Exclusive: Rick Peréz has announced his intention to resign as executive director of the International Documentary Association, with word coming just days before the organization’s signature annual event, the IDA Awards, Deadline has learned exclusively.
The surprise announcement came during a meeting with staff late Monday, a gathering that included IDA personnel both in-person and virtually. His resignation takes effect December 23, Peréz said.
“Rick thanked the staff for their work and acknowledged the difficulties as well as successes during the past year and a half as executive director, but that the challenges of leading a changing organization, during and post-pandemic, have weighed on him,” an IDA spokesperson told Deadline. “Ultimately, he decided his work was done and that he wanted to return to filmmaking, and working with directors, producers, and others as well as creating film projects, his true passion. He announced that his last day will be December...
The surprise announcement came during a meeting with staff late Monday, a gathering that included IDA personnel both in-person and virtually. His resignation takes effect December 23, Peréz said.
“Rick thanked the staff for their work and acknowledged the difficulties as well as successes during the past year and a half as executive director, but that the challenges of leading a changing organization, during and post-pandemic, have weighed on him,” an IDA spokesperson told Deadline. “Ultimately, he decided his work was done and that he wanted to return to filmmaking, and working with directors, producers, and others as well as creating film projects, his true passion. He announced that his last day will be December...
- 12/6/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Add some new titles to the field of documentary award contenders with the announcement of the IDA Documentary Awards shortlist of 25 features and 24 shorts. Among the usual suspects also included on the Cinema Eye Honors Audience Long List are “All That Breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love,” “Mija,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Navalny,” and “The Territory.”
One dramatic IDA and Cinema Eye snub: Margaret Brown’s exploration of the legacy of Africatown, Alabama, “Descendant” (Netflix), which was included in both the Critics Choice Documentary Award nominations and the Doc NYC shortlist.
Rick Pérez, IDA’s Executive Director, stated: “This year’s Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary shortlists reflect a growing awareness that multiple perspectives are necessary to better reflect the worldwide popularity of the form and to recognize the global community of artists working in the field.”
The IDA will reveal its nominations on November 11, 2022. The...
One dramatic IDA and Cinema Eye snub: Margaret Brown’s exploration of the legacy of Africatown, Alabama, “Descendant” (Netflix), which was included in both the Critics Choice Documentary Award nominations and the Doc NYC shortlist.
Rick Pérez, IDA’s Executive Director, stated: “This year’s Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary shortlists reflect a growing awareness that multiple perspectives are necessary to better reflect the worldwide popularity of the form and to recognize the global community of artists working in the field.”
The IDA will reveal its nominations on November 11, 2022. The...
- 10/26/2022
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Nominations to be announced on November 11.
Laura Poitras’s Venice Golden Lion winner All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, Alex Pritz’s The Territory and Young Plato from Neasa Ní Chianáin and Declan McGrath are named on the documentary feature shortlist for the 38th IDA Documentary Awards.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) published a list of 25 features and 24 shorts in the run-up to the awards ceremony on December 10 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.
Up to 10 nominees in each of the feature and short documentary categories will be selected from the shortlist and announced on November 11. IDA members will get...
Laura Poitras’s Venice Golden Lion winner All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, Alex Pritz’s The Territory and Young Plato from Neasa Ní Chianáin and Declan McGrath are named on the documentary feature shortlist for the 38th IDA Documentary Awards.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) published a list of 25 features and 24 shorts in the run-up to the awards ceremony on December 10 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.
Up to 10 nominees in each of the feature and short documentary categories will be selected from the shortlist and announced on November 11. IDA members will get...
- 10/26/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
A handful of awards season frontrunners is starting to emerge with the announcement today of the IDA Documentary Awards Shortlists.
All That Breathes, directed by Shaunak Sen, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, from Laura Poitras, and The Territory, from Alex Pritz, made the 25-film shortlist of features, a day after securing nominations for the Gotham Awards. Three other strong contenders – Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, Brett Morgen’s David Bowie doc Moonage Daydream, and Daniel Roher’s Navalny also made the IDA shortlist. See the complete features and shorts shortlists below.
‘Fire of Love’
The shortlisted films will be culled to a maximum of 10 nominees for Best Documentary Feature and 10 max for Best Short Documentary. Nominees in those and a variety of additional categories – including Best Director,...
All That Breathes, directed by Shaunak Sen, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, from Laura Poitras, and The Territory, from Alex Pritz, made the 25-film shortlist of features, a day after securing nominations for the Gotham Awards. Three other strong contenders – Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, Brett Morgen’s David Bowie doc Moonage Daydream, and Daniel Roher’s Navalny also made the IDA shortlist. See the complete features and shorts shortlists below.
‘Fire of Love’
The shortlisted films will be culled to a maximum of 10 nominees for Best Documentary Feature and 10 max for Best Short Documentary. Nominees in those and a variety of additional categories – including Best Director,...
- 10/26/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
In the streaming age, documentary filmmakers, once the long-suffering artists working in obscurity to finish self-funded passion projects, have become rock stars. Deep-pocketed platforms such as Netflix and Hulu have dished out for costly archival clearances and biopic rights, and the strategy has invariably led to awards glory.
But just as the medium has become more elevated, so too has it grown increasingly global in scope, with a vast network of documentary gatekeepers venturing outside the traditional nonfiction markets of the U.S. and Western Europe for the next big project that can go the distance to become an awards contender.
“We’re growing closer together in a good way,” says Rick Perez, the newly installed president of the Los Angeles-based Intl. Documentary Assn. The former Sundance documentary executive recognizes the influence of the streamers, but says the nonfiction boom is mainly the result of the decades-long work of independents...
But just as the medium has become more elevated, so too has it grown increasingly global in scope, with a vast network of documentary gatekeepers venturing outside the traditional nonfiction markets of the U.S. and Western Europe for the next big project that can go the distance to become an awards contender.
“We’re growing closer together in a good way,” says Rick Perez, the newly installed president of the Los Angeles-based Intl. Documentary Assn. The former Sundance documentary executive recognizes the influence of the streamers, but says the nonfiction boom is mainly the result of the decades-long work of independents...
- 2/28/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Variety is expanding its coverage of the booming documentary sector with the launch today of a dedicated Docs vertical on Variety‘s online and mobile platforms.
