April 6: Raíces de mi corazón; Dir. Gloria Rolando

Gloria Rolando is an Afrocuban filmmaker who focuses primarily on the African diaspora in the Caribbean. She has worked with Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos for more than 35 years, and heads an independent film-making group, Imágenes del Caribe in Havana. She is the second woman in Cuba to have made a feature film, Raíces de mi corazón, which was released in 2001. She is also known for her documentary films Oggun: An Eternal Presence, about Cuban Yoruba singer Lazaro Ros; My Footsteps in Baragua, a recounting of the history of an English-speaking West Indian community in Cuba; and Eyes of the Rainbow, a documentary on Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who took refuge in Cuba. 

Screening, 5-7 pm, McCormick Screening Room
Raíces de mi corazón (from AfroCubaWeb):

Mercedes, a Cuban woman from Havana, begins to decipher her family secrets through the photo of her great-grandparents, María Victoria y José Julián. Between reality and the world of her dreams, she will learn about the ties this couple -- especially her great-grandfather -- had with the Independents of Color, a political party formed in 1908. The struggle of these black men and women to create a space for themselves in Cuban society at the beginning of the 20th century had a tragic outcome: the massacre of 1912. Many families suffered, but history imposed a silence, the same silence that surrounds Mercedes' great-grandparents.