Last Thursday, October 27^th, UNESP students from the Marília – SP campus had the great opportunity to participate in an Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) with graduating students from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. COIL is an activity that consists in online teaching and learning; modality first created in 2006 by Professor Jon Rubin of The State University of New York (SUNY), having as goal the contact and partnership between professors and students in curricular disciplines with similar contents on their graduation or post graduation, in addition to promoting an intercultural environment, frequently with two or more languages involved.

The activity that involved the International Relations students of UNESP Marília and their peers in Baltimore was provided by Professor Felipe Filomeno, Latin American Politics professor on the University of Maryland, and had the support of Professor Marcos Cordeiro Pires, International Political Economy professor and coordinator of Latino Observatory together with Professor Thaís Caroline Lacerda. On this occasion, students from both schools traded experiences and established a form of connection with great importance for their academic education, through liaison between different cultures and ethnicities.

During the planning, Professor Felipe Filomeno has solicited the students to watch the movie La Llorona (2019), directed by Jayro Bustamante. The movie is based on an old pre-hispanic myth that was adapted to the Guatemalan social context of the 20^th century. It portrays the trial of the General Enrique Monteverde, a fictitious version of the very real General Efraín Ríos Montt, tried for the genocides of Ixil-Mayan during the Guatemalan civil war that took place between 1954 and 1996. Beyond the trial, the movie shows how the “wounds” of a massacre don’t just heal, since the spectators are guided by Bustamante’s plot by seeing how the General is haunted by past actions. In the featured film, this haunt comes through Alma, the general’s new house maid, who embodies a ghost that seeks revenge for the atrocities committed by the army under General Monteverde’s order during the Civil War. It’s important to highlight that he was found guilty by a court, but went unpunished after the sentence was annulled.

During the online activity, students were divided into groups of 6 people. Professor Felipe organized the division in such a way that at least one Brazilian student participated in each one, and so could share their own experiences involving their country with what was analyzed in the film. In my particular group, there was me, a Brazilian, a Mexican student, a student born in Mexico who has lived in the US since he was a child, and three other North American students. From the beginning, it was interesting to analyze each one's point of view according to their country, since several points covered in the film are things that we vividly experience in Brazil today.

One of the strongest points of the film, widely debated in the groups, was the fact that, in an attempt not to be led to condemnation, the men used speeches that aimed to diminish the women who witnessed there, discrediting their experiences in their own favor. We were also led to discuss topics such as the indigenous issue, gender relations and how they affected the characters throughout the film, as well as what creative choices were used by the director to convey his ideas and messages to the audience.

The division between whites and indigenous people in general relationships was very evident in the film, especially in the fact that in the general's own house, all the employees are indigenous, in contrast to all the family members and friends who visit them, white people; just as in the trial, there is this separation: on the one hand, all the complainants and witnesses are indigenous, while the defendants and their lawyers are all white.

Still in the debate, Prof. Filomeno encouraged us to discuss what we could do or say differently after analyzing the film and how we could act to change this reality. I believe that, for me, it was important to reflect on how actions taken in periods of instability and war can lead to long-term adversity, with deep trauma left in the lives of people affected by the atrocities of a dictatorship, and on what would be the means to heal those kinds of open wounds. In this aspect, we can refer to the Truth Commissions, which seek to clarify to the population in general the countless arbitrary decisions committed by exceptional governments.

In the case of the film “La Llorona'', justice for Alma was done with the death of the general. But the issue remains open, as in many Latin American societies justice and truth have yet to come to the fore, as in the case of Brazil. Unlike what is said by one of the characters in the film, I don't believe that what is in the past should remain there, because I think that what is in the past exists to guide us to a different and, hopefully, better future.

We hope that in the future we will be able to organize more COILs with our Baltimore colleagues. We are immensely grateful to Prof. Felipe Filomeno for providing us with such a rich opportunity.