Directed by María Agui Carter
Screening at Emerson College
March 22, 2016 from 7-10pmBright Family Screening Room
559 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111

Loreta Janeta Velazquez was a 19th century woman of many disguises. Havana-born and New Orleans-raised, she was a rebel from the start, a precocious Cuban tomboy who idolized Joan of Arc. One of the 1000 women who fought in the Civil War, she altered her sex, her ethnicity, and her identity in order to become a Confederate soldier (alias Lieutenant Harry Buford), to spy for the Confederacy then to become a double agent for the Union. She exposed her secret in a memoir, The Woman in Battle, which chronicles her often tragic life. Yet for the last 150 years, her story has been dismissed as a hoax. Rebel unlocks this mystery with a non-traditional approach that plays with form and style. Loreta risked being tried for treason for her masquerade and was ultimately branded a liar and erased from history. In Loreta’s search for family, nation, and identity, she instead became a fascinating illustration of the politics of memory.

The film will be followed by a Q&A discussion with producer, director and VMA professor María Agui Carter.

María Agui Carter is an award-winning filmmaker, scholar, and President of Iguana Films, a film and New Media company working in Spanish and English language productions. She is a graduate of Harvard University, and former staff producer for WGBH Boston. Ms. Agui Carter was the only woman director commissioned for Discovery En Español's Director's Showcase series with her dramatic film Cleats, and her work has premiered at film festivals including Tribeca (Chevolution, Writer) and the LA Latino film festival (Cleats, Writer/Director).