Lourdes Portillo shows ‘Senorita Extraviada’ on March 10

They deserved it.

That was the disturbing suggestion behind the first young women who began to turn up, raped and murdered, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. If they had not worn provocative clothing or gone to nightclubs, authorities suggested, they would not have gotten into trouble. Some even dismissed the victims as prostitutes.

In reality, many were workers in the maquiladoras, the assembly plants that are a mainstay of the new global economy and rely on cheap female labor. Other victims were schoolgirls, mothers, a Sunday school teacher.

Who is killing the young women of Ciudad Juarez? By now, the bodies of more than 300 young women, some with signs of torture, have been dumped in the desert. And a growing wave of international scrutiny has focused on the inability of the authorities to halt the killings in this Mexican city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

A trail of newspaper articles about the murders led Lourdes Portillo, a San Francisco filmmaker who was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, not far from Juarez, to this unsolved mystery. Initially, she said, her intention was to profile some of the victims and create a memorial to them, but soon she found herself trying to figure out what happened to them and why.

The result is her documentary, Senorita Extraviada, which earned a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.

Visually poetic yet unflinching, the film unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed these brutal murders to continue. Relying on what Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources -- the testimonies of the families of the victims -- Senorita Extraviada documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy.

Portillo will give a presentation and show the film on March 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the University Center ballroom. The free event is open to the public.

“. . . unforgettable . . . strikes a note of resistance and . . . shows how sexual violence is a problem for different nationalities of women.”

-- Elizabeth Martinez, director, Institute for MultiRacial Justice

“ ‘Senorita Extraviada’ is further proof that Lourdes Portillo is one of the most important filmmakers chronicling the Latino Experience today.”

-- Mike McDaniel, Houston Chronicle

“She won a 1986 Oscar nomination for ‘Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,’ a film about political dissidents in Argentina; studied AIDS and Latinas in ‘Vida’; and explored the legacy of Tejano singer Selena in ‘Corpus.’ But nothing she’s done has been as wrenching as ‘Senorita Extraviada’ . . .”

-- Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

WHAT: Showing of Senorita Extraviada and talk by the filmmaker Lourdes Portillo

WHEN: Wednesday, March 10, 2004

TIME: 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: University Center ballroom

ADMISSION: Free

PARKING: Must pay $1.50 parking fee (quarters required)

INFORMATION: 582-4330