A Freedom Struggle: Looking for Lucrecia Perez

This cinematic presentation offers an exploration of historical trauma and its contemporary impact through a blend of film and performance. A Freedom Struggle: Looking for Lucrecia Perez will be screened on Sunday, June 1 at the Koubek Center, as part of the Third Horizon Film Festival.

Directed by Génesis Valenzuela from the Dominican Republic, this film delves into the 1992 murder of Lucrecia Pérez, a 33-year-old Dominican woman who was killed by neo-Nazis in Madrid. The work connects this event to the historical context of Spanish colonialism in the Antilles, referencing the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the subsequent development of a social model on Hispaniola involving white Europeans, indigenous populations and enslaved Black Africans.

Valenzuela's work investigates the "colonial wound" through the human body and utilizes the market space, through both historical pictorial representations and contemporary images and sounds, to reflect on identity, race and representation in the Antilles. The film will be presented in Spanish and English, with English subtitles. A Q+A session with Génesis Valenzuela will follow the performance. Please note that entry to the auditorium will not be permitted once the performance has begun.

Génesis Valenzuela, an artist and filmmaker, studied at the fine arts school in the Dominican Republic and later in the film directing program at Altos de Chavón. Her early films focused on themes of rural life and inequality. After moving to Spain and completing a master’s degree in experimental film at Zine Eskola Elías Querejeta, she began to address issues of uprooting, racism and the colonization of the Antilles in her projects. Her short film Canto Errante (2022) was also featured in THFF24.