Women’s History Month Film: Las Sufragistas with Director Ana Cruz (México)

Doors open at 7pm / Film starts at 7:30pm

$8 Advance / $12 Door

In honor of Women’s History Month, La Peña Cultural Center presents: Las Sufragistas (The Sufraggists) – Followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Ana Cruz!

The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. The Q&A will likely be in both languages. We will do our best to translate questions and answers!

The Suffragists (Las Sufragistas) tells the story of Eufrosina Cruz, an indigenous woman from the Zapotec community of Santa María Quiegolani in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2008, her right to vote and run as Municipal President of her community was denied on the grounds that indigenous customary laws prohibit women from participating in electoral processes. In Mexico, women won the right to full suffrage in 1953. Today, after a long battle, Eufrosina Cruz is a representative in Mexico’s federal government, and the first indigenous woman to be a member of the Congress of Oaxaca. The Suffragists details her political struggle, as well as Mexican women’s long fight for political power, beginning with the Revolutionary period. The film also considers challenges that women in power face, drawing on interviews with Mexican female politicians and Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president and the first Executive Director of UN Women.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:

Ana Cruz was born in Mexico City and has worked for over 30 years at Mexican public radio, television and cinema national institutions and also as an independent director, producer and scriptwriter. She has won recognition and several screenwriting and producing awards for radio and television cultural series including the National Award for Journalism, and the Silver Microphone Award. From 2007 to 2012, Ana Cruz was CEO of Arte y Cultura en Movimiento, her own audiovisual production company, where she produced several television series and documentary films. She has a Degree in Communication Sciences from Iberoamericana University. She also studied cinema at the University of Southern Californian (USC) and Universal Studios in Los Angeles. In order to specialize in documentary film direction, Ana Cruz attended the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London.

*La Peña Cultural Center is wheelchair accessible.