Shrouded in mystery and long the subject of debate, the amazing story of Loreta Velazquez is one of the Civil War’s most gripping forgotten narratives. While the U.S. military may have recently lifted the ban on women in combat, Loreta Janeta Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant from New Orleans, was fighting in battle 150 years ago, one of the estimated 1000 women who secretly served as soldiers during the American Civil War. Who was she? Why did she fight? And what made her so dangerous that she has been virtually erased from history?
This film screening will be followed by a Q&A with Boston-area filmmaker María Agui Carter (Writer/Director/Producer).
Co-sponsored by the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History
María Agui Carter (Writer/Director/Producer) immigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador, grew up an undocumented “Dreamer,” and graduated from Harvard University. She began her career at Boston’s Flagship PBS Station WGBH at LA PLAZA writing, producing and directing half-hour documentaries about Latinos for community programming and moved to WGBH National Productions to write/direct cultural documentaries before starting her independent production company, Iguana Films, LLC. She is passionate about using media storytelling to inspire national conversations and social change and specializes in visually arresting and complex storytelling. She is a media advocate and Trustee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. She has served as a visiting artist and scholar at Harvard, Tulane and Brandeis Universities. Her most recent films are the NEH funded No Job For A Woman, about WWII women war reporters (PBS WORLD) and the PBS funded Rebel, a feature film and new media project about a Latina soldier and spy of the American Civil War (PBS, rebeldocumentary.com). She is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America. Ms. Agui Carter lives in Newton, MA.
Event Video:
Links:
Rebel website
Rebel Facebook page