KAFKA LECTURE
Imparte: Sergio Sarmiento
Sede: Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal, Casa Cultural Banamex, San Miguel de Allende
Fecha: Sábado 18 de julio
Horario: 11:00 hrs
Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis in three weeks at the end of 1912. He finally published in 1915. The story begins with that unsettling incident we all know by heart: Gregor Samsa, a salesman, gets out of bed one day transformed into a monstrous insect. It is an undisputable masterpiece. As such, its interpretations are endless, probably due to its acute and direct prose. That infinity of our endless postponement, our endless labyrinthine nightmares, those endless faceless bureaucracies where no one is informed of anything, which has been the through line in Kafka’s work. Sergio Sarmiento, graduate in philosophy from the University of York, England, and one of the most renowned journalists in Mexico, presents a lecture on literature of Franz Kafka and his iconic work The Metamorphosis, which analyzes points after a hundred years of being published.
Sergio Sarmiento is one of Mexico’s most distinguished journalists and editors. He received a bachelor of arts in philosophy from York University of Toronto, Canada. In 1981 Sarmiento was a founding collaborator of the newspaper El Financiero. His syndicated newspaper column Jaque Mate is presently published in more than 20 Mexican newspapers, including Reforma. He hosts television shows La Entrevista con Sarmiento and Quinto poder. He was made chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 1998. In 2003 he received the Antena Life Achievement Award of Mexico’s National Chamber of Broadcasters and in 2011 he was invested commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government.
AYOTZINAPA- NOT A MOMENT OF SILENCE
Mesa: Epigmenio Ibarra, productor; Eréndira Ibarra, actriz; Juliana Cano, Directora Adjunta de Amnistía Internacional Latinoamérica; Omar García, normalista; Vidulfo Rosales, Director de Tlachinollan ONG.
Sede: Auditorio de la Universidad de Guanajuato
Fecha: Jueves 23 de julio
Horario: 12:00 hrs
The students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural School in Ayotzinapa, Tixtla de Guerrero, Guerrero, has become a cause akin to the fight for human rights against the forced disappearance of people, stemming from the disappearance of 43 of them on the 26th and 27th of September 2014 in the city of Iguala.
Ever since this unfortunate occurrence, our society has joined for protest in the streets, in the media, but more than anywhere, on social networks demanding answers. Mexica has transformed into different social movements, launched mainly by the light of hope.
EPIGMENIO IBARRA
Epigmenio Ibarra is the biggest independent producer of Mexican television and founder of Argos. He was a war correspondent for many years. When the arm conflict in Chiapas shook the lives of Mexicans, he interviewed Subcommander Marcos and the interview was broadcast in Multivisión. He’s the director of the advisory council of TRESPUNTOCERO. Every night at 10:00 pm, he roll calls on his Twitter page posting a tweet for each one of the missing students.
ERÉNDIRA IBARRA
She’s an actress who studied at Casa Azul and has played several characters on film and television that have expanded her knowledge of history. Eréndira is the spokeswoman for different social causes such as Children International Mexico Foundation and Habitat for Humanity. She has also participated in campaigns such as Global Action against the Forced Disappearances in the UN International Convention and is one of the leading activists in Acción Global por Ayotzinapa, which demands for the 43 missing students to be brought back alive.
VIDULFO ROSALES SIERRA
An outstanding lawyer and human right defendor from the State of Guerrero and a part of the Center for Human Rights at Mount Tlachinollan, an organization that has been amply awarded for its commitment to the fight for human rights in indigenous territories. Its prizes include the International MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions (MACEI), the WOLA 2009 award given by the Washington Office for Latin-American Affairs (WOLA) and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights, among others.
OMAR GARCÍA
Member of the student council at the Isidro Burgo Rural School in Ayotzinapa, he’s a survivor of the September 26th 2014 attack in Iguala, Guerrero. The voice of the surviving students has been key in the fight for the demands to bring the 43 back alive and in organizing people and organizations on social networks that look for the respect, the promotion and the guarantee of human rights to all Mexicans that face crimes and serious violations, like the forced disappearance of people, every day.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S OFFICIAL STANCE ON FORCED DISAPPEARANCES
The reality of forced disappearances in Mexico is one that exists through the huge pain of its victims and the inexact statistics of what is going on in the country.
The whereabouts of the majority of the victims of forced disappearance has to be revealed while federal authorities release contradicting statements about the number of reports, as there are no search protocols for living people who are reported missing.
