Al Otro Lado (2004)

[Luciana]

AlOtro Lado ("To The Other Side") is a 2004 Mexican drama film directed by Gustavo Loza.[1] The film follows the story of three children, one from Mexico, Cuba, and Morocco, as they attempt to deal with realities of immigration in their societies. The film won three awards at the Lleida Latin-American Film Festival in 2006, including Best Film and the Audience Award; Vanessa Bauche won best actress at the festival for her performance.[2] Al Otro Lado was also the Mexican candidate for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but was not selected as one of the final five nominees.[3]

Priciliano, the first boy introduced in the story, has a very strong bond with his father. At the beginning of the film, his father tells him a story about a princess who was kidnapped by a conquistador and commits suicide in the lake he and his friend have been playing in. He is trying to teach his son the importance of respecting the dead, a very prevalent theme in Mexican culture. However, Priciliano is struck with grief when his father leaves his family to go find work "al otro lado" (on the other side). He is particularly upset because he is about to celebrate his ninth birthday, which his father will be missing. Frustrated, he attempts to cross the river to the other side with his friend and nearly drowns but is rescued by the ghost of the princess his father told him about. An older man in the community tells Priciliano that it is important to stay with his family because they need him, and the boy accepts his role as "the man of the house" in his father's place and begins to learn how to live everyday life without him.

The second boy introduced in the story, ngel, is ashamed of his mother, who may be a prostitute. He was told before the story began that his father is a famous person and lives "al otro lado." Desperate for a sense of pride, he and his friend, Walter, attempt to cross the ocean in a primitive raft to find his father. In their attempt, however, their raft is hit and overturned by a large wave. Walter drowns in the ensuing chaos, while ngel miraculously escapes. He doesn't have the courage to tell his friend's mother of what happened and feels extremely guilty. He has dreams of Walter by the ocean. In the dreams, Walter yells at him that he must tell his mother the truth. His grandfather notices something is wrong and urges his mother to talk to him. He tells his mother a little of what happened in the ocean and why they were there, and his mother figures out the rest and tells him that his father knows nothing of ngel's existence. But tells him that he is all that she and his grandfather have and vice versa. ngel learns to be content in his situation and the cinematography suggests that his friend's death is no longer a burden to him, but a memory to carry with him.

Ftima is a girl who runs away from home to find her father, bringing only a picture of him with her. She is intercepted, though, by human traffickers, who take her to Spain on their boat. Once the traders arrive, a woman who works with them refuses to send Ftima with the other girls because Ftima is too young and she had only asked for seven girls. This woman, who does not speak Arabic, takes Ftima in and eventually softens enough to drive Ftima to Mlaga and help her find her father. The father is with a Spanish woman, but once confronted with his daughter, he leaves the other woman to return Ftima home. The movie ends with a shot of the two of them in front of their home village.

Al otro lado es una pelcula sobre la separacin, la ruptura y la esperanza de reencontrar. Se trata de tres historias donde la distancia geogrfica y las fronteras polticas impiden que las personas se puedan reencontrar y estar juntas.

Prisciliano (Adrin Alonso ) es un nio michoacano cuyo padre (Ignacio Guadalupe) se ha ido como "espalda mojada" a Estados Unidos en busca de fortuna. El chiquillo, que vive con sus hermanos pequeos y su atribulada madre (Vanessa Bauche) no est satisfecho con su nuevo papel de hombre de la casa.

ngel (Jorge Milo) es un nio cubano que vive en La Habana con su madre (Susana Gonzlez) y su abuelo. A pesar de que nunca conoci a su padre, se embarca en una balsa con su amigo Walter con destino a Florida.

Ftima es una nia marroqu (Nuria Badih) a la que una traficante de nios (Carmen Maura) mete en un barco hacia Espaa para ser dedicada a la trata de blancas. Lo que ella espera es encontrar a su padre, un humilde campesino que trabaja en Mlaga.

"Did you come from the other side? You know, from Mexico?" So begins the friendship between Prietita and Joaqun, the young boy who, with his mother, has crossed the Rio Grande River to Texas in search of a new life.

Prietita, a brave young Mexican American girl, defends Joaqun from the neighborhood kids who taunt him with shouts of "mojado" or "wetback." But what can she do to protect Joaqun and his mother from the Border Patrol as the van cruises slowly up the street toward their hiding place?