The new section, sponsored by Showtime Documentary Films, highlights news and trends in documentary content, as well as reviews of new and vintage docus, filmmaker interviews, trailers, other video content and viewing recommendations by genre. It also features an extensive listing of film and TV documentary premiere dates.
The inaugural lineup includes a lengthy Q&a with Richard Ray Perez, the newly appointed executive director of the International Documentary Assn.
“Variety is making a huge push into the art and business of documentary filmmaking,” said Claudia Eller, Variety’s Editor-in-Chief. “There’s been an explosion of compelling content across the media landscape — both in the form of feature docs and docu-series — which our new vertical is devoted to celebrating.”
The launch of the Docs...
The new section, sponsored by Showtime Documentary Films, highlights news and trends in documentary content, as well as reviews of new and vintage docus, filmmaker interviews, trailers, other video content and viewing recommendations by genre. It also features an extensive listing of film and TV documentary premiere dates.
The inaugural lineup includes a lengthy Q&a with Richard Ray Perez, the newly appointed executive director of the International Documentary Assn.
“Variety is making a huge push into the art and business of documentary filmmaking,” said Claudia Eller, Variety’s Editor-in-Chief. “There’s been an explosion of compelling content across the media landscape — both in the form of feature docs and docu-series — which our new vertical is devoted to celebrating.”
The launch of the Docs...
- 7/1/2021
- by Variety Staff
- Variety Film + TV
Centrepiece screening is Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.
World premieres of Naomi Osaka and Cusp will bookend the 19th annual AFI Docs, set to run from June 22–27.
Garrett Bradley’s Naomi Osaka profiles the Japanese tennis ace and current US Open and the Australian Open title holder who was the first Asian woman to top the world rankings. Bradley will take part in a post-screening Q&a.
Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s coming-of-age film and Sundance selection Cusp, which follows three teenage girls from a small Texas town over the course of a life-changing summer.
World premieres of Naomi Osaka and Cusp will bookend the 19th annual AFI Docs, set to run from June 22–27.
Garrett Bradley’s Naomi Osaka profiles the Japanese tennis ace and current US Open and the Australian Open title holder who was the first Asian woman to top the world rankings. Bradley will take part in a post-screening Q&a.
Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s coming-of-age film and Sundance selection Cusp, which follows three teenage girls from a small Texas town over the course of a life-changing summer.
- 5/13/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced today that Richard Ray Perez has been named the organization’s next executive director. Perez, a nonfiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker, succeeds Simon Kilmurry, who is stepping down after seven years.
Perez, a native of Los Angeles, most recently worked as director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH’s World Channel. He previously developed, designed, and led filmmaking programs at the Sundance Institute as director of creative partnerships.
Perez is starting immediately at the IDA. His appointment comes after Kilmurry announced in the fall that he would step down from the post he’s held since 2015.
In an interview with IndieWire, Perez reflected on how systemic racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, has been pushed into the forefront of conversation over the last year. While the commercial prospects of documentaries has never been greater, Perez said he sees an...
Perez, a native of Los Angeles, most recently worked as director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH’s World Channel. He previously developed, designed, and led filmmaking programs at the Sundance Institute as director of creative partnerships.
Perez is starting immediately at the IDA. His appointment comes after Kilmurry announced in the fall that he would step down from the post he’s held since 2015.
In an interview with IndieWire, Perez reflected on how systemic racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, has been pushed into the forefront of conversation over the last year. While the commercial prospects of documentaries has never been greater, Perez said he sees an...
- 5/12/2021
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
One of the most important institutions in documentary film is under new leadership.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the appointment Wednesday of Richard Ray “Rick” Perez as its new executive director, effective immediately. He replaces Simon Kilmurry, who had served as the IDA’s executive director since 2015.
Perez comes to the IDA with a wealth of experience in nonfiction, both as an executive and filmmaker. He most recently served as the director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH World Channel, curating and acquiring documentaries for the digital platform’s three original series. Before that he was director of creative partnerships at the Sundance Institute “where he developed, designed, and led artist-based filmmaking programs, including Stories of Change,” according to the IDA. He also designed and led the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Story and Edit Lab in Beijing.
Perez’s filmmaking credits include directing Cesar’s Last Fast, a...
The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the appointment Wednesday of Richard Ray “Rick” Perez as its new executive director, effective immediately. He replaces Simon Kilmurry, who had served as the IDA’s executive director since 2015.
Perez comes to the IDA with a wealth of experience in nonfiction, both as an executive and filmmaker. He most recently served as the director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH World Channel, curating and acquiring documentaries for the digital platform’s three original series. Before that he was director of creative partnerships at the Sundance Institute “where he developed, designed, and led artist-based filmmaking programs, including Stories of Change,” according to the IDA. He also designed and led the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Story and Edit Lab in Beijing.
Perez’s filmmaking credits include directing Cesar’s Last Fast, a...
- 5/12/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Non-fiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker directed Cesar’s Last Fast.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) has appointed Richard Ray Perez executive director to replace the outgoing Simon Kilmurry, who announced last year that he was stepping down.
Perez is a non-fiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker (Cesar’s Last Fast) who most recently served as director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH | World Channel where he curated and acquired documentaries for the platform’s three original series.
Prior to World Channel, he was director of creative partnerships at Sundance Institute where he led artist-based filmmaking programmes including Stories of Change,...
The International Documentary Association (IDA) has appointed Richard Ray Perez executive director to replace the outgoing Simon Kilmurry, who announced last year that he was stepping down.
Perez is a non-fiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker (Cesar’s Last Fast) who most recently served as director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH | World Channel where he curated and acquired documentaries for the platform’s three original series.
Prior to World Channel, he was director of creative partnerships at Sundance Institute where he led artist-based filmmaking programmes including Stories of Change,...
- 5/12/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Filmmaker takes over for Simon Kilmurry, who held the role since 2015
The International Documentary Association (IDA) has named filmmaker Richard Ray Perez as its executive director, taking over for the outgoing Simon Kilmurry.
Kilmurry announced in November he would be stepping down in mid-2021 after serving with the IDA since 2015. Perez will take over the role immediately.
“Rick” Perez is a documentary filmmaker known for the films “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election” and “Cesar’s Last Fast,” which premiered at Sundance in 2014 and was named one of 20 essential films to capture the Latinx experience as part of a New York Times feature. He’s also a nonfiction film strategist focused on the convergence of storytelling, thought leadership and themes vital to contemporary societies.
