Friday 9/19 – Thursday 9/25
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After the assassination of Chilean president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet’s army herded some 12,000 political prisoners into the country’s largest sports stadium, Santiago’s Estadio Nacional. Over the next two months at least 7,000 people were tortured and several hundred were killed there. Carmen Luz Parot’s 2001 film, National Stadium, combines interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses with archival footage from the era following the coup. She’ll answer questions tonight after a 7 PM screening of the film at UIC’s Chicago Circle Center, 750 S. Halsted. It’s part of a free two-day event called Chile: Allende 30 Years Later, which kicks off at 6 with the opening of a photography and video exhibit about the slain socialist president. Tomorrow at 4 there’ll be a ceremony honoring those who helped save political prisoners during Pinochet’s rule, and children of Chilean exiles will present a documentary in progress about the effects of the two September 11s on their lives. A panel discussion with Mireya Garcia of the Association of Families of Detained and Disappeared Persons; Joyce Horman, widow of murdered American journalist Charles Horman (subject of the 1982 film Missing); and Madison-based political scientist Adam Schesch, who was detained at gunpoint in the stadium for eight days, follows at 5. For more information call UIC’s Latino Cultural Center at 312-996-3095.
20 SATURDAY “Everyone in the league agreed that the Chicago Hustle had the best fans,” says Women’s Professional Basketball League historian Karra Porter. The team never won a championship during the league’s brief tenure, from 1978 to 1981. But they did play the first pro women’s basketball game–against the Milwaukee Does some 25 years ago. The opening tip-off will be re-created today at 10 AM with original players, coaches, and a referee from the first game as part of an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the WBL, after which fans will be invited to shoot some hoops with the players. At 5 a panel that includes former Hustle (and current DePaul) coach Doug Bruno will discuss the history of women’s basketball. It’ll be followed at 6 by a dinner with a keynote speech by former player and author Mariah Burton Nelson and entertainment by singer Jimmy Damon. The ball playing takes place at Lincoln Middle School, 4050 N. Wagner in Schiller Park, and the panel and dinner are at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, 9300 W. Bryn Mawr in Rosemont. Dinner is $25. For tickets go to www.wblmemories.com or call 801-450-7882.
24 WEDNESDAY “I have been deeply concerned about the ugly head of fundamentalism that has been ravaging the country continuously,” said Indian film director (and sometime actress) Aparna Sen in a 2002 interview with the Indian News Feature Service. “Violence once had no place in Indian society or its thought process. It pains me to see that the secularism that Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi stood up for is almost extinct.” In her latest feature, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, a Tamil Brahmin housewife saves the life of a Bengali Muslim photographer by pretending to be his wife when rioting Hindu extremists board their bus and start rounding up nonbelievers. It’ll be shown tonight at 6 and at 3 on Saturday, September 20, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Tickets are $8; call 312-846-2800 or see www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
