Professor Sharon Sherman shoots documentary footage on location in a small Andean village in Ecuador. Anthropologist Mabel Preloran is on the far left.Documentary filmmaker Sharon R. Sherman’s paper “Whatever Happened to Zulay?” is now available online in the Winter 2010 issue of CSWS Research Matters.
Argentine filmmaker Jorge Preloran and anthropologist Mabel Preloran made a film about the life of Zulay Sarabino in a small Andean village in Ecuador more than 20 years ago. Sherman is currently at work on a follow-up documentary that “explores Zulay’s life today and the decisions she has made since the earlier film.” A University of Oregon professor of Folklore and English, Sherman appears along with Zulay in this new documentary, as they both make changes and talk about the project.
“Recent theoretical studies of Latin American testimonial literature offer insights to filmmaking and the study of cultural heritage and folklore. These testimonials, which have long made Latin American women a focus, have become increasingly open about considering the relationship between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched,’” says Sherman.
Sherman’s work is supported by a grant from the Center for the Study of Women in Society.