Producer, writer and film director Barbara Martinez Jitner, whose documentary inspired movie “Bordertown,” will speak at Berea College Feb. 28

2/19/08

In two programs at Berea College Feb. 28, Latina producer, writer and film director Barbara Martinez Jitner will provide a personal look at the poverty and gender discrimination experienced by women who work in the NAFTA-created factories along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Martinez Jitner absorbed herself in this world by living in Tijuana in one of the shantytowns that have appeared around the factories.  Her research and resulting documentary “La Frontera” was the inspiration for the 2007 thriller “Bordertown” (starring Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas and Martin Sheen), about murdered factory workers in Juarez, Mexico.

At 3 p.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel, Martinez Jitner will talk about “Femicide at Our U.S. Border.”  Earlier  in the day, she will be the featured speaker for the lunchtime “Peanut Butter and Gender Series” sponsored by the Women’s Studies Department, in Phelps Stokes Room 205, beginning at noon.

The events are free and open to the public and are sponsored by Berea College Convocations, Women’s Studies and the Francis and Louise Hutchins Center for International Education.
For more about Barbara Martinez Jittner, visit http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers/speakers.asp?1-10OZX.
For a complete list of Berea College Convocations, other events and news, visit BCnow.