POTSDAM — World-renowned documentary filmmaker Catherine Murphy will be starting a residency at SUNY Potsdam this semester with a screening of her film, "Maestra," Thursday, Feb. 9, at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center’s Black Box Theater.

Additionally, one of the stars of the film, Griselda Aguilera, a former Cuban Literacy Campaign volunteer who is visiting the United States for the first time, will join Murphy for a special screening of the documentary.

A campus welcome reception is planned for Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 6:30 p.m., in the Rebecca V. Sheard Literacy Center.

This event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

"Maestra" is a 33-minute documentary that explores the experience of nine women who, as young girls, taught in the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961. The Cuban Literacy Campaign enlisted 250,000 volunteer teachers — more than half of whom were women, many of them younger than 18 years old — to help teach their neighbors how to read and write.

Through current-day interviews filmed in their homes in Havana, along with archival film footage and still photos, the documentary examines the campaign and how it changed the volunteers' lives as women.