Ruffinelli Lecture and Film Screening

Catherine Murphy's new documentary, Reading the World, explores the work that Paulo Freire was doing in the years before writing "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" and "Education as the Practice of Freedom.” Especially focusing on the rural Northeastern town of Angicos, the film centers the voices of the few living students, and locates events in the historical context of 1960s. Catherine Murphy is a US..-based documentary filmmaker who has spent much of her career living and working in Latin America. She is the founder and director of Maestra Productions, a collaborative production house working at the intersection of arts, education, and social movements. Murphy has directed six films, including MAESTRA, about the a group of young women literacy teachers. Narrated by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker, the film is distributed by Women Make Movies and has been translated into six languages. Leading Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano drew on Murphy’s interviews for four short stories in his penultimate book, Espejos. Before turning to filmmaking, Murphy was a professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. Her most recent film, about the early work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, was co-directed with Iris de Oliveira and premiered at the prestigious Gramado Film Festival in Brazil, where it won the Best Feature Documentary Award.