Perez most recently served as the director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH | World Channel, where he curated and acquired documentary film projects for the platform’s three original series.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) has named filmmaker Richard Ray Perez as its executive director, taking over for the outgoing Simon Kilmurry.
Kilmurry announced in November he would be stepping down in mid-2021 after serving with the IDA since 2015. Perez will take over the role immediately.
“Rick” Perez is a documentary filmmaker known for the films “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election” and “Cesar’s Last Fast,” which premiered at Sundance in 2014 and was named one of 20 essential films to capture the Latinx experience as part of a New York Times feature. He’s also a nonfiction film strategist focused on the convergence of storytelling, thought leadership and themes vital to contemporary societies.
Perez most recently served as the director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH | World Channel, where he curated and acquired documentary film projects for the platform’s three original series.
- 5/12/2021
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
When the 9th annual Durban FilmMart (Dfm) kicks off on July 20, with a busy four-day program running parallel to the Durban Int’l. Film Festival (Diff), organizers will be looking to build on nearly a decade of steady growth at the continent’s leading finance forum, and the premier springboard for African filmmakers launching into the international marketplace.
“One of the key objectives in establishing Durban FilmMart was to create a platform for African filmmakers to connect with the global markets,” said Toni Monty, head of the Durban Film Office, which jointly organizes the Dfm along with Diff and the eThekwini Municipality. “Durban FilmMart, however, can only take them so far. We work with partner markets in identifying projects that are ready to be exposed to international markets, so in this sense, in many respects, Dfm acts as an introduction and entry point for these filmmakers.”
16 African projects, evenly split between fiction and documentary,...
“One of the key objectives in establishing Durban FilmMart was to create a platform for African filmmakers to connect with the global markets,” said Toni Monty, head of the Durban Film Office, which jointly organizes the Dfm along with Diff and the eThekwini Municipality. “Durban FilmMart, however, can only take them so far. We work with partner markets in identifying projects that are ready to be exposed to international markets, so in this sense, in many respects, Dfm acts as an introduction and entry point for these filmmakers.”
16 African projects, evenly split between fiction and documentary,...
- 7/18/2018
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Latin American filmmakers have done well in the Oscar race over the last three years: Awards have gone to two Mexican directors, while films from Colombia and Chile have landed nominations. Meanwhile, revered auteurs from these region have maintained their positions on the world stage, and American-based Latino filmmakers and actors have become outspoken advocates for the need of inclusion and opportunity. But many others receive far less attention even as they toil away on the sidelines to make sure these artists receive the attention they deserve.
The unsung heroes of Latin American cinema’s success work in film journalism, distribution companies, film-oriented nonprofits, festivals, and even major studios. Behind the scenes, Latinos are paving the way for filmmakers and others who are fighting to be heard, seen, and understood. This crowd of influencers includes U.S Latinos, Latin Americans and Hispanics, all of whom are represented in the following overview.
The unsung heroes of Latin American cinema’s success work in film journalism, distribution companies, film-oriented nonprofits, festivals, and even major studios. Behind the scenes, Latinos are paving the way for filmmakers and others who are fighting to be heard, seen, and understood. This crowd of influencers includes U.S Latinos, Latin Americans and Hispanics, all of whom are represented in the following overview.
- 12/26/2016
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Indiewire
It was 1992, and the Rodney King riots were being felt across the country, especially amongst the high school students filing into Sarah Feinbloom’s Ancient History class at Boston Latin School in Massachusetts.
“My students were riled by the riots. They couldn’t concentrate. I felt like what I was teaching was irrelevant. What they really wanted to talk about were issues of police brutality, violence in their neighborhoods, the fact that they couldn’t sleep because they heard gunshots in the night, and they were scared.”
Feinbloom veered off the curriculum and started talking with her class about civil rights, and soon she and her students were collaborating on her first film, "Youth to Youth: A Video About Violence." With no film school experience, Sarah improvised as she went along.
“I wanted my students to cultivate a deeper understanding of how personal and systemic violence affects them and even in small ways do something themselves to prevent it. So we went out together and interviewed students, police officers, a Vietnam veteran, a rape survivor, and created segments about the ways people confront and experience violence. I was hooked on documentaries after that. I saw how important it was for young people to be able to tell their own stories and have safe spaces where they could discuss what was really going on in their lives.”
"Youth to Youth" ended up being shown in classrooms around the country, and this first foray launched a lifelong journey of framing social justice, diversity and human rights issues through documentary film.
Feinbloom, an award-winning filmmaker and educator, was one of the first directors to bring the voices of young people reflecting on religious diversity to the media spotlight. Her 2002 documentary "What Do You Believe?" highlighted the spiritual lives of American teenagers, leading Feinbloom along with Dp and co-producer Klara Grunning-Harris into the homes of Muslim, Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Native American teenagers. "What Do You Believe?" premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, has sold more than 2,000 copies, was voted "One of Ten Best Videos for Young Adults in 2003" by the American Library Association, and aired on PBS.
“When I started touring with the film, it was often those kids that were in the minority at their schools that approached me. Muslim and Pagan girls said it was the first time they had ever seen something about themselves on screen. Some conservative Christian students said it was the first time they had ever really considered someone else’s religious perspective.”
Using her film as a centerpiece, Sarah created and led workshops nationally on interfaith dialogue and violence prevention and has been featured at conferences including the American Academy of Religion, Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues, and the National Association of Multicultural Educators. However, her main goal has always been to reach young audiences.
"Teens are often the subject of stories about alcohol and drugs, crime reports, and educational statistics, but rarely are they asked for their intellect and perspective. I want people from different backgrounds to watch my films, talk about them, discuss them – together. I want them to talk about being alive."
Sarah’s filmography is expansive, showcasing a number of pertinent social concerns. Her film "Earth, Water, Woman" spotlights the Fondes Amandes Community Re-Forestation Project in Trinidad and Tobago, and its charismatic Rastafarian leader Akilah Jaramogi, in their ongoing efforts to transform barren hillsides into a vibrant, healthy ecosystem. "Daughters and Sons: Preventing Child-trafficking in the Golden Triangle" took Feinbloom to Thailand, where she profiled a program that rescues children before they are trafficked into the sex-industry, and subsequently won the award for Best Short in Child Advocacy at the Artivist Film Festival and helped raise over $250,000 trafficking prevention.
“I am especially interested in stories that offer solutions to what might seem like intractable problems, stories that offer hope and don’t just leave us in despair.”
