Canoa: A Shameful Memory
Friday, May 12 at 9:00pm
Highlighting restored, archival, and silent cinema from Il Cinema Ritrovato's annual festival in Bologna, Italy.
Introduction by Héctor Melo Ruiz (Carleton College)
About Canoa: A Shameful Memory (Canoa: Memoria de un Hecho Vergonzoso)
Mexico | Directed by Felipe Cazals | 1976 | 115 min | Spanish | Courtesy Janus Films
One of Mexico’s most highly regarded works of political cinema, Canoa: A Shameful Memory reimagines a real-life incident that had occurred just eight years before its release, when a group of urban university employees on a hiking trip were viciously attacked by residents of the village of San Miguel Canoa who had been manipulated by a corrupt priest into believing the travelers were communist revolutionaries. Director Felipe Cazals adopts a gritty documentary style to narrate the events in Canoa while referencing the climate of political repression that would lead to the massacre of student protesters in Mexico City shortly thereafter. The resulting film is a daring commentary on ideological manipulation, religious fanaticism, and mass violence, as well as a visceral expression of horror.
Héctor Melo Ruiz (Carleton College) Bio: Héctor Melo Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Carleton College. His research and teaching interests are violence, race, and intellectuals, and his area of expertise is 20th-and 21st-century Latin American Narrative. He teaches courses on Labor, Cinema, and Urban Unrest in Latin America. He is currently writing a book about the cultural representation of riots.
About Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour–Minneapolis
Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour–Minneapolis will feature recently restored archival films at The Main Cinema from May 11–13, 2023. Presented in partnership by Archives on Screen, Twin Cities, the Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Cineteca di Bologna, the festival will screen eleven highlights from Il Cinema Ritrovato’s 2022 lineup. Il Cinema Ritrovato is an annual international film festival that exhibits new restorations and archival films in Bologna, Italy. Archives on Screen is proud to partner with Il Cinema Ritrovato and Cineteca di Bologna to curate selections from their festival for Twin Cities audiences.
About Archives on Screen, Twin Cities
Co-organized by Michelle Baroody and Maggie Hennefeld, Archives on Screen is dedicated to bringing rare, unseen archival films from around the globe to movie screens in the Twin Cities. Animated by a love of cinema and a commitment to making visible excluded images from the past, we work with international film archives and local film venues to expose students and audiences to the richness of film history. We program events that foster open dialogue and community engagement between university students and local film audiences across the Twin Cities. Our programming draws on local, national, and international film archives, and it spans the early history of silent cinema, studio feature films, experimental counter-cinemas, third cinema, amateur and non-theatrical films, short films, unfinished films, and contemporary independent filmmaking.