AF3IRM/GabNet San Diego held a film screening for In the Time of the Butterflies on Sunday, November 29th. AF3IRM San Diego members and allies gathered at the Bonita Sunnyside Library to watch the film in celebration of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.
In the Time of the Butterflies is based on a novel by Julia Alvarez, fictionalizing the lives of the Mirabal sisters from their personal accounts of what happened during the time. The drama tells the story of a woman who, along with her family, found the courage to defy a corrupt dictator — and paid a fearful price for their actions. Minerva Mirabal (Salma Hayek) and her sisters Patria (Lumi Cavazos), Mate (Mia Maestro), and Dede (Pilar Padilla) are the daughters of Enrique (Fernando Becerril), a man who owns a plantation and a small store in the Dominican Republic during the rule of the despotic Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (Edwards James Olmos).
When several members of her family are killed by Trujillo’s forces, Minerva pledges that she will some day win revenge against the dictator, though when the leader first encounters Minerva, it’s after she helps foil a friend’s poorly planned assassination attempt.
