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History, Memory and Politics in Venezuela: A Talk By Inés Quintero

  Inés Quintero, one of the leading historians in Venezuela, a Professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and a visiting Benjamin Meaker Fellow at the University of Bristol gave a talk about the political use of history in contemporary Venezuela which Bristolatino editor Zara Huband attended. Quintero was joined by a panel of experts in the […]

Anyone’s Child Could be a Casualty of the War on Drugs

Anyone’s Child is an international network of families who share personal stories of lost family members or loved ones due to the failures of current drug laws. They campaign for the legalisation of drugs as a preventative measure to end a cycle of similar tragedies. Often demonised in the UK, consumption of illegal narcotics is […]

Where are our human rights?

Following the recent death of famous Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas, our writer Laura Tlachi reports on the current levels of violence from Mexico. A few weeks ago in Culiacán, the journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas – one of Mexico’s best reporters on drug trafficking – was murdered. He was killed by a sicario, a hit man […]

Film focus: ‘To the Amazon’, a life story

  ‘To the Amazon’, is an investigative journey in search of happiness, or perhaps truth. Co-director, writer and producer Clare Weiskopf, who has twice won the Simon Bolívar journalism prize, now turns her gaze to her nomadic mother in the Colombian Amazon (a country she has been exploring for over 50 years), taking us on […]

Film focus: Aquarius

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Palme d’Or nominated film Aquarius was showing at the Watershed in March. BristoLatino’s Ned Wainwright shares his thoughts. At the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, heated political controversy on the red carpet shadowed Aquarius, as the director and cast held signs declaring that Brazil was no longer a democracy and that a golpe de estado had […]

Revolution through hip hop in Venezuela

This year’s Semana Cultural saw BristoLatino and UoB’s HiPLA department team up with Pablo Navarrete of Alborada Films in a screening of his documentary Hip Hop Revolución. Latin America in Bristol editor Zara Huband reviews the documentary’s message. In a country like Venezuela it is almost impossible to separate music and politics. Pablo Navarrete’s documentary explores the […]

Carnival 2017: changing faces of the Mulata Globeleza

BristoLatino travel editor Imogen King talks us through the controversial images of women used to advertise annual TV coverage of Carnival in Brazil. The traditional essence of Carnival is intertwined with the infectious spirit of Samba, a music and dance firmly rooted in Afro-Brazilian history. Far more than just a week of partying, Carnival is an important underpinning […]

Samba school causes controversy at Carnival

The choice of parade theme by samba school Imperatriz Leopoldinense has generated controversy among the agribusiness sector. BristoLatino’s Lucinda Price reports. “Sacred garden, discovered by the white man The heart of my Brazil bleeds The Beautiful Monster steals children from the land, devours the forests and dries up the rivers So much wealth destroyed by greed.” These […]

Amazon Voices

Alborada screened ‘Amazon Voices’, a documentary about oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon and its effect upon indigenous communities, at Goldsmiths, University of London. BristoLatino’s Editor-in-Chief Sophie Foggin was there. Sumak Kawsay, the Kichwa expression for ‘good living’, involves living in harmony within one’s community and taking care of the madre tierra. It is this principle that the indigenous peoples […]