Return to El Salvador
2010 · 68m · Documentary
Return to El Salvador explores the reconstruction of El Salvador, post-civil war. The film revisits the struggles of the nation and examines what drives over 700 Salvadorans to flee their homeland each day, often risking their lives to illegally enter countries in search of a better life for their families. The film also profiles a number of Salvadorans effected by the civil war. One couple, who fled death threats in the 1980s, finds asylum and a political platform in the United States. The film also follows a different couple who, after escaping the war, returned to El Salvador to work with churches and poor communities.
More Like This
El Negro, El Indio
1977
A meditation on the intersection of Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous American existence.
More info →
Be A Patriot, Kill A Priest
2001
The war in El Salvador was the most cruel and bloody Latin America has ever seen. During that time of turmoil Latin American bishops created the famous preferential option for the poor, demanding justice, food and education in the name of the gospel. Using interviews and old footage, the film follows the civil war and the role of the Church in it. In 1977, after the murder of Father Rutilio Grande, the Archbishop Oscar Romero took a strong anti government position, broadcasting sermons over Radio Luz demanding that the government stop the repression. He could not understand why he was thought to be a follower of Karl Marx, when he knew "he followed only Jesus Christ." An inspiring film about people of faith who stood up against injustice.
More info →
Borderlands
2023
Fleeing the 1980 Civil War in El Salvador, Dora Rodriguez, among a group of twenty-five asylum seekers, were abandoned by their guide and left to fend for themselves in the relentless Sonoran desert of Arizona.
More info →
El camino de la libertad
1983
Filmed on the war fronts of Chalatenango and Guazapa, the film is based on the construction of Local Popular Powers (PPL) in areas under guerrilla control.
More info →
Maria's Story
1991 · ★ 9
It is El Salvador, 1989, three years before the end of a brutal civil war that took 75,000 lives. Maria Serrano, wife, mother, and guerrilla leader is on the front lines of the battle for her people and her country. With unprecedented access to FMLN guerrilla camps, the filmmakers dramatically chronicle Maria's daily life in the war.
More info →
The Crazy Life
2008 · ★ 6.4
A documentary about the rival gangs Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, originating in Los Angeles but terrorizing El Salvador. It explores their origins as possible founding myths of organized crime in a globalized world.
More info →
La decisión de vencer (Los primeros frutos)
1981
Filmed by Guillermo Escalón in July 1981, it shows daily life in territories under guerrilla control in the Francisco Sánchez Northeastern Front, Department of Morazán,
More info →
Tiempo de audacia
1983
This documentary juxtaposes scenes of El Salvador's opposition factions, including U.S. government advisors and government troops, and guerrillas and their sympathizers.
More info →Justice and the Generals
In late 1980, the bodies of four American women were exhumed from a crude grave in El Salvador. The women - Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, nuns of the Maryknoll Congregation in New York; Dorothy Kazel, a nun in the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, a lay missionary from the Cleveland Mission - had been abducted, raped, and murdered. An investigation led to the trial and conviction of five Salvadoran National Guardsmen.
More info →
Wild El Salvador: In the Shadow of the Volcanoes
2023
Join affable presenter Nigel Marven as he explores El Salvador, the volatile land of volcanoes with a colorful culture and natural history. Follow along as he climbs an active volcano near the capital San Salvador, comes face-to-face with a crocodile, cuddles a caecilian, fights fire with fire, dives deep into a volcanic lake, and discovers the Pompeii of Central America.
More info →
The Tiniest Place
2011 · ★ 8
Years after the Salvadoran military destroyed the village of Cinquera in that country’s civil war, survivors have returned to rebuild their community. Soulful, beautifully rendered, this amazing debut is an evocative testament to place, memory and the power of life to rebound from tragedy.
More info →