Writer Gloria Anzalda is a major Mexican American literary voice. Illustrator Consuelo Mndez is a noted Latin American artist. Both grew up in South Texas. In this, their first collaboration, they have captured not only the hardship of daily life on the border, but also the beauty of the landscape and the dignity and generosity of spirit that the Mexican Americans and the Mexican immigrants share.

Check out reading and craft tips created by the staff and partners of Reading to Kids, a grassroots organization dedicated to inspiring underserved children with a love of reading.

was a major Mexican American/Chicana literary voice, scholar, and activist. Her first book for Children's Book Press, Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del otro lado, about a brave young girl's friendship with an immigrant boy and his mother, was praised by School Library Journal as "an important book touching on a timely and sensitive issue." She passed away in 2004. Photo credit: Annie F. Valva

is a painter and artist from Caracas, Venezuela, whose work is widely exhibited in Latin America. She spent a large part of her growing up years in South Texas before coming to San Francisco to study art. She returned to South Texas in order to do research for this book, which she illustrated in watercolors, graphite and colored pencils, and collage. She has illustrated several books for children.

Obscure rituals, sacred objects, and secret societies populate the exhibition el otro lado del alma: Syncretisms in Contemporary Cuban Photography, the first comprehensive exhibition to showcase the influence of Afro-Cuban spirituality in photography and video art. The exhibition also traces the development of photographic traditions within Cuba, from photojournalism to contemporary art.

The exhibition focuses on artists residing in Cuba, who have close ties to these Afro-Cuban religions. They include: Pedro Abascal, Jorge Luis lvarez Pupo, Marta Mara Prez Bravo, Sandra Ramos, Humberto Mayol, Juan Carlos Alm, Ral Caibano, Ren Pea, Elio Delgado, Ticardo Elas, Kattia Garca Fayat, LyN, and Ramn Pacheco.

The Afro-Cuban religions have an important place in the religious life of the island. These religions have their origins in African cults imported by slaves to their new home country. In Cuba these practices intermixed with Spanish Catholicism and the substrate of beliefs of the original inhabitants. Despite, or much more because of, their fusion, the cults of many west African peoples have been able to survive until today in Cuba.

As a reaction to the attempts of the colonial masters to bring about religious conversion, the African deities (Orishas) were associated with Catholic saints and ritual worship of the dead was supplemented with Indian religious practices. In spite of regional differences the syncretic religions have trance states, animal sacrifice and ritual dances to the sound of consecrated drums in common. The preservation of the African cultural heritage on the Caribbean island was not only assisted by a plantation system that to a large extent preserved the integrity of the individual groups. It was particularly the porous nature of Spanish Catholicism for pagan influences and the special ability of these cults to adapt that enabled them to survive.

The influence of syncretism on Cuban art and culture has continually been emphasized, whether it be on music, dance, theatre, painting, sculpture, or the arts and crafts, but also on performance and installation art. However, for a long time Cuban photography seemed to avoid the influence of African cultural heritage. On the one hand this may be attributed to political and historical reasons: documentary review of the religions could not awake public interest because it was not promoted by state art institutions.

The inseparable fusion of the political and the religious myth came about when Fidel Castro entered the capital on January 8th 1959 and during his speech a white dove landed on his shoulder. For the followers of syncretic religions this was an unambiguous sign from the gods, divine proof of the rightful claim to power of the revolutionary leader: the white dove is subject to Obbatal, the god of wisdom. As a messenger of Oshun, the goddess who watches over Cuba, the dove is the intermediary between the divine and the earthly spheres just like the Holy Ghost in Christian iconography.

The improvement in the social standing of the Afro-Cuban religions is also reflected in contemporary art. New approaches to religious themes could be found due to the penetration of concept art into Cuban photography and media art.

For many Latino artists experiencing dissatisfaction with the limitations of traditional art media or with the direction of their work, turning to the spirit world of the orishas meant dramatic changes. In many cases, they abandoned single media (painting, printmaking, or sculpture) or modernist styles such as minimalism or abstract expressionism in favor of performance art, body art, earthworks, multimedia collages, or art installations.

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