Ibero American Film Festival

Come participate in our annual series of award-winning films from Spain and Latin America.

THE EMPTY CLASSROOM (El aula vacía) 

Flavia Castro, Mariana Chenillo, Pablo Fendrik, Carlos Gaviria, Tatiana Huezo, Lucrecia Martel, Nicolás Pereda, Eryk Rocha, Pablo Stoll, Daniel Vega, Diego Vega, Gael García Bernal / Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, El Salvador / 111 min / 2015 / Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles 

Nearly half of all young people in Latin America never finish high school. To explore this dropout crisis, creative director Gael García Bernal gathered 11 award-winning filmmakers who have created a captivating anthology of short films, both narrative and documentary. There is no easy solution to this complex issue, and each short delves into the underlying reasons, from poverty to societal traditions, that students aren’t graduating. Among many issues, the short films explore the links between the dropout crisis and violence; how to identify students at risk of dropping out of school in Latin America; the lack of interest in school that is preventing students from graduating; school exclusion in indigenous communities; the not-so-typical challenges to finishing high school faced by a deaf student; the relationship between the financial cost to staying in school and its benefits; and what happens when drop out students want to go back.

SPONSORED BY:  Intercultural Development, Foreign Languages & Literatures, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, and Film & Media Studies.