Although most well known for her activist documentaries, Feinbloom also dabbles in lighter subjects. "In Search of the Heart of Chocolate," a “chocumentary” featured at Palm Springs International Short Fest, follows Feinbloom as she searches for the origins of her chocolate obsession, interviewing chocolate enthusiasts along the way, delving into chocolate cake, art, fantasy, chocolate croissants, spirituality, sex, love and hot fudge, and journeying into the past to uncover chocolate’s special place in our hearts.
Sarah’s success in documentary filmmaking, her experience as an educator, and her long time involvement with New Day Films prompted filmmakers to reach out to her for assistance with educational sales and community impact campaigns. After working as a consultant with several great projects, such as Jarreth Merz’s Sundance Film An African Election, Sarah founded the boutique documentary distribution company, Good Docs, in order to share her expertise with fellow independent filmmakers and generate revenue from sales in the educational market.
Good Docs’ curated collection highlights labor and civil rights struggles, environmental activism, juvenile justice reform, multicultural visibility, the fight for gender equality and much more. Their titles include several award-winning documentaries, including Amir Bar-Lev's "Happy Valley," Richard Ray Perez's "Cesar's Last Fast," Darius Clark Monroe’s "Evolution of a Criminal," and Grace Lee’s Peabody Award-winning film "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs."
“They have been an indispensable partner with us in the educational market,” Grace Lee praised. “Good Docs has personally reached out to dozens of institutions and individuals, with a keen eye to the different disciplines that might appreciate my film, and there are many more than I had even imagined.”
Sarah’s right-hand woman, Alana Hauser, is the Educational Research and Outreach Coordinator at Good Docs. While earning her bachelor of arts in Latin American Studies and Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis, Alana worked at Whole Kids Foundation, Meals on Wheels and More, and the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project. After moving to Los Angeles, Alana looked to film to reflect the poignant micro-narratives she had collected over the years.
“Good Docs is a perfect synthesis of my knowledge and passions, as it uses film to shape social discourse and connect audiences with stories that are too often invisible from the public eye. “
Alana also interns at Sundance Institute Women’s Initiative and works for the La-based non-profit WriteGirl, constantly working to advocate for stronger representations of women in the media.
Feinbloom and Hauser make up a powerful Good Docs team, searching for films with the potential for positive social change, spreading the word about social activism, and supporting filmmakers both creatively and financially throughout the process. For further information about Sarah Feinbloom see http://sarafinaproductions.com or go to http://gooddocs.net to find out more about Good Docs and their work.
“My students were riled by the riots. They couldn’t concentrate. I felt like what I was teaching was irrelevant. What they really wanted to talk about were issues of police brutality, violence in their neighborhoods, the fact that they couldn’t sleep because they heard gunshots in the night, and they were scared.”
Feinbloom veered off the curriculum and started talking with her class about civil rights, and soon she and her students were collaborating on her first film, "Youth to Youth: A Video About Violence." With no film school experience, Sarah improvised as she went along.
“I wanted my students to cultivate a deeper understanding of how personal and systemic violence affects them and even in small ways do something themselves to prevent it. So we went out together and interviewed students, police officers, a Vietnam veteran, a rape survivor, and created segments about the ways people confront and experience violence. I was hooked on documentaries after that. I saw how important it was for young people to be able to tell their own stories and have safe spaces where they could discuss what was really going on in their lives.”
"Youth to Youth" ended up being shown in classrooms around the country, and this first foray launched a lifelong journey of framing social justice, diversity and human rights issues through documentary film.
Feinbloom, an award-winning filmmaker and educator, was one of the first directors to bring the voices of young people reflecting on religious diversity to the media spotlight. Her 2002 documentary "What Do You Believe?" highlighted the spiritual lives of American teenagers, leading Feinbloom along with Dp and co-producer Klara Grunning-Harris into the homes of Muslim, Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Native American teenagers. "What Do You Believe?" premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, has sold more than 2,000 copies, was voted "One of Ten Best Videos for Young Adults in 2003" by the American Library Association, and aired on PBS.
“When I started touring with the film, it was often those kids that were in the minority at their schools that approached me. Muslim and Pagan girls said it was the first time they had ever seen something about themselves on screen. Some conservative Christian students said it was the first time they had ever really considered someone else’s religious perspective.”
Using her film as a centerpiece, Sarah created and led workshops nationally on interfaith dialogue and violence prevention and has been featured at conferences including the American Academy of Religion, Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues, and the National Association of Multicultural Educators. However, her main goal has always been to reach young audiences.
"Teens are often the subject of stories about alcohol and drugs, crime reports, and educational statistics, but rarely are they asked for their intellect and perspective. I want people from different backgrounds to watch my films, talk about them, discuss them – together. I want them to talk about being alive."
Sarah’s filmography is expansive, showcasing a number of pertinent social concerns. Her film "Earth, Water, Woman" spotlights the Fondes Amandes Community Re-Forestation Project in Trinidad and Tobago, and its charismatic Rastafarian leader Akilah Jaramogi, in their ongoing efforts to transform barren hillsides into a vibrant, healthy ecosystem. "Daughters and Sons: Preventing Child-trafficking in the Golden Triangle" took Feinbloom to Thailand, where she profiled a program that rescues children before they are trafficked into the sex-industry, and subsequently won the award for Best Short in Child Advocacy at the Artivist Film Festival and helped raise over $250,000 trafficking prevention.
“I am especially interested in stories that offer solutions to what might seem like intractable problems, stories that offer hope and don’t just leave us in despair.”
Although most well known for her activist documentaries, Feinbloom also dabbles in lighter subjects. "In Search of the Heart of Chocolate," a “chocumentary” featured at Palm Springs International Short Fest, follows Feinbloom as she searches for the origins of her chocolate obsession, interviewing chocolate enthusiasts along the way, delving into chocolate cake, art, fantasy, chocolate croissants, spirituality, sex, love and hot fudge, and journeying into the past to uncover chocolate’s special place in our hearts.
Sarah’s success in documentary filmmaking, her experience as an educator, and her long time involvement with New Day Films prompted filmmakers to reach out to her for assistance with educational sales and community impact campaigns. After working as a consultant with several great projects, such as Jarreth Merz’s Sundance Film An African Election, Sarah founded the boutique documentary distribution company, Good Docs, in order to share her expertise with fellow independent filmmakers and generate revenue from sales in the educational market.
