Brincando El Charco

Portrait of a Puerto Rican

A film by Frances Negrón-Muntaner

1994 | 55 minutes | Color/BW | 16mm/DVD | Subtitled | Order No. 99295

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SYNOPSIS

Refreshingly sophisticated in both form and content, BRINCANDO EL CHARCO contemplates the notion of “identity” through the experiences of a Puerto Rican woman living in the US. In a wonderful mix of fiction, archival footage, processed interviews and soap opera drama, BRINCANDO EL CHARCO tells the story of Claudia Marin, a middle-class, light-skinned Puerto Rican photographer/videographer who is attempting to construct a sense of community in the US. Confronting the simultaneity of both her privilege and her oppression, BRINCANDO EL CHARCO becomes a meditation on class, race and sexuality as shifting differences.

BRINCANDO EL CHARCO was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

PRESS

“If you are not satisfied with the racist cartoon images of Puerto Ricans seen in most movies and television then you should most definitely see this film.”

Rick Kearns El Hispano

"Here's a marvel--a tender, funny, knowing tale of cultural dysphoria that spans genre with a gusto rarely seen on the big screen."

Elizabeth Pincus Planet Out

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals
  • San Juan Cinema Fest, Audience Award
  • Latin American Studies Association Conference, Merit Selection Award

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Frances Negrón-Muntaner

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, scholar, and professor at Columbia University, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activisms Archive at Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. Negrón-Muntaner has received various recognitions, including the United Nations' Rapid Response Media Mechanism designation as a global expert in the areas of mass media and Latin/o American studies (2008); the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, (2012), the Latin American Studies Association’s Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award (2019), and the Premio Borimix from the Society for Educational Arts in New York (2019). She is currently the director of Columbia’s Greater Caribbean Program. Her most recent art project is Valor y Cambio, an art, digital storytelling, and just economy project in Puerto Rico and New York (valorymcambio.org). (7/16)

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