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El Norte: the ultimate immigrant story

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: El Norte
Released: 1983
Director:: Gregory Nava

Plot Summary

There's a reason your teacher made you watch El Norte in your high school Spanish class: it's a good movie with a thoughtful message. The movie opens in a small village in Guatemala in the early 80s, a time of government oppression, disappearances and torture which started a civil war that wasn't resolved until the early 90s.

After a massacre in their village, siblings Rosa and Enrique decided to flee to the US, el norte, a place they imagine to be as incredible as tv programs and the stories they've heard growing up portray. Their trip is dangerous, and their new life in America isn't quite as they imagined.

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Cine - Movies
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Guatemala
immigration

Music, Wine, and Denver Spanish House Changes

Submitted by Nikki on

Denver Spanish House Class Changes

We have made the decision that we will no longer be offering on-site group classes at our office space this fall. Thank you to all of you who have participated in group classes this last year, it has been a true pleasure working with you.

In place of on-site group classes, we will be offering the following classes:

  • Private classes
  • On-location classes at your business, local library, or home
  • Before and After School programs at schools

Please contact me with any questions about our new classes.

Upcoming Live Latin Music

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Pizza, birra, y faso: A very Argentine Film

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: Pizza, birra, y faso (Pizza, Beer and Smokes)
Released: 1998
Director:: Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro

Plot Summary

Low-budget Argentine film Pizza, birra, y faso reminded me of Spanish film Tapas, in that it can most be appreciated by those who have spent a significant amount of time in Argentina (or Spain in the case of Tapas) or who are Argentines (or Spaniards) themselves. Even the movie's name pegs it as Argentine, using regional slang birra y faso rather than the more broadly used cerveza and cigarillos.

For those of you who have spent a lot of time in Argentina, you'll appreciate the street scenes, heavy use of local slang, and bringing in elements of everyday routine, like riding buses and taxis in Buenos Aires. The film provides an element of reality and daily life that recent mainstream Argentine films like Nueve Reinas lack.

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Cine - Movies
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Argentina

¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? An Almodóvar oldie but goodie

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (What have I done to Deserve This?)
Released: 1984
Director:: Pedro Almodóvar

Plot Summary

This older Almodóvar film is about a struggling dysfunctional family in Madrid. Every character is quirky: the mother Gloria with a slight over-the-counter pill addiction, her terrible husband with a love of fascist Germany, their two troubled kids and a kooky grandma who lives with her family but locks up her food.

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Cine - Movies
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Almodóvar
Carmen Maura

An Almodóvar Classic with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem: Live Flesh (Carne trémula)

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: Carne trémula (Live Flesh)
Released: 1997
Director:: Pedro Almodóvar

Plot Summary

Carne trémula is a film about love, revenge, forgiveness, and the human capacity to change and reinvent. Certainly more racy than other films like La flor de mi secreto and Volver, the film starts in Civil War Spain with prostitute Isabel (Penelope Cruz) giving birth to her only son Victor in a bus on the way to the hospital.

The story fast forwards to Victor in his twenties, infatuated with Elena who falls in love with David (Bardem) on a disastrous night that causes Victor to be sent to jail and David to become paraplegic.

Language Learning Notes

The end of the film contrasts Victor's birth during the Spanish Civil War, to modern Spain that has changed and healed though still marked by its past:

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Cine - Movies

The Flower of my Secret (La flor de mi secreto)

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret)
Released: 1995
Director:: Pedro Almodóvar

Plot Summary

Leo Macias writes romance novels under pseudonym Amanda Gris and is hired to write a critique of (unknowingly) her own work. Meanwhile, Leo's own marriage is in shambles while her husband is stationed in Brussels despite her knack for writing idealistic love stories.

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Cine - Movies
Tags: 
Almodóvar

Camila

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: Camila
Released: 1984
Director: María Luisa Bemberg

Plot Summary

Based on a true story during the Juan Manuel de Rosas dictatorship of Argentina, Camila is a story of scandal, love and politics. The story takes place in 1848, when the young wealthy socialite Camila O'Gorman falls in love with Jesuit priest Father Gutiérrez.

After a secret affair, the couple changes their identities and moves to Corrientes, where they hope to start over and forget about the past. Meanwhile, their story has spread from Santiago to Montevideo and when the couple's true identity is discovered, they are at the mercy of the dictatorship.

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Cine - Movies
Tags: 
Argentina
history

Congreso en Baires

Submitted by Nikki on

A view from the Congress building in Buenos Aires. While on a bus one time chatting with a sweet 80 year old woman, she shook her fist at the Congress building shouting "they're all liars!" before she said goodbye and got off at her stop.

Poetas y narradores al sur del Sur

Submitted by Nikki on

de Eliana Arévalo

Cuidades que inspiran

Cada país tiene su poesía, su narrativa. Cada ciudad tiene algo que nos inspira de cierta manera. Sus parques y plazas, sus edificios, sus vecinos y todos quienes la recorren. Cada país tiene también, escritores a quienes conmueve lo que sucede en su lugar del mundo, en su ciudad, en su distrito, en su propia vida.

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