Our new web-doc premier’s online Wednesday
By hola | Published | No Comments
Thanks to everyone who came to the Jan. 31 premier of “El Idioma/Language,” the third of Hola Cultura’s web-documentaries on DC’s Latino culture.
The 13-minute video is perhaps the most universal piece yet, a visual-poetic contemplation of language as a system of communication; one that we usually take for granted, sort of like breathing, without reflecting much about how central it is to our daily lives or how it shapes our perception of the world.
The program includes interviews with Luis Alberto Ambroggio, renowned poet and member of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española; American University linguistics professor Luis Cerezo; Mario Gamboa, literacy crusader and director of Centro de Alfabetización en Español; educator, poet and visual artist Sami Miranda; translator Carlos E. Perez; and Dolores G. Perillán, George Washington University professor.
Their insights on four fundamental functions of language – speaking, reading, writing and creating – are combined with the kind of lyrical visual elements that characterize director Alberto Roblest’s work. The result is a conversation that covers a range of topics–the origins of the language, the difficulties of being illiterate, the controversy of Spanglish. But the commentary returns often to the experiences of Spanish speakers in an English-speaking country, making it particularly relevant to Hola Cultura.
Following the documentary, Carlos Parada delighted the audience with his rap en español rendition of “Chirilagua Blues.”
Then we settled into a panel discussion centered on language and identity. Unfortunately two of the invited panelists weren’t able to attend. But Cerezo, Gamboa and Parada, and Hola Cultura’s scholar, Olivia Cadaval, were on hand to kickstart an interesantisima charla with the audience.
If you missed it please come back Wednesday (we had planned to go live Monday but ran into a technical glitch) when we will give “El Idioma/Langauge” an online premier right here on holacultura.com.
Hasta Pronto!
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