Cinema Arts Festival Houston 2009

No one captured more powerfully the suffering, sacrifice, and finally celebration that accompanied the Sandinista victory than Susan Meiselas, the award-winning photojournalist who covered the Nicaraguan revolution for the New York Times and London Times. In Pictures from a Revolution, Meiselas returns to Nicaragua a decade later with codirectors Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti to track down the people—soldiers, revolutionaries, and ordinary people—pictured in her original photographs and their previous film, Living at Risk (screening Saturday at the Cinema Arts Festival Houston). Pictures from a Revolution is not a sequel to the previous work, which explored the life of a Nicaraguan family; rather, it is a deeper and wider analysis of a country and its people. The people share their feelings about how their lives have changed, for better and for worse, in the years since the conflict; and recall the circumstances surrounding those moments of their lives captured by Meiselas’s camera. The result is a provocative study of the revolution and its aftermath, a deeply moving account of individuals who brought about a true people’s revolution, now living out their lives in obscurity. Deeply personal, the film goes beyond the political history to depict the impact of American interventionism, and serves as an indictment against it. Pictures from a Revolution is also a frank inquiry into the contradictions inherent in recording conflict and the power of the image as a tool for political persuasion. This is a classic and unforgettable film that remains vivid and provocative, deserving of rediscovery.

With guest photographer/filmmaker Susan Meiselas and FotoFest artistic director Wendy Watriss