ALABANZA, is a documentary film about Martín Espada, renowned Puerto Rican-American poet whose definitive poem Alabanza, In Praise of Local 100 eulogizes the undocumented immigrant workers killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.We follow him on his journey to Chile to attend the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, where Espada explores another tragedy- on September 11th,1973-when the Chilean Presidential Palace was bombed and the murderous dictator, General Pinochet, was installed. This documentary, made in homage to the victims of both September 11ths, follows one poet's calling to speak for the silenced and the missing and towards understanding what role Poetry might have in a post-9/11 United States.

Producers:
New York City: Ram Devineni, Rattapallax Films info@rattapallax.com
Bob Madey, R.E.M. Pictures, 1-212- 343-2207 / rem562@yahoo.com
Santiago: José Ignacio Silva Anguita, 56-9-5989151 / jisa39@tutopia.com

As a counter reaction to the bombing of the Presidential Palace by Pinochet, a poetry guerellia organization called Casagrande dropped 100,000 poetry bookmarks over the Palace from a helicopter on March 23, 2001. The bookmarks twirled in circles and rained on the 10,000 spectactors who came to witness the spectacle. The poems printed on the bookmarks were written by Chilean children about peace and hope.