Good Docs’ curated collection highlights labor and civil rights struggles, environmental activism, juvenile justice reform, multicultural visibility, the fight for gender equality and much more. Their titles include several award-winning documentaries, including Amir Bar-Lev's "Happy Valley," Richard Ray Perez's "Cesar's Last Fast," Darius Clark Monroe’s "Evolution of a Criminal," and Grace Lee’s Peabody Award-winning film "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs."
“They have been an indispensable partner with us in the educational market,” Grace Lee praised. “Good Docs has personally reached out to dozens of institutions and individuals, with a keen eye to the different disciplines that might appreciate my film, and there are many more than I had even imagined.”
Sarah’s right-hand woman, Alana Hauser, is the Educational Research and Outreach Coordinator at Good Docs. While earning her bachelor of arts in Latin American Studies and Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis, Alana worked at Whole Kids Foundation, Meals on Wheels and More, and the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project. After moving to Los Angeles, Alana looked to film to reflect the poignant micro-narratives she had collected over the years.
“Good Docs is a perfect synthesis of my knowledge and passions, as it uses film to shape social discourse and connect audiences with stories that are too often invisible from the public eye. “
Alana also interns at Sundance Institute Women’s Initiative and works for the La-based non-profit WriteGirl, constantly working to advocate for stronger representations of women in the media.
Feinbloom and Hauser make up a powerful Good Docs team, searching for films with the potential for positive social change, spreading the word about social activism, and supporting filmmakers both creatively and financially throughout the process. For further information about Sarah Feinbloom see http://sarafinaproductions.com or go to http://gooddocs.net to find out more about Good Docs and their work.
- 6/1/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Diego Luna to Participate in the Ambulan-thon!: A Google Hangout Version of the Ambulante Experience
With 72 hours to go on Kickstarter, Ambulante California will host a monumental Google Hangout that will include an incredible line-up of guest speakers. Filmmakers, festival programmers, and other renown industry personalities will share their excitement for the traveling documentary film festival in unique ways, aiming to inform people what this great event will entail and hopefully inspire them to support its crowd-funding campaign. This great undertaking by the Ambulante team and friends will bring the festival experience to everyone that joins keeping in line with Ambulante's idea of connecting with audiences in innovative ways unbound by traditional spaces.
Tune in Monday July 14th from 9:00 Am to 9:00 Pm to learn how to start a revolution, how to make a movie, how to get that movie seen, breaking news, live musical sets, how to make delicious guacamole, a reading from 100 Years of Solitude, loteria cards, and many more fun an engaging activities in an effort to connect the festival and the film community with those who really have the power to enrich the project: the audience. It doesn’t get more immersive than this.
As if this is not enough, Ambulante’s very own Diego Luna will participate in this epic telethon, which will be helmed by Ambulante California’s Christine Davila. After the event’s conclusion the organizers and some of the guests will head over to “El Chavo” in Los Feliz for drinks to transform the virtual hang a real shindig. If you are in Los Angeles this is also a great chance to connect face to face with the team, and to witness first hand the outstanding community spirit of Ambulante.
You don’t have to wait till Monday. You can become a backer now: Ambulante California’s Kickstarter
The Hangout will take place in two parts (First part: 9:00 Am to 5:00 P/ Second part: 5:30 Pm to 9:00 Pm). You can RSVP Here
You can also click here for the Facebook Invite for the Google Hangout event
Here is the list of confirmed guests:
Master of Ceremonies and your host: Christine Davila, director of Ambulante California
Diego Luna - co-founder Ambulante
Elena Fortes - co-founder Ambulante
Richard Ray Perez - dir. of "Cesar's Last Fast"
Ondi Timoner - multi-media artist (We Live In Public)
Joe Beyer - Sundance Artist Services
Bernardo Ruiz - dir. "Reportero"
Tin Dirdamal - dir. of "Rivers of Men"
Viviana Franco - Executive Director of From Lot to Spot
Jehane Noujaim & Karim Amer dir. "The Square"
Gloria Moran - dir. "The Unique Ladies"
Basil Tsiokas - doc guru (WhatNotToDoc)
Tatiana Tensen- artist and bon vivant
Dilcia Barrera - Lacma programmer
Maggie McKay - La Film Festival
Yolanda Cruz dir. "Reencuentros: 2501 Migrantes"
Issa Rodrigues - East La Community Corporation
Ryan Murdock dir. "Bronx Obama"
Julianna Brannum dir. "Ladonna Harris"
Ron Najor - producer of "Short Term 12" and "I am Not a Hipster"...
Tune in Monday July 14th from 9:00 Am to 9:00 Pm to learn how to start a revolution, how to make a movie, how to get that movie seen, breaking news, live musical sets, how to make delicious guacamole, a reading from 100 Years of Solitude, loteria cards, and many more fun an engaging activities in an effort to connect the festival and the film community with those who really have the power to enrich the project: the audience. It doesn’t get more immersive than this.
As if this is not enough, Ambulante’s very own Diego Luna will participate in this epic telethon, which will be helmed by Ambulante California’s Christine Davila. After the event’s conclusion the organizers and some of the guests will head over to “El Chavo” in Los Feliz for drinks to transform the virtual hang a real shindig. If you are in Los Angeles this is also a great chance to connect face to face with the team, and to witness first hand the outstanding community spirit of Ambulante.
You don’t have to wait till Monday. You can become a backer now: Ambulante California’s Kickstarter
The Hangout will take place in two parts (First part: 9:00 Am to 5:00 P/ Second part: 5:30 Pm to 9:00 Pm). You can RSVP Here
You can also click here for the Facebook Invite for the Google Hangout event
Here is the list of confirmed guests:
Master of Ceremonies and your host: Christine Davila, director of Ambulante California
Diego Luna - co-founder Ambulante
Elena Fortes - co-founder Ambulante
Richard Ray Perez - dir. of "Cesar's Last Fast"
Ondi Timoner - multi-media artist (We Live In Public)
Joe Beyer - Sundance Artist Services
Bernardo Ruiz - dir. "Reportero"
Tin Dirdamal - dir. of "Rivers of Men"
Viviana Franco - Executive Director of From Lot to Spot
Jehane Noujaim & Karim Amer dir. "The Square"
Gloria Moran - dir. "The Unique Ladies"
Basil Tsiokas - doc guru (WhatNotToDoc)
Tatiana Tensen- artist and bon vivant
Dilcia Barrera - Lacma programmer
Maggie McKay - La Film Festival
Yolanda Cruz dir. "Reencuentros: 2501 Migrantes"
Issa Rodrigues - East La Community Corporation
Ryan Murdock dir. "Bronx Obama"
Julianna Brannum dir. "Ladonna Harris"
Ron Najor - producer of "Short Term 12" and "I am Not a Hipster"...
