Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth)
In the summer of 2006, a non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.
But it was the people's use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.
"A Little Bit of So Much Truth" captures the unprecedented phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of schoolteachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, and students took over 14 radio stations and one TV station, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.
Filmmaker Jill Freidberg had already spent three years in Oaxaca, Mexico, producing the award-winning documentary, "Grain of Sand", when the 2006 uprising erupted. Her previous experience in Oaxaca gained her the necessary access to be on hand, with the camera, when 3000 housewives staged a peaceful take-over of the state television station, and when thousands of people responded to brutal paramilitary attacks by occupying 14 commercial radio stations, defending them with nightly barricades.
Her telling of the story takes us into the hearts and homes of the people who put their lives on the line to give a voice to their struggle.
Narrated with audio and video recordings from the broadcasts at the occupied media outlets, the film delivers a breath-taking, intimate account of a year that changed Mexico forever, and raises important questions about the role of the media in the 21st century.
