Local Cross-Cultural Events

The Trans-Border Institute (TBI) of the University of San Diego?s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies will present the 10th annual Border Film Week February. 23-25. Every year TBI brings an exciting line-up of documentary films to campus, giving students, faculty, and our broader community the chance to explore the relationship between the U.S. and Latin America from a variety of perspectives, and to meet leading filmmakers.

The 2016 edition of Border Film Week marks the 10th anniversary of an event that seeks to bring together artists from the border region communities of San Diego and Tijuana. For this anniversary event, TBI invites students and community members to participate in a broad range of learning opportunities to explore the art of filmmaking for social change and impact. The series will take place at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Theatre on the campus of the University of San Diego.

Admission/Cost: FREE (

Dates and times:

Tuesday, February 23
2:00 PM	Run Up! Ken Gonzalez-Day (USA, 2015, 8 min)	The film depicts events surrounding the lynching of Charles Valento, also known as "Spanish Charley", who was one of three men (two Anglo and one Latino) to be lynched in Santa Rosa, California, in 1920. The details surrounding the case were drawn from the Coroner's report and Gonzales-Day's own archival research that strongly suggests that police officers were present at the 1920 lynching-which the press mischaracterized as mob vigilantism.
6:00 PM	Si Supieras Ben Clark & Adam Linssen	Special Film Presentation - A project by Francis Parker - Social Justice A look into the experiences of students from Francis Parker?s Social Justice classes learning about the U.S.-Mexico border and the issues which surround it. Talking to individuals personally affected by these issues and from activists on both sides of the issue, these students begin to cultivate personal opinions about U.S. policies.
6:30 PM	No M?s Beb?s Renee Tajima-Pe?a (USA, 2015, 79 min)	They came to have their babies. They went home sterilized. The story of immigrant mothers who sued county doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were prodded into sterilizations while giving birth at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the 1960s and 70s. Led by an intrepid, 26-year-old Chicana lawyer and armed with hospital records secretly gathered by a whistle-blowing young doctor, the mothers faced public exposure and stood up to powerful institutions in the name of justice.
Wednesday, February 24
2:00 PM	Tiempo Suspendido Natalia Bruschtein (M?xico, 2015, 64 min)	This documentary is about the memories of a woman who fought tirelessly against historical amnesia and for the justice of the crimes of state in Argentina. Today this woman has lost her memory, liberating her from the pain. She bids farewell to this life without betraying the family she once lost.
6:30 PM	Cartel Land Matthew Heineman (USA 2015, 100 min)	With unprecedented access, CARTEL LAND is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy ? the murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoac?n, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley ? a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley ? Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico?s drug wars from seeping across our border.
Thursday, February 25
2:00 PM	Hotel de Paso Paulina S?nchez 9M?xico, 2015, 98 min)	An old transient hotel located in the red light district of Mexicali, on the border between Mexico and the USA, receives hundreds of immigrants in pursuit of the American Dream every day. The majority of the guests are deportees who turn this hotel into a temporary home while they solve their migratory situation. As time passes, the inhabitants will face the devastating reality behind the mirage of their hopes and dreams.
6:30 PM	Ll?vate Mis Amores Arturo Gonz?lez Villase?or (M?xico, 2014, 90 min)	An intimate insight into the Patronas, a group of Mexican women who, every day since 1995, make food and toss it -still warm- to the migrants who travel atop the freight train "The Beast" as it makes it way to the USA. This documentary is a personal diary that draws a border between the life they were given, and the life they chose. A brave and remarkable example of love and solidarity that contrasts with the violence of one of the cruelest stretches in the world for undocumented travelers.