Natalia Brizuela is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley.

UPDATE: Paz Encina was denied a visa and so will not be in person. Following the screening, we will play a recording of Encina interviewed by Brizuela and Ivett López Malagamba via Skype.

(Hamaca Paraguaya). Paraguayan Hammock is beautifully balanced between the abstract and concrete. Set in 1935 in a rural area, film is centered on an elderly husband and wife as they wait for their son to return from war. Each recalls conversations with him as they go about their daily chores in a series of meditative, affecting tableaux. “Present blurs with past, life shades to death, and things unseen haunt the melancholy shadows, delicately cast, in this entrancing Paraguayan clearing” (New York Times).