Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza De Mayo

A film by Susana Blaustein and Lourdes Portillo

1985 | 64 minutes | Color | 16mm/DVD | Subtitled | Order No. 99060

Host a screening
Watch on Kanopy

SYNOPSIS

This Academy award-nominated documentary about the Argentinian mothers’ movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 “disappeared” sons and daughters remains as extraordinarily powerful as when it was first released. As well as giving an understanding of Argentinian history in the ‘70s and ‘80s, LAS MADRES shows the empowerment of women in a society where women are expected to be silent. LAS MADRES provides a banner of hope in the international struggle for human rights.

PRESS

“A testimony to the most primal feminist power—the moral authority of motherhood…The miracle of the film is that it doesn’t merely leave you with sorrow or outrage, but with humanistic fervor.”

Michael Sragow San Francisco Examiner

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Toronto Film Festival
  • US Film Festival, Special Jury Prize
  • Films de Femmes, Creteil, Audience Award/Women’s Journalists’ Award
  • San Francisco Film Festival, Golden Gate Award

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Susana Blaustein

Susana Blaustein has been working in film since 1980. She is best known for her Academy Award nominated film LAS MADRES: THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO, co-directed and produced with Lourdes Portillo, about the courageous struggle of Argentine women seeking to find their "disappeared" sons and daughters. She also directed the award winning film LA OFRENDA: THE DAYS OF THE DEAD about the Mexican holiday celebrating and honoring the dead, SUSANA, about growing up in a conservative and repressive environment and MY HOME, MY PRISON, based on the autobiography of Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil. (01/20)

Lourdes Portillo

Mexico-born and Chicana identified, Lourdes Portillo is a writer / director / producer of films focused on the search for Latino identity. She has worked in a richly varied range of forms, from television documentary to satirical video-film collage.

Portillo got her first filmmaking experience at the age of twenty-one when a friend in Hollywood asked her to help out on a documentary. Her formal training began several years later. An apprenticeship at the San Francisco NABET (National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians) led to a job as Stephen Lighthill's first camera assistant on Cine Manifest's feature OVER, UNDER, SIDEWAYS, DOWN. In 1978, after graduating from The San Francisco Art Institute, Portillo used American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award monies to create her internationally praised narrative film AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE / DESPUES DEL TERREMOTO, about a Nicaraguan refugee living in San Francisco.

THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO, the result of a three year collaboration with writer / director Susana Munoz, was a pivotal film in Portillo's career. Its nomination for the Academy's Best Documentary in 1985 and the twenty other awards it received internationally earned Portillo the PBS funding she needed for her next film, LA OFRENDA: THE DAYS OF THE DEAD. Completed in 1989 and greeted with widespread critical acclaim, LA OFRENDA was Portillo's most serious attempt to date to challenge the notion that, as she says, "documentary is always associated with injustice." In it she portrays in loving color a Mexican and Chicano holiday -- the celebration of "the days of the dead" -- and initiates the dream-like structure that has become a hallmark of her recent work.

A grant from the NEA Inter-Arts program allowed Portillo to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of America in her own ironic fashion. Her 1993 film, COLUMBUS ON TRIAL showed at the London and Sundance Film festivals as well and was selected for the 1993 Whitney Museum Biennial. In 1994 she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in recognition of her contributions to filmmaking. All of her work is widely shown in classrooms and academic circles and is integrated into curriculum studies.

Portillo’s films have screened at premiere cultural institutions and events around the world such as the Venice Biennale, Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, the São Paulo International Film Festival, the Whitney Museum for American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the New Directors/New Films program presented by the Film Society at Lincoln Center and the New York Museum of Modern Art. She has been honored with over ten career retrospectives, including exhibitions at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, the Cineteca Nacional de Mexico, the Pacific Film Archive, Museum of Modern Art New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art Buenos Aires. She is the subject of the critical anthology "Lourdes Portillo: The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Films" edited by Rosa Linda Fregoso (University of Texas Press, 2001) and the recipient of Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2016, she was honored with the distinguished Anonymous Was A Woman Award for her career artistic achievements. (03/19)

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Array
(
    [id] => 307
    [title] => Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/senorita-extraviada-missing-young-woman
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/senorita-extraviada-missing-young-woman/320x-cbe_senex_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2001
    [text] => SENORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN tells the haunting story of the more than 350 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/senorita-extraviada-missing-young-woman/cbe_senex_hires.jpg
)

Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman

SENORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN tells the haunting story of the more than 350 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 368
    [title] => CORPUS: A Home Movie for Selena
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/corpus-a-home-movie-for-selena
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/corpus-a-home-movie-for-selena/320x-corpus.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 1999
    [text] => This classic rerelease from award-winning filmmaker Lourdes Portillo (Señorita Extraviada, Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo ) is a complex tribute to Selena, the Tejana superstar gunned down in 1995 at the age of 23 by the president of her fan club, just as she was on the brink of blockbuster crossover fame. While the story of her murder, which was filled with sex, glamour and betrayal, caught the attention of many outside the Chicano community, this film moves well beyond the sensational to present a nuanced feminist analysis of Selena's story.