- 7/13/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
For almost a decade, Ambulante, a nomadic documentary film festival, has inspired audiences across Mexico through the thought provoking, enlightening, and fascinating films they screen. Founded by Mexican superstars Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal as well as producer Pablo Cruz and Elena Forters.
Their mission is to democratize documentary culture. Since 2005, the non profit has annually organized an epic three-month tour across Mexico presenting remarkable international documentary cinema in areas with limited access to film. Thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, they plan to bring the project to the U.S. starting in California, most specifically in Los Angeles.
In order to bring Ambulante to California please back their Kickstarter Campaign. There is only 30 days to make this outstanding event happen.
From Sept. 21 – Oct 4 Ambulante will show a documentary each night, in a different neighborhood in the greater Los Angeles area in an alternative venue and for free.
Ambulante California has already initiated their efforts with recent community screenings of the films "Cesar's Last Fast" by Richard Ray Perez on May 1st at MacArthur Park and "Illusion Nacional" by Olallo Rubio on June 11th at the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles. Both events were marvelously received by the community and were made possible thanks to overwhelming support from varied sources.
To make the full length festival a reality much more needs to be done and everyone can help.
Here’s how you can help in taking this project from beta to reality:
1. First, check out their fun video and read more about the project on the Kickstarter page.
2. Share the link far and wide with emails and Facebook posts.
3. Pledge your support.
4. Please follow and retweet the festival @AmbulanteCA
5. Please like their page on Facebook and spread the hashtag #BringAmbulante2CA
Ambulante is a collective effort and it will require incredible support to bring it to life. Visit the Kickstarter page Here. There are tons of great rewards!
Check out the video below...
Their mission is to democratize documentary culture. Since 2005, the non profit has annually organized an epic three-month tour across Mexico presenting remarkable international documentary cinema in areas with limited access to film. Thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, they plan to bring the project to the U.S. starting in California, most specifically in Los Angeles.
In order to bring Ambulante to California please back their Kickstarter Campaign. There is only 30 days to make this outstanding event happen.
From Sept. 21 – Oct 4 Ambulante will show a documentary each night, in a different neighborhood in the greater Los Angeles area in an alternative venue and for free.
Ambulante California has already initiated their efforts with recent community screenings of the films "Cesar's Last Fast" by Richard Ray Perez on May 1st at MacArthur Park and "Illusion Nacional" by Olallo Rubio on June 11th at the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles. Both events were marvelously received by the community and were made possible thanks to overwhelming support from varied sources.
To make the full length festival a reality much more needs to be done and everyone can help.
Here’s how you can help in taking this project from beta to reality:
1. First, check out their fun video and read more about the project on the Kickstarter page.
2. Share the link far and wide with emails and Facebook posts.
3. Pledge your support.
4. Please follow and retweet the festival @AmbulanteCA
5. Please like their page on Facebook and spread the hashtag #BringAmbulante2CA
Ambulante is a collective effort and it will require incredible support to bring it to life. Visit the Kickstarter page Here. There are tons of great rewards!
Check out the video below...
- 6/18/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Over the past week we have published 5 interview with the directors of some of the most interesting films currently playing in theaters. From acclaimed French auteur Francois Ozon on Young & Beautiful, Marc Silver and his immigration documentary Who is Dayani Cristal?, and Polish visionary Pawel Pawlikowski and his latest work Ida. At the same time we also featured interviews with talented documentarian Richard Ray Perez and his perspective on an icon in Cesar's Last Fast, and Argentinian director Lucia Puenzo's historical fiction The German Doctor. Take look at all these fascinating conversations directly from the source of the art form, the directors.
Francois Ozon on Young & Beautiful
"Beauty can be something difficult to cope with” It is not usual, but he said some of these girls want to go with these dirty old men because their beauty is too much too heavy to carry. They don't want to be humiliated, but they want to feel normal." -Francois Ozon
Full Interview
Lucia Puenzo on The German Doctor
"This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him." -Lucia Puenzo
Full Interview
Richard Ray Perez on Cesar's Last Fast
"Cesar is this is uniquely committed man. He is committed in a way I think few people on this Earth are. Now, he has flaws, and probably some serious flaws, but it could take that type of person to make those changes. Yeah, he was probably a control freak, yes he probably didn’t tolerate descent, but if you think about what he did, and the commitment, that’s some heavy stuff. I wouldn’t be able to do it, most people wouldn’t be able to do it. He is a deeply committed man who is complicated, but most interesting human beings are complicated. He made immensely positive impact on society. The fact that he was a flawed man shouldn’t undermine all the positive that he accomplished."-Richard Ray Perez
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2
Marc Silver on Who is Dayani Cristal?
"I remember being in the car with my friends talking about the situation, and what I found really interesting was to ask myself “If I lived in Honduras, were my chances of earning a living were really small, would I have made that journey for my family?” And you know what, I probably would have. If people start asking that question to themselves it might a more useful way of understanding the immigration debate, more than defending your right-wing or left-wing opinion." -Marc Silver
Full Interview
Paweł Pawlikowski on Ida
"Ida has multiple origins, the most interesting ones probably not quite conscious. Let's say that I come from a family full of mysteries and contradictions and have lived in one sort of exile or another for most of my life. Questions of identity, family, blood, faith, belonging, and history have always been present." -Paweł Pawlikowski
Full Interview...
Francois Ozon on Young & Beautiful
"Beauty can be something difficult to cope with” It is not usual, but he said some of these girls want to go with these dirty old men because their beauty is too much too heavy to carry. They don't want to be humiliated, but they want to feel normal." -Francois Ozon
Full Interview
Lucia Puenzo on The German Doctor
"This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him." -Lucia Puenzo
Full Interview
Richard Ray Perez on Cesar's Last Fast
"Cesar is this is uniquely committed man. He is committed in a way I think few people on this Earth are. Now, he has flaws, and probably some serious flaws, but it could take that type of person to make those changes. Yeah, he was probably a control freak, yes he probably didn’t tolerate descent, but if you think about what he did, and the commitment, that’s some heavy stuff. I wouldn’t be able to do it, most people wouldn’t be able to do it. He is a deeply committed man who is complicated, but most interesting human beings are complicated. He made immensely positive impact on society. The fact that he was a flawed man shouldn’t undermine all the positive that he accomplished."-Richard Ray Perez
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2
Marc Silver on Who is Dayani Cristal?
