Rebel

Romi Dias as Loreta Janeta Velazquez. Credit: Gerard Gaskin

REBEL D.C. Premiere with director María Agui Carter New film on Loreta Velazquez, spy and soldier of the Civil War. Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

(14th St. & Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC)

Thursday, March 2

8 at 6pm

While the U.S. military may have recently lifted the ban on women in combat, Loreta 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? March 28, at 6pm, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will premiere REBEL, directed by María Agui Carter, followed by a panel discussion with the director and noted historians Catherine Clinton, Virginia Sanchez-­‐Korrol, and Margaret Vining.

“Loreta’s memoir gives us rare insight into war from a woman and a Latina’s point of view. She was an immigrant serving her country by fighting for it, as so many generations have done. She was a complex woman who ultimately turned against war as a solution to the world’s problems,” says writer/director Maria Agui Carter.

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About the Filmmakers

Maria Agui Carter (Writer/Producer/Director)  emigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador, grew up an undocumented “Dreamer” in New York City and graduated from Harvard College. A filmmaker and scholar, she has won George Peabody Gardner, Warren and Rockefeller Grants, been a visiting scholar at Harvard and Tulane, and her work has shown at film festivals and been broadcast around the world. Based in Boston, she is an advocate for Latino and social issue filmmakers, serving as Chair of NALIP, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers.

Calvin Lindsay, Jr. (Producer) has worked in television production for more than two decades, beginning at WGBH-­‐ TV where he served as Series Producer for Say Brother, one of public television’s longest running local series. Lindsay has produced seven Emmy Award winning documentaries and productions and has collaborated on countless others.

REBEL wIll have a broadcast premiere on PBS as a special presentation of the series VOCES ON PBS, on Friday, May 24, 2013 at 10:00 p.m. ET (checklocallistings).

REBEL is a co-­‐production of Iguana Films, LLC, Latino Public Broadcasting, and WPBT2, with major funding provided by ITVS, The Louisiana Foundation for the Humanities, and PBS.

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