Cinema for National Hispanic Heritage Month
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Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, throughout the month of October, the American Center will screen a series of films during its weekly film screening. The screening will start with ‘A Class Apart’, a film by award-winning producers Carlos Sandoval (Farmingville), and Peter Miller (Sacco and Vanzetti, The Internationale). The one-hour film dramatically interweaves the story of its central characters— activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens, murderer, and victim — within the broader story of a civil rights movement that is still very much alive today. It will be screened on October 7, at 6.00 p.m.
In the tiny town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, a field hand named Pete Hernandez murdered his employer after exchanging words in a gritty cantina. From this unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. A Class Apart tells the little-known story of a band of underdog Mexican-American lawyers who took their case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican-Americans.
‘The Mambo Kings’, a 2005 film will be screened on October 14. Musician brothers Cesar and Nestor leave Cuba for America in the 1950s, hoping to hit the top of the Latin music scene. Cesar is the older brother, the business manager, and the ladies’ man. Nestor is the brooding songwriter, who cannot forget the woman in Cuba who broke his heart.