A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS (1998) Screening and Director/Collaborators Discussion

A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS

feature documentary, 92 mins (1998)

Doors open at 6:30PM, screening begins at 7:30PM

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On January 1st, 1994, the indigenous Zapatista National LIberation Army took over five towns and five hundred ranches in southern Mexico.

Three years later, the Zapatistas and their charismatic leader, guerrilla poet Subcomandante Marcos, are trapped in the Lacandon Jungle.  Surrounded by 30,000 Mexican army troops, they struggle to maintain a nervous ceasefire.

Despite on-going peace talks, hundreds have been killed. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travels throughout the jungle canyons of Chiapas to capture the elusive and fragile life of a revolution – its existence threatened by right-wing paramilitary death squads.  On camera, the death squads accuse the Zapatistas of violence.  Off camera, they threaten to kill the film crew.

Through eight months of filming, Wild takes the audience with her on a personal journey through fear, hope and illusion.

Joining director Nettie Wild for the post screening discussion will be producer Betsy Carson.

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“Wild and her crew bring out an affecting intimacy rare in documentaries with a news sensibility. At once inspiring and chilling, this point-blank glimpse leaves powerful impressions of a human problem of agonizing depths. Politics aside, “A Place Called Chiapas” is a film of exceptional cinemagraphic beauty.”

Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle

“Electric, alive, and commendably, coincidentally surreal. A humorous, awkward, imperiled cat’s cradle of history, fury and injustice…bold ways of showing unexpected sides of a story that sometimes has the transcendent urgency of a luscious and troubled agit-prop fable.” 

Wesley Morris, San Francisco Examiner

“An exemplary documentary that vividly and lucidly explores a modern Mexican standoff.”  

David Stratton, Variety

“A simple title – but what a movie!”

Simone Mahrenholz, Der Tagesspiegal

“A blistering documentary.” 

The Economist

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Awards

Official Selection, Berlin International Film Festival (Forum of New Cinema)

Best Feature Documentary/Distinctive Achievement Award, International Documentary Association (IDA)

Audience Award +  Best Documentary Film, American Film Institute (AFI) Festival

Best Canadian Feature Documentary, Genie Awards 

Best Director, Hot Docs International Film Festival, Canada,

Best Editing, Hot Docs International Film Festival

Best Overall Sound, Hot Docs International  Film Festival

Best Historical Documentary + Critic's Award, Istanbul International Film Festival.