Join WJCT Public Media and the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens for a special screening of The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez in celebration of the museum’s current exhibition, Knowing the West.
“Still the best film I’ve ever been a part of in my life.”
– Edward James Olmos
“Beautifully shot and directed with great understatement, the result is a film of considerable poignancy and compassion.”
– Time Out
“One of the greatest and most criminally overlooked Westerns in the history of cinema.”
– Jim Hemphill, Filmmaker Magazine
This powerful 1982 film, starring Edward James Olmos, tells the true story of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican-American farmer in early 20th-century Texas who becomes a folk hero after a tragic misunderstanding leads to a deadly confrontation and a dramatic manhunt.
A landmark of Chicano cinema, the film explores themes of language, identity, justice, and myth-making in the American West, resonating deeply with the exhibition’s exploration of how the West has been depicted and reimagined over time.