On August 2014, the Federal Government recognized that there are 22,611 people missing, of which 9,790 disappeared during the term of the sitting government, and 12,821 during president Felipe Calderón’s term (2006-2012), but the methodology used to arrive to these numbers has not been made public; there are also no public policies to prevent forced disappearances.
Impunity was still the norm in the cases of forces disappearance; recently, the government declared that only seven people had been convicted at a federal level for the crime of forced disappearance between 2005 and 2010.
Amnesty International has expressed a deep concern since the Mexican Government doesn’t seem to be willing to recognize the severity of the human rights crisis that has been exposed with the forced disappearance of the 43 students at Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural School in Tixtla de Guerrero in the State of Guerrero.
The Federal Government’s position related to the various recommendations suggested by human rights organizations around the world might indicate that the government will ignore any criticism made toward its failed strategies regarding public safety; Amnesty International considers this an alarming decision within this fragile human rights context faced in this country with more than 23,000 cases of unsolved disappearances, Manny of which were caused by the police of by military forces.
Amnesty International keeps insisting that the Mexican Government accept publicly and officially the recommendations formed by the U.N. Committee for Forced Disappearances so that within the investigation of the whereabouts of the 43 missing students, they consider the victims’ welfare and the civil society organizations that work with them.
Amnesty International supports the CED’s petition to visit Mexico to evaluate the situation. This organization urges the Mexican authorities to swiftly resolve the request to give the members of the committee every guarantee so it can successfully complete its task.
“More than 22,600 people have disappeared in Mexico in the last eight years. Meanwhile, thousands of people wait in anguish, confusion and insecurity for news about what has happened to their love ones. The suggestions to the government can’t only be words without anything to back them up, they must announce a tangible and urgent change in the legislation in order to confront this political situation. It’s time for the authorities to wake up and face this tragedy”, said Erika Guevara Rosas, Regional Director of Amnesty International in the Americas.
According to the official numbers, nearly 50% of the 22,600 missing people disappeared between 2012 and 2014, under the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.
Amnesty International keeps highlighting the enormous problem regarding impunity and lack of adequate investigation regarding the forced disappearances of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, as well as the necessity to create a wide database and search protocol for missing people, as well as the lack of attention granted to the victims, including reparation.
EXCUSING OR FIGHTING CRIME IN CINEMA
Panel de cineastas: Amat Escalante, Carlos Bolado, Luis Mandoki, Gerardo Naranjo
Modera: Columba Vértiz, Periodista de Proceso
Sede: Auditorio de la Universidad de Guanajuato
Fecha: Viernes 24 de julio
Horario: 16:00
The fight against drugs and organized crime in our country has crossed the borders of reality and sneaked into cinema screens where we find a space for directors to tell stories about Mexico and its people, confronting us with those difficult situations that other media look away from. Cinema seeks to build a path toward consciousness and action. Cinema opens up a space for dialogue on what we are, what hurts us and what we can do as human beings and as a society.
PANELISTAS
AMAT ESCALANTE
Director, screenwriter and producer, Amat Escalante is one of his young generation’s most emblematic filmmakers. In 2013 he won the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Heli, which was shot in Guanajuato and relates the havoc of drug trafficking and corruption in Mexico. He also directed Sangre and Los Bastardos. Amat Escalante stands out for telling stories that reflect the harsh realities of our country without censorship.
CARLOS BOLADO
He’s been making films since his adolescence. He studied Sociology at UNAM while he was studying Cinema at CUEC. Carlos has edited more than 11 feature films, including Como agua para chocolate by Alfonso Arau. He co-directed Promesas, which got an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature. In 2012 he released Colosio: El Asesinato and the following year he released Tlatelolco: Verano del 68, a story of two youths that meet during the 1968 student movement.
LUIS MANDOKI
He studied at the San Franciso Art Institute and the London International Film School. He received international recognition in 1976 for his short film Silent Music. In 2004 he directed Voces Inocentes, about a group of children at the El Salvador Civil War in 1980. He made two documentaries: ¿Quién es el Señor López? (2006); and Fraude (2007). In 2012 he directed La vida precoz y breve de Sabina Rivas, a film that depicts the violence that Central-American immigrants suffer when they try to cross the Southern border into Mexico.
GERARDO NARANJO
He began his career as a film critic. In 1997 he directed his first short film, Perro Negro, before he applied for a Master’s Degree in Directing at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, where he graduated with a thesis film called The Last Attack of the Beast for which he won several awards. In 2011, Miss Bala debuted in the “Un Certain Regard” section of the Cannes Film Festival, a film inspired by Miss Sinaloa 2008, who was detained under suspicion of being involved in drug trafficking.