Screening | ‘Stolen Photo’

Join the Program for Latin America and the Caribbean for a documentary film screening and discussion. The third film in this four film series is, “Stolen Photo,” by Kevin Coleman from the University of Toronto.

This event is co-sponsored by the History Department, the Department of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, the Department of Film and Media Arts (VPA)  and the Department of Television, Radio and Film (Newhouse).

Film Abstract:

“Stolen Photo”

One hundred years ago, banana workers went on strike in Colombia. A U.S.-owned fruit company refused to negotiate. A massacre ensued. This is the story of how the company and the Colombian military used a photograph to identify workers, and how the violence of December 1928 mutated into oblivion.

Filmmaker:

Kevin Coleman is an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto. He is the author of “A Camera in the Garden of Eden” (2016) and co-editor of “Capitalism and the Camera” (Verso, 2021), (Chinese-language edition, 資本主義與相機──論攝影及榨取 [2024]) and “Coups d’état in Cold War Latin American” (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

His research has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and has been awarded prizes from the American Historical Association and the Canadian Historical Association. He just completed “Stolen Photo,” a documentary film coproduced by Señal Colombia and supported by the National Film Board of Canada.