Hero or Villain. Revolutionary or Rebel. These two films explore some of the many ways Pancho Villa is portrayed and perceived in memory and history.
La venganza de Pancho Villa (ca. 1930)
Using footage from American silent feature films, serials, and newsreel footage complemented by filmed still photographs and bits of original scenes, itinerant exhibitor Felix Padilla promotes Villa as a regional and popular folk hero and critiques American cinema’s one-dimensional portrayal of Villa as a bloodthirsty bandit. This meta project from the 1930s resembles the hybrid, oppositional media being produced in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands today and is truly before its time.
Introduced by Laura Isabel Serna, author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture before the Golden Age.
Screened in 35mm with live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick
UnRaveling (2021)
“Did Pancho Villa really try to kill my grandfather? And if so, why?” In unraveling this mystery, documentary filmmaker Stacey Ravel Abarbanel delves into memory, history, and contemporary life in the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, famed for being raided in 1916 by Villa’s army during the Mexican Revolution. While scholars have long debated why Villa attacked the village, one rumor persists: he was angry at Sam Ravel—a Jewish immigrant and local merchant—over an arms deal gone wrong.
Introduced by Stacey Ravel Abarbanel, writer and filmmaker