New to theatres today, Wednesday, November 21:
¡LAS SANDINISTAS!
Director:
Jenny Murray
Premiere:
SXSW 2018
Select Festivals:
Lima, Southern Circuit, Maryland
About:
The female leaders of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution look back at their unsung accomplishments.
In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew Nicaragua’s totalitarian government. Though branded as a Cold War enemy by the US resulting in the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Sandinistas established a more progressive – if far from perfect – path for the nation for over a decade. Murray assembles a group of influential but largely officially ignored female leaders in the party, who make an argument for the advances in gender equality, education, health, and economic development that they helped enable through the FSLN. At the same time, they bemoan the way they have been written out of history, while also pointing out the parallel offenses of their male compatriots -chauvinism, on the lighter end, to sexual harassment and even rape on the extreme side. As an oral history, the project is not without its merits, and benefits from its charismatic and powerful protagonists, but as a visual record, it’s a bit too conventionally put together to leave much of a lasting impression.
what (not) to doc 