FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 7, 2008
Contact: Dave Wellman, Director of Communications, (304) 696-7153
 

Latina producer, writer and director to speak at Marshall April 10

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Barbara Martinez Jitner, a Latina producer, writer and director, will speak on the humanitarian crisis in Juarez, Mexico Thursday, April 10 at Marshall University.

Martinez Jitner’s talk, titled “Femicide at our U.S. Border: To Be a Woman in Juarez is a Death Sentence,” begins at 7 p.m. in the Shawkey Room of the Memorial Student Center on Marshall’s Huntington campus.

Hosts of the event, which is free to the public, are Marshall University Doers and Changers (MUDAC) and the Women’s Center.

Martinez Jitner is the real-life hero of the film Bordertown, starring Jennifer Lopez, in which she poses as a factory worker on the U.S./Mexico border in order to uncover a dark world of grueling poverty and sexual abuse that leads to murder.

Bordertown is a political thriller about the murdered factory workers in Juarez, Mexico. The film was inspired by Martinez Jitner’s critically acclaimed documentary, La Frontera, which was released in 2007.

Martinez Jitner is one of the first Latina executive producers of a primetime network television series. The Emmy nominated American Family made history when it debuted in 2002 as the first Latino drama on broadcast television. Writer/director Martinez Jitner wrote the PBS premiere episode that garnered unanimous critical acclaim. She went on to write 10 and direct seven of the show’s first 22 episodes.

Martinez Jitner also is the first Latina ever to be nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy as an executive producer/writer/director for a miniseries, which she received for American Family.

Raised by her grandmother, a Mexican immigrant, Martinez Jitner’s mission is to bring the untold stories of Latinas to both television and film.

For more information on Martinez Jitner’s visit to Marshall, contact Dr. Greta Rensenbrink, an assistant professor of history at Marshall, at (304) 696-2955.

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