In Wheeler Auditorium
Admission $3.50
Presented in cooperation with Chicano Studies and the Center for the Study, Education and Advancement of Women, UC Berkeley.
A panel discussion, coordinated by Professor Carlos Munoz of Chicano studies, will follow the films.

Salt of the Earth
Made in 1953, Salt of the Earth is a semi-documentary recreation of a year-long strike by Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico. For its combination of gritty realism and impassioned performances by a largely non-professional cast (many of whom had participated in the actual strike), it has been compared to Italian neorealist and French films. Certainly, nothing like it had come out of Hollywood, and Hollywood meant to see that nothing like it ever would; made at the height of the blacklist era, the independently produced film encountered opposition at every stage of production and distribution. In counterpoint to its detailed portrait of the strikers' struggles, Salt of the Earth focuses in on the changes wrought by the strike on the relationship between one striking miner (Juan Chacon) and his wife (Rosaura Revueltas). Thus three issues are interwoven: workers against bosses, Mexican workers against the more affluent and better protected Anglos, and women's--particularly miner's wives'--demand to be recognized in the labor struggle. The Mexican actress Revueltas gives a memorable performance as the pregnant, passive wife whose life is changed when she joins the picket line. Will Geer is also convincing as a sheriff whose job it is to carry out company orders. Salt of the Earth was well received by critics, but the public had nary a chance to make up its mind, for the film was suppressed after its 1954 New York premiere and was not released until 1965.