Film Screening:

Carta a una sombra / Letter to a Shadow: Oblivion
 

-- Introduced by director Daniela Abad

-- Panel on Public Health and Human Rights in the Americas to follow
 

Panel Speakers:

- Neil Prose, M.D., Duke Global Health Institute, Chair;

- Rosa Solorzano, M.P.H., Duke Nursing School, DGHI;

- Robin Kirk, Duke Human Rights Center @ FHI;

- Daniela Abad, Filmmaker

Carta a una sombra / Letter to a Shadow: Oblivion

(Daniela Abad & Miguel Salazar, 2015, 73 min, Colombia, in Spanish w/ English subtitles, Color, Digital)

Based on the memoir by Hector Abad Faciolince "Oblivion" (2006), the documentary focuses on the life and death of doctor Héctor Abad Gómez, a pioneer in Colombia in the field of public health, social medicine, and human rights. Doctor Abad was killed in cold-blood by a hitman in the streets of Medellin in 1987. The documentary also traces deep into the most intimate spaces of the Abad family relying on the valuable family archive. Between personal memory and historical memory, Letter to a Shadow: Oblivion is "a battle against forgetfulness, against oblivion," it presents a chilling portrait of the political violence that ravaged Colombia and made an X-ray of Colombian society from the privacy of Abad family duel.

-- Jury Award and Best film at 55 Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias (2015)

 -- Oblivion won the 2013 Duke-WOLA Book Award for best human rights book of the year.

Cost: Free and open to the public.

Sponsors: The Duke Global Health Institute (GHI), the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Health Humanities Lab at FHI, and the Program in the Arts of Moving Image (AMI).