Clips of rare home movies, family photos, and glossy music videos from later in Selena's career are interspersed with lively conversations with her father, sister and Latina intellectuals that shed light into just who Selena was and what makes her such a powerful figure today. Staying true to the “home movie” feel, Portillo interviews ordinary people in Selena's hometown of Corpus Christie, including starry-eyed teenaged fans and tearful strangers who visit her grave. With a compassionate lens, Portillo places Selena's life and legacy in a cultural context, revealing powerful social forces that transformed a popular entertainer into a Chicana cultural icon turned modern-day saint.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/corpus-a-home-movie-for-selena/corpus.jpg
)

CORPUS: A Home Movie for Selena

This classic rerelease from award-winning filmmaker Lourdes Portillo (Señorita Extraviada, Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo ) is a complex tribute to Selena, the Tejana superstar gunned down in 1995 at the age of 23 by the president of her fan club, just as she was on the brink of blockbuster crossover fame. While the story of her murder, which was filled with sex, glamour and betrayal, caught the attention of many outside the Chicano community, this film moves well beyond the sensational to present a nuanced feminist analysis of Selena's story. Clips of rare home movies, family photos, and glossy music videos from later in Selena's career are interspersed with lively conversations with her father, sister and Latina intellectuals that shed light into just who Selena was and what makes her such a powerful figure today. Staying true to the “home movie” feel, Portillo interviews ordinary people in Selena's hometown of Corpus Christie, including starry-eyed teenaged fans and tearful strangers who visit her grave. With a compassionate lens, Portillo places Selena's life and legacy in a cultural context, revealing powerful social forces that transformed a popular entertainer into a Chicana cultural icon turned modern-day saint.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 219
    [title] => The Devil Never Sleeps
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/the-devil-never-sleeps
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/the-devil-never-sleeps/320x-cbe_devil22.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 1996
    [text] => Academy Award nominated filmmaker Lourdes Portillo (LAS MADRES: THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO) mines the complicated intersections of analysis and autobiography, evidence and hypothesis, even melodrama and police procedure in this ground-breaking work.  Early one Sunday morning, the filmmaker receives a phone call informing her that her beloved Tio (Uncle) Oscar Ruiz Almeida has been found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in Chihuahua, Mexico.  His widow declares his death a suicide.  Most of his family, however, cry murder and point to a number of suspects that include the widow herself.

The filmmaker returns to the land of her birth to investigate her uncle's identity and  death.  Finding clues in old tales of betrayal, lust, and supernatural visitation, Portillo blends traditional and experimental techniques to capture the nuances of Mexican social and family order.  Poetic and tragic, humorous and mythic, this film crosses the borders of personal values, cultural mores, and the discipline of filmmaking in a fascinating look at family mysteries.  

THE DEVIL NEVER SLEEPS  was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/the-devil-never-sleeps/cbe_devil22.jpg
)

The Devil Never Sleeps

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Lourdes Portillo (LAS MADRES: THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO) mines the complicated intersections of analysis and autobiography, evidence and hypothesis, even melodrama and police procedure in this ground-breaking work. Early one Sunday morning, the filmmaker receives a phone call informing her that her beloved Tio (Uncle) Oscar Ruiz Almeida has been found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in Chihuahua, Mexico. His widow declares his death a suicide. Most of his family, however, cry murder and point to a number of suspects that include the widow herself. The filmmaker returns to the land of her birth to investigate her uncle's identity and death. Finding clues in old tales of betrayal, lust, and supernatural visitation, Portillo blends traditional and experimental techniques to capture the nuances of Mexican social and family order. Poetic and tragic, humorous and mythic, this film crosses the borders of personal values, cultural mores, and the discipline of filmmaking in a fascinating look at family mysteries. THE DEVIL NEVER SLEEPS was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 191
    [title] => After the Earthquake
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/after-the-earthquake
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/after-the-earthquake/320x-cbe_after_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 1979
    [text] => This dramatic story follows a young Nicaraguan immigrant, Irene, as she faces the challenges of life in the U.S. and re-evaluates her relationships with her boyfriend and family.  AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE explores the immigrant experience, particularly the cultural, political and economic differences between life in North and Latin America.  Written with Nina Serrano, Lourdes Portillo was nominated for an Academy Award for her next film, LAS MADRES DE LA PLAZA DE MAYO, produced with Susana Munoz.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/after-the-earthquake/cbe_after_hires.jpg
)