"I remember being in the car with my friends talking about the situation, and what I found really interesting was to ask myself “If I lived in Honduras, were my chances of earning a living were really small, would I have made that journey for my family?” And you know what, I probably would have. If people start asking that question to themselves it might a more useful way of understanding the immigration debate, more than defending your right-wing or left-wing opinion." -Marc Silver
Full Interview
Paweł Pawlikowski on Ida
"Ida has multiple origins, the most interesting ones probably not quite conscious. Let's say that I come from a family full of mysteries and contradictions and have lived in one sort of exile or another for most of my life. Questions of identity, family, blood, faith, belonging, and history have always been present." -Paweł Pawlikowski
Full Interview...
- 5/2/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
After almost a decade of creating a successful traveling platform to showcase important documentary films around Mexico, Ambulante, the non-profit founded by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Pablo Cruz, and Elena Fortes, has expanded to California. Ambulante California aims to continue this mission engaging audiences in the Los Angeles area.
The new organization's film public even will take place this Thursday May 1st in Los Angeles at MacArthur Park, this will include a musical performance by Alternative band Las Cafeters , and the screening of documentary Cesar's Last Fast, which chronicles the efforts and devotion of the farmworkers leader for a just cause. This is a Free event that encourages audiences from all backgrounds to participate and get to know Ambulante's mission ahead of the their official inaugural festival to take place September 21st to October 4th all around the Los Angeles county.
Learn more about Ambulante California Here
Take a look at out interview with Richard Ray Perez director of Cesar's Last Fast
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2...
The new organization's film public even will take place this Thursday May 1st in Los Angeles at MacArthur Park, this will include a musical performance by Alternative band Las Cafeters , and the screening of documentary Cesar's Last Fast, which chronicles the efforts and devotion of the farmworkers leader for a just cause. This is a Free event that encourages audiences from all backgrounds to participate and get to know Ambulante's mission ahead of the their official inaugural festival to take place September 21st to October 4th all around the Los Angeles county.
Learn more about Ambulante California Here
Take a look at out interview with Richard Ray Perez director of Cesar's Last Fast
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2...
- 4/30/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
In the first part of this extensive interview with Richard Ray Perez, the filmmaker revisited in detail the unbelievable course of events that would lead him to helm this project. In this second part, Perez talked to us about the challenges particular to his film in the editing room, his profound relationship with Chavez' cause from an early age, the distinct strengths of both his piece and the recently released narrative film on the leader's life.
Read the first part of the Interview Here
Carlos Aguilar: Besides the fact that opportunity to make the film presented itself to you in such a incredibly serendipitous manner, did you have any sort of personal connection to the Chavez story?
Richard Ray Perez: In 1969 I was 4 years old, I was in Head Start, which is this public pre-school for poor kids where you get free lunch. There were these university students who used to come and volunteer, mostly from Cal State Northridge. One day me and the other preschool kids were sitting around the desk, we were having our free lunch, and part of it was a fruit cocktail. I noticed one of the college students when he started eating his, he was plucking the grapes out of the fruit cocktail. I asked him, “How come you are doing that?” and he said, “Because the people who own the grape fields they treat the people who picked the grapes terribly. They pay them very little money, they make them live in shacks, they humiliate them, and if they complaint they fired them.” I remember looking down at my grapes, and I saw everything he said in my them. They looked really ugly, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat them, so I started plucking the grapes our of my fruit cocktail. All the other kids that were listening, they looked down at the grapes and they also started plucking them out. None of us ate the grapes for the rest of the year. After that, the ones that continued to be on the free lunch program all through elementary school, I remember we would never eat the grapes.
That was when I was 4 years old, then I went on to learn that my dad had been a migrant farm worker before I was born for 22 years. At that time when I was in preschool I still had aunts and uncles in central California who were farmworkers. Within a couple years the boycott came to my hometown, 20 miles from here in the Northeast valley. They came and they set up picket lines in front of the super markets. My parents would join and they'd take me, and my brothers and sisters. Very early on I was aware of the grape boycott but not really knowing much, then eventually I became more consciously aware thanks to my family supporting the movement.
Aguilar: When did you become aware of Cesar Chavez not in an abstract way, but as the face of the movement?
Perez: I would probably say 7 or 8 years old, not long after. I remember watching TV in 1970 and understanding the news about the Vietnam War. I remember seeing him on TV with the grape strikes. When he came to town, we would go visit my aunts and uncles and my dad would talk to them and ask "Has Chavez been around here?,"so I was aware if him pretty young.
Aguilar: After reviewing the footage and learning so much bout Chavez, how did your perception of him change?
Perez: That was the hardest part, learning that Cesar Chavez wasn't a perfect man. It really began around 2005, there was a series of articles in the L.A. Times written by Miriam Pawel. She is somebody who has written one book about the farmworker movement and one about Cesar Chavez - the first comprehensive biography. When she was a writer for the L.A. Times, she wrote a 4 or 5-part article about the Ufw. It started with the ineffectiveness of today's Ufw and how today's farmworkers are living under the same conditions before Cesar organized them. Then it started going into the latter years and accused Cesar of being an authoritarian, purging people from the union, suspecting people were communists and marginalizing them, really having this control impulses.
There was starting to be more writing about that. People who were purged for the union themselves started writing. One very credible guy, who is now a professor at Harvard, he wrote a book. That was the tough part, to realize all these things about a guy who up until then had been inaccurately portrayed as a saint. His sainthood is edged on your psyche, he is an icon. To learn that he has this darker side, that he is imperfect, and then try to reconcile that realizing it's possible for imperfect people to do amazing things. Because he left a trail of wreckage by not tolerating descent and authoritarianism, that doesn't diminish what he did, it just adds to the complexity of this man. In the end what he did was phenomenal, how he did it, or how his control issues may have halbert the success of the union in the later years, that's a different problem. But I do think those negative things are also true.
Aguilar: The narrative film focuses on the lack of a close relationship between Cesar and his family, why did you decide to not delve into this subject?
