Short Films of the Puerto Rican film unit

Puerto Rico’s Division of Community Education produced a series of award-winning films in rural communities throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, portraits of a utopian vision for a new country. These shorts, some documentaries and some dramatizations, served as a guide for a potential future.

Introduced by Ramón Rivera Moret and Oren Rudavsky

Admission to this shorts program is free with the purchase of a ticket to Everything Seemed Possible; tickets are available for the shorts program only for $10.

Las manos del hombre (1952)
Dir. Jack Delano
25min

This poetic film essay celebrates the labor of human hands and their interconnectedness within a vision of modernization through education and industrialization.

Una voz en la montaña (1952)
Dir. Amilcar Tirado
31min

Juan, a young worker, wants to learn to read and write. Sensing a future of open possibilities, he sets out to gather his community to build a school for adults.

Modesta (1956)
Dir. Benjamin Doniger
35min

In the mountains of Puerto Rico, Modesta leads the women of her community on a strike against their husbands to demand their rights in a tale of inventive cinematic form and a witty, playful narration.