After the Earthquake

This dramatic story follows a young Nicaraguan immigrant, Irene, as she faces the challenges of life in the U.S. and re-evaluates her relationships with her boyfriend and family. AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE explores the immigrant experience, particularly the cultural, political and economic differences between life in North and Latin America. Written with Nina Serrano, Lourdes Portillo was nominated for an Academy Award for her next film, LAS MADRES DE LA PLAZA DE MAYO, produced with Susana Munoz.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 485
    [title] => Children of Memory (Niños de la Memoria)
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/children-of-memory-ninos-de-la-memoria
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/children-of-memory-ninos-de-la-memoria/320x-cbi_cmem_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2012
    [text] => Hundreds of children disappeared without a trace during the Salvadoran civil war. Many were survivors of massacres carried out by the U.S.-trained Salvadoran army. Taken away from the massacre sites by soldiers, some grew up in orphanages or were "sold" into adoption abroad, not knowing their true history or identity. The film follows Margarita Zamora, an investigator with human rights organization Pro-Búsqueda as she traverses the Salvadoran countryside probing memory, swabbing DNA samples, and searching for disappeared children - including her own four siblings.

 In the United States, Jamie Harvey, adopted from El Salvador in 1980, dreams of locating her birth family; but with no information, no contacts and no access to the Salvadoran military war archives, she is losing hope. CHILDREN OF MEMORY weaves together separate yet intertwined journeys in the search for family, identity and justice in El Salvador.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/children-of-memory-ninos-de-la-memoria/cbi_cmem_hires.jpg
)

Children of Memory (Niños de la Memoria)

Hundreds of children disappeared without a trace during the Salvadoran civil war. Many were survivors of massacres carried out by the U.S.-trained Salvadoran army. Taken away from the massacre sites by soldiers, some grew up in orphanages or were "sold" into adoption abroad, not knowing their true history or identity. The film follows Margarita Zamora, an investigator with human rights organization Pro-Búsqueda as she traverses the Salvadoran countryside probing memory, swabbing DNA samples, and searching for disappeared children - including her own four siblings. In the United States, Jamie Harvey, adopted from El Salvador in 1980, dreams of locating her birth family; but with no information, no contacts and no access to the Salvadoran military war archives, she is losing hope. CHILDREN OF MEMORY weaves together separate yet intertwined journeys in the search for family, identity and justice in El Salvador.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 134
    [title] => Columbus on Trial
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/columbus-on-trial
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/columbus-on-trial/320x-columb_1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 1993
    [text] => Inspired by the controversy surrounding the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America, Portillo has fashioned a fanciful version of a courtroom were Columbus to return from his grave to stand trial. Cross-examined by the Latino comedy group, Culture Clash, Columbus is charged with atrocities against the Native peoples of the New World, including the rape and violent treatment of women. Satire and parody rule in this dynamic document about American history and colonization.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/columbus-on-trial/columb_1.jpg
)

Columbus on Trial

Inspired by the controversy surrounding the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America, Portillo has fashioned a fanciful version of a courtroom were Columbus to return from his grave to stand trial. Cross-examined by the Latino comedy group, Culture Clash, Columbus is charged with atrocities against the Native peoples of the New World, including the rape and violent treatment of women. Satire and parody rule in this dynamic document about American history and colonization.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 501
    [title] => Abuelas: Grandmothers on a Mission
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/abuelas-grandmothers-on-a-mission
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/abuelas-grandmothers-on-a-mission/320x-cbi_abuelas-1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2012
    [text] => In 1985, the Academy Award® nominated film LAS MADRES: THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO profiled the Argentinian mothers’ movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 “disappeared” sons and daughters. Now three decades later, Argentina’s courageous Grandmothers, or “Abuelas”, have been searching for their grandchildren: the children of their sons and daughters who disappeared during Argentina’s “dirty war.” The women in ABUELAS are seeking answers about their children that nobody else will give — answers about a generation that survived, but were kidnapped and relocated to families linked with the regime that murdered their parents.

