Maestra

Film Screening and Discussion with Director Catherine Murphy

Date: Thursday, May 2, 6pm
Location: 1730 Cambridge Street, Tsai Auditorium

Moderator:
Kirsten Weld
Department of History
Harvard University

Commentator:
Rainer Schultz
Department of History
Harvard University

During the event, the film will be shown, followed by remarks that contextualize and historicize the campaign, before opening up for a discussion on the film and its subject in the presence of the director.

Reception to follow.

About the film:
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process. More info at:
www.maestrathefilm.org

About the director:
Catherine Murphy is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who has spent much of the last 10 years working in Latin America. She is founder & director of The Literacy Project, a multi-media documentary project on adult literacy in the Americas. Murphy served as senior staff producer at the TeleSur TV Washington bureau in 2006 and has produced content for PBS, TeleSur, Avila TV, Pacifica Radio National, WBAI and KPFA. Maestra is her directing debut. She holds a Masters Degree from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) at the University of Havana and is currently teaching for the Center of Global Affairs at New York University.

Co-sponsored by ARTS@DRCLAS.

Please contact Linda Rodríguez (lmrodrig@fas.harvard.edu) for more information.