Hispanic Heritage Month Documentary Series Presents: ALTAR

Click on a movie poster or scroll down to see when and where we’ll be showing ALTAR!

ALTAR: Cruzando Fronteras, Building Bridges

A documentary film directed by Paola Zaccaria and Daniele Basilio (2009). Research, script and executive production: Paola Zaccaria. Produced by Università di Bari and Regione Puglia. Assessorato al Mediterraneo.

In this documentary on Gloria Anzaldúa, the effort has been to document how her creative mind worked visually, how she was interested in art, and consequently her influence on women artists. After having gone through Anzaldúa’s papers (published and unpublished works, graphic works, collection of posters, buttons and t-shirts, etc.) collected at Austin University, Texas, I have been able to map her links with artists, activists and cultural centers and interviewed women who were inspired by her thinking and poetics (such as Liliana Wilson, Santa Barraza, Juana Alicia, Amalia-Mesa Bains, Antonia Castañeda, Betita Martinez, Graciela Sanchez, Gloria Ramirez, Irene Reti, and al.). We have also shot articrafts, photographies, video, painting, murales inspired to other artists by her poetics and theory of la frontera.

On the Texas borderlands in McAllen, Mission, and Hidalgo (shot in April 2008, before the actual building of the wall), we captured the material passageways between Mexican and American borders along the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo River which were the source for the texture of crossing which makes her work so special (insider guide: Daniel García Ordaz ).
A special attention has been devoted to the poet’s altares reposited in the University Library of Santa Cruz, CA (curator: Irene Reti), which were an integral part of her spiritual life and creative process as a writer and may be the best picture to visualize the frame of her creative process.

Visit the ALTAR: Cruzando Fronteras, Building Bridges website


 


 



*Artwork courtesy of Celeste De Luna*
For more information, please contact, Angelica Maria Garcia amgarcia@southtexascollege.edu or at 956-872-2277