¡Las Sandinistas!

“We were powerless in front of this government that was doing whatever they wanted to do to you.”

¡LAS SANDINISTAS! uncovers the untold stories of women who shattered barriers to lead combat and social reform during Nicaragua’s 1979 Sandinista Revolution, and the ensuing US-backed Contra War. For the militants of the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN), the struggle against their government’s suppression of democracy and women’s rights is inseparable from creating a socialist reality, and wrenching back control over land, resources and social services from corrupt oligarchs and multinational corporations.

Director Jenny Murray’s riveting exposé on the revolutionary forces of the FSLN reveals the guerilla struggle against U.S. imperialism that backed the Somoza dictatorship for forty years. For the women of Nicaragua, resistance against neocolonialism meant action. Women from all walks of life mobilized their skills in solidarity with the socialist revolution, whether it meant picking up arms, educating their communities, publishing, organizing strikes, or providing front-line nursing. 

As Margaret Randall documented in Sandino’s Daughters, her 1981 collection of interviews with Nicaraguan militants, the Nicaraguan Revolution was threatened with the “destabilization” policies of the Reagan administration, and the involvement of U.S. and Honduran troops. ¡LAS SANDINISTAS! is an indispensable documentary to understand the continuity of U.S. and Canadian intervention in Latin America, where democratically elected socialist governments and protective policies have been undermined, if not outright toppled, to impose neoliberal reform that has deepened socio-economic divides.