Benjamín Doniger

Modesta

Benjamín Doniger

Antonia Hidalgo, Juan Ortiz Jiménez

Prize winner, Venice Festival 1956. The DivEdCo’s most important attempt to depict women’s rights in the context of modernization processes in Puerto Rico. Modesta leads a group of women in Barrio Sonadora, Guaynabo, in a strike against their husbands to demand their rights in a domestic context.

Pedacito de tierra

Benjamín Doniger

It presents of one of the major challenges faced by DivEdCo’s fieldworkers: how to convince the island’s rural farmers of the continued importance of traditional agricultural practices in the face of Puerto Rico’s rapid modernization and industrialization under Operation Bootstrap. The film encourages families to make good use of arable land by cultivating healthy and affordable crops.

Sucedió en Piedras Blancas

Benjamín Doniger

Marcos Betancourt

It is the story of a young Puerto Rican government doctor who is assigned to fight schistosomiasis in a rural district and informs Puerto Ricans about the dangers posed by this common disease.

Huracán

Benjamín Doniger

Aimed to educate the people, and especially those who lived in the most vulnerable areas, about important safety measures to be taken before, during, and after a storm. The film takes a decidedly modern, scientific approach in its discussion of hurricanes, and it goes to great lengths to dispel popular lore that many of the island’s under-educated inhabitants still relied on for weather predictions.

El secreto

Benjamín Doniger

Eda Cecilia Oliver, Francisco Palacios

Illustrates the dilemma of a sugarcane worker who has a child out of wedlock without his wife’s knowledge.

El cacique

Benjamín Doniger

A dramatization of the way a group of rural people resolve their issues with an authoritarian town leader.