El Grito

Banned by the government for many years, El Grito is an urgent, on-the-ground account of the growing student movement that gripped Mexico City in the days leading up to the 1968 Summer Olympics. During the summer months of 1968, student-led protests began to swell against the government’s lavish spending on the Olympics and repression of the media, unions, and public dissent. This movement came to an abrupt and violent end on October 2, 1968, when government troops fired upon protesters just 10 days before the opening of the Olympics. The death count of what is known as the Tlatelolco massacre is debated. The student movement and the Tlatelolco massacre were documented by university students led by Leobardo López Arretche, a film student who was deeply involved. Their film is a permanent record of an atrocity the Mexican government would not acknowledge for many years. In Spanish with English subtitles. (102 mins., DCP)

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El Grito, courtesy of Filmoteca UNAM.