Argentine filmmaker Noemi Weis beautifully documents the grandmothers’ painstaking work and its results - dramatic, inspiring and sometimes controversial - as the women make contact with grandchildren who have grown up living lies created by their adoptive parents. Their tireless work continues today: the justice they are seeking for their children’s murder, their drive to find their grandchildren, and their international status speaking out for family reunification.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/abuelas-grandmothers-on-a-mission/cbi_abuelas-1.jpg
)

Abuelas: Grandmothers on a Mission

In 1985, the Academy Award® nominated film LAS MADRES: THE MOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO profiled the Argentinian mothers’ movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 “disappeared” sons and daughters. Now three decades later, Argentina’s courageous Grandmothers, or “Abuelas”, have been searching for their grandchildren: the children of their sons and daughters who disappeared during Argentina’s “dirty war.” The women in ABUELAS are seeking answers about their children that nobody else will give — answers about a generation that survived, but were kidnapped and relocated to families linked with the regime that murdered their parents. Argentine filmmaker Noemi Weis beautifully documents the grandmothers’ painstaking work and its results - dramatic, inspiring and sometimes controversial - as the women make contact with grandchildren who have grown up living lies created by their adoptive parents. Their tireless work continues today: the justice they are seeking for their children’s murder, their drive to find their grandchildren, and their international status speaking out for family reunification.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 557
    [title] => Portraits of a Search
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/portraits-of-a-search
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/portraits-of-a-search/320x-porsea_hires1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2015
    [text] => More than 20,000 people disappeared in Mexico during the horrifically violent war on drugs waged by former President Calderon. With each missing person, a family is left behind in a desperate search to get answers from a government that is suspiciously ambivalent. Putting a human face on the most harrowing of statistics, director Alicia Calderon courageously captures the stories of three mothers - Natividad, Guadalupe, and Margarita - as they search for their children who have gone missing. One mother constantly retraces the last steps of her son, combing empty fields for his body; another travels all the way to Washington, DC, to plead for US intervention; and the last simply tries to forget the emptiness and raise her now-motherless grandson. In one of the most powerful documentaries about the human casualties of the Mexican narco-wars, these women’s stories are among the many that stand for truth and justice for the 26,000 missing people in Mexico today. With their lives now completely devoted to seeking out the truth, they pursue any avenue possible, in the face of an indifferent government which considers their loved ones to be "collateral casualties" of the drug war.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/portraits-of-a-search/porsea_hires1.jpg
)

Portraits of a Search

More than 20,000 people disappeared in Mexico during the horrifically violent war on drugs waged by former President Calderon. With each missing person, a family is left behind in a desperate search to get answers from a government that is suspiciously ambivalent. Putting a human face on the most harrowing of statistics, director Alicia Calderon courageously captures the stories of three mothers - Natividad, Guadalupe, and Margarita - as they search for their children who have gone missing. One mother constantly retraces the last steps of her son, combing empty fields for his body; another travels all the way to Washington, DC, to plead for US intervention; and the last simply tries to forget the emptiness and raise her now-motherless grandson. In one of the most powerful documentaries about the human casualties of the Mexican narco-wars, these women’s stories are among the many that stand for truth and justice for the 26,000 missing people in Mexico today. With their lives now completely devoted to seeking out the truth, they pursue any avenue possible, in the face of an indifferent government which considers their loved ones to be "collateral casualties" of the drug war.
Learn more 
Array
(
    [id] => 135
    [title] => Home is Struggle
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/home-is-struggle
            [title] => more
        )

    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 1991
    [text] => Using interviews, photographs and theatrical vignettes, Home is Struggle explores the lives of women who have come to the United States from different Latin American countries-Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina and the Dominican Republic-for very different reasons, economic and political. In sharing stories about their pasts and present and their views on issues such as sexism and personal and political repression, Home is Struggle presents an absorbing picture of the construction of 'Latina' identity and the immigrant experience.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/home-is-struggle/c272.JPG
    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/home-is-struggle/320x-c272.JPG
)

Home is Struggle

Using interviews, photographs and theatrical vignettes, Home is Struggle explores the lives of women who have come to the United States from different Latin American countries-Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina and the Dominican Republic-for very different reasons, economic and political. In sharing stories about their pasts and present and their views on issues such as sexism and personal and political repression, Home is Struggle presents an absorbing picture of the construction of 'Latina' identity and the immigrant experience.
Learn more
Shopping Cart