamous bandit. She battles her country’s rigid machismo to become a high-ranking officer in Emiliano Zapata’s revolutionary army. And on Sunday, the documentary Los Ultimos Zapatistas, Heroes Olvidados (The Last Zapatistas, Forgotten Heroes) screens. Made in 2003 and directed by Francesco Taboada Tabone, the film tracks down the last members of Zapata’s army. With direct correlations to the current resistance forces in Mexico by peoples who continue to struggle for the same freedoms Zapata sought, the film captures Mexico’s political history in a unique way. 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 6100 Main. For information, call 713-348-4882 or visit www.ricecinema.rice.edu. Free.
Oct. 22-24, 7 p.m., 2010
This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2010.