By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 10 years ago

“Las Libres” film on Mexican women convicted for homicide for abortions is coming to a theater near you

image via Las Libres

image via Las Libres

Las Libres, a Mexican documentary about the struggle to free women convicted for homicide and thrown in jail for having abortions is coming to a theater (possibly) near you. And you’ll want to see it.

We’ve written about Las Libres before, but in case you missed it, the documentary focuses on how Las Libres, a women’s human’s rights organization in Mexico, fought to free six women who had been incarcerated and convicted of homicide for terminating their pregnancies. (One of the women hadn’t even had an abortion, but had miscarried. But that didn’t matter.) All of them were sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in jail. As I wrote:

The case of Adriana Manzanares is a especially frightening example of the way different forms of sexism interact. Adriana didn’t actually terminate her pregnancy. She miscarried. And when her community found out, they threw stones at her. Even more perverse is the fact that Adriana miscarried because she had already been hit with stones and rocks for committing adultery. Adriana’s husband had been gone for years working in the United States, so she started a relationship with a man who would become her boyfriend and became pregnant. When her husband came back he beat his pregnant wife. Then Adriana’s father beat her. And finally, members of the community beat her. So some of the very people who beat Adriana and caused her miscarriage would later throw stones at her for miscarrying.

And now, you can see the movie, which is going on tour! The documentary, as well as its director and representatives Las Libres will be at the U.S. premiere this Thursday, July 17th, at NYU, where it will be presented by the Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. And the movie will also be having various screenings in Mexico and Argentina. If you want to bring the movie to your community, reach out to them on Facebook.

And catch the trailer below.

Las libres Official Trailer from Gustavo Montana on Vimeo.

Screen Shot 2013-10-28 at 11.13.50 PM Full disclosure: Katie Halper knows and loves Karina Gonzalez, who is the communications director for Las Libres organization. 

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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