NOVA Libraries Feature Film Friday: La misma luna

NOVA Libraries is excited to announce Feature Film Friday, a series highlighting films that are available to the campus community through our Video Streaming Collections. Each Friday, we will feature a different film being used by faculty to support college programming and coursework. All of the content in our Video Streaming Collections is available for free to everyone in the NOVA community and can be accessed from anywhere. To learn more about these collections and how you can include streaming video in your courses, check out this Streaming Video Guide.

This week, we are highlighting the work of Dr. Martha Davis (AL) and her use of the film La misma luna (Under the Same Moon) in her Spanish 202 class.  Dr. Davis has her students read a collection of Francisco Jiménez’s short stories, Cajas de cartón, set in the 1940s and based on the author’s experiences immigrating illegally to the U.S. from Mexico as a child, receiving instruction at school in a language he does not understand and working as a migrant farm laborer. Although the stories are considered children’s literature, the text can be challenging for students who may be unaccustomed to reading fiction in the target language. Providing students with context and vocabulary through film helps them discuss the short stories more effectively and with greater ease. As a pre-reading activity, they watch the 2007 film, La misma luna. In class and in discussion board assignments, they discuss ways immigration and immigration control have changed in the past 80 years and the challenges and dangers that have continued to the present day. 

Students overwhelmingly enjoy the movie, finding that it evokes myriad emotions and, in some cases, memories from their own or their parents’ childhoods. As one student wrote to another in a discussion board post, “[¡]Me lloré cuando Enrique fue llevado por la policia tambien! Me encanta esta pelicula.” (“I cried when Enrique was taken by the police also! I love this movie.”) Another stated, “Me la pasé llorando toda la película.” (“I spent the whole movie crying.”) Many students reflect on how the difficulties the film’s characters face are the same ones many immigrants confront today. For example, “Muchas personas piensen que si tú trabajas duro, tú puedes tener una vida buena. A veces, esta idea está verdadero, pero para los inmigrantes, es más difícil porque hay muchos obstáculos antes de que ellos participan en el sueño americano. No es un sueño que está siempre disponible para todas las personas” (“Many people think that if you work hard, you can have a good life. Sometimes, this idea is true, but for immigrants it is more difficult because there are many obstacles before they can participate in the American dream. It is not a dream that is always available for everyone.”) Another wrote that “el amor no sabe de fronteras ni distancia, no mide el peligro y prevalece a través del tiempo. Esta es la esencia, lo lindo de esta película. Pero, la triste realidad es que para muchos, no solo los latinos ‘La Misma Luna” es un espejo de lo que ha sido sus vidas.” (Love knows no borders nor distance, it does not measure danger and it prevails through time. This is the essence, the beauty of this movie. But, the sad reality is that for many, not just Latinos, ‘Under the Same Moon’ is a mirror of what their lives have been.”)

This week’s film is available for streaming through Films on Demand: Feature Films for Education, a database featuring nearly 700 full-length feature films that focus on both current and hard-to-find titles, including dramas, literary adaptations, blockbusters, classics, science fiction, environmental titles, foreign films, social issues, animation studies, Academy Award® winners and more. Although these films are primarily used for coursework, they can also be watched outside of class for fun, which we hope you’ll do with our featured films each week! For more information, contact Melanie Medina or Molly Anderson. If you’re already using a film from our Video Streaming Collection in your course and want to be featured on a future Friday, please complete this survey. Otherwise, keep an eye on the Daily Flyer to see what we spotlight next! 

Watch La misma luna (Under the Same Moon) on Feature Films for Education until June 2023.

Submitted by:
Melanie Medina, AN-Librarian, MMedina@nvcc.edu