Perez: The family relationships didn't seem penetrable. There was no real way to getting that in an honest manner. During the interviews I asked Paul some questions like "Was it hard being his son?." He gave very generic answers "I knew I had to share him" or "He would only show up for part of my sisters' weddings." I didn't have the material to really convey the emotional weight, if there was any behind it. Also, it wasn't that interesting, I didn't think it was interesting in the narrative film. I thought it was forced. It wasn't fully developed, it was like "Cesar go take out the trash and talk to Fernando." It was pasted on the way they tried to deal with his shortcoming of some sort. I'm sure he couldn't have been a perfect dad because of the life he chose. It wasn't the story I wanted to tell. The power was in the fast, and the spiritual commitment, that's what came from the material. I really worked with the most emotional and powerful material that there was, and I constructed the story around that.
Aguilar: As you mention, the spiritual component is crucial for your film. How did you deal with this idea of sainthood around him?
Perez: What was interesting about that sainthood thing, and we talked about this early on with Paul. The archdiocese at one point went to the Chavez family and said, “We want to put him up for sainthood”, and he replied, “My dad was not a saint we don’t want to go there." Whoever represented the church said, “You don’t understand, some saints were really bad people. Some were murderers, and philanders, etc. But they had a shift in their lives”. Some of them have these questionable backgrounds, so we have a misconception of sainthood. That was something really interesting. It also sort of intersected with where I was in my life at that point, spiritually. Growing up, they tried to raise me Catholic, and I was really rebellious. I was very anti-Catholic and anti-Christian for most of my adult life. By the time I came across that material I was much more understanding of the power of Christianity. I’m not a Christian anymore I’m a Buddhist, but by the time I was working on the film I had been meditating regularly for about 7 years. I had a lot of compassion for Christianity, and I saw this and thought, “What this man is doing is intense.” There was all this passion we are not even used to seeing, certainly not in this country, in Mexico yes, people are willing to crawl on their knees for a mile based on their faith. I was raised here, and while I knew that was sort of my grandmother’s Catholicism, I was still shocked by how intense this was. I got it right away because where I was spiritually I saw the power in what he was doing.
Aguilar: With the recent release of the narrative film Cesar Chavez, what do you think are the differences and individual strengths between that film and your documentary?
Perez: I think they are complimentary. The narrative is great because it is getting a broad audience and it is almost like the “Cesar 101,” really introducing this generation of Americans, and possibly a global audience, to who this man was. In that respect it’s doing a wonderful job. From what I hear, people that knew nothing or very little about Chavez really liked the narrative film, this is a mainstream audience. I think it really opens up the door for my film, which, like most documentaries, is targeting a different audience. The documentary is an opportunity for a deeper dive into the subject and much heavier part of his life – the spiritual life.
There is a difference in the form itself between the two. There are two reasons why I’m a documentary filmmaker. The main reason is the power of the medium. The most powerful films I’ve seen have been documentaries. Of course, there are some narrative films that I could never forget, but there are more documentaries that have had that impact on me. The power of the documentary film, when done well, I think is usually more impacting than a narrative, at least for me. The other reason is that documentaries are cheaper, they are more accessible to make.
Aguilar: How did you manipulate and balance the material to create the powerful effect the film has on audiences?
Perez: That’s exactly what a filmmaker working with his editors does. How do you edit this material against all the other material? How do you, on the micro level, sequence the shots to get that effect. Then on the macro level how do you arrange them in the larger 90-minute arc? When I first started watching the footage I had a conceptual idea, but then the challenge was to figure out how to organize that idea onto paper, and then into the edit room being limited by the material you have. Like most documentary editing it was a lot of trial and error. For me it was always important not to bore the audience with information but keeping it around storytelling. I tell people “I’m not a journalist and I’m not a historian, I’m a storyteller."
Therefore I’m going to manipulate these pieces of reality or these piece of truth –because there is no one truth- to put them together into this shape with a desired effect. That’s what I think the essence of documentary filmmaking is, how do you manipulate the material to create an emotional impact, as opposed to just delivering information. “Cesar Chavez was born in Arizona in 1926, then this happened, etc” like those old school PBS documentaries. An example of how we approached the sequencing is the fact that Lorena Parlee didn’t start shooting until day 23 of his fast. We didn’t have Day 1, or Day 2, none of that, but we had to create this impression that the cameras were there at the beginning to sort of launch the ticking clock. I think there is like a Day 10 in there or a Day 15, then Day 24. In the credits we admit “Hey we got a bit creative with the Day numbers” That was a conscious decision I made as an artist.
Aguilar: Where there any images or episode that you decides not to include? If so, why?
Perez: There was a great story where Martin Sheen talks about how he first met Cesar Chavez. It’s a funny story and Martin Sheen is a great storyteller, but we could not find place for it. There was other material I wish I could have included like the granddaughters stitching the lining of the coffin. On the other hand, there were some interviews where people had some really strong opinions about Cesar in the latter days. First of all, I don’t know how credible they were, and I think it would have been irresponsible to include them. There was stuff like these examples that didn’t make it because I don’t think they would have helped the story.
Aguilar: How do you think your film will resonate with "Chicanos" or Mexican Americans, given that Chavez is perhaps their most iconic hero?
Perez: Chicanos are an interesting group, partly because we tend to self-segregate and we have a bit of a chip on our shoulder. A lot of ethnic and minorities do that, that’s why there is a craving for feel-good history, they might say “We are just as good as everybody else, we can fight”. I’m sure it’s going to resonate with them. That’s great. One of the powers I saw in my lifetime came from Cesar Chavez organizing. My dad was beat down from being a farmworker and an uneducated factory worker, and he had this inferiority complex because of that. When he would go out and interact in the “White World” he became a demure man. But when Cesar Chavez came along and showed him that Mexican Americans and Mexicans had power to fight back and challenge the system, I could see that it gave him pride. All of a sudden he felt empowered, that’s incredible. It is not just Chicanos or Mexicans; it is really about poor people. For them to see the film and think that poor people can organize and demand dignity and rights and that it has been done in the past, that would be a wonderful for them to get from the film.
Aguilar: After all the difficulties to make the film, the endless hours watching footage, and through that, getting to know this man, who is Cesar Chavez for you?
Perez: Cesar is this is uniquely committed man. He is committed in a way I think few people on this Earth are. Now, he has flaws, and probably some serious flaws, but it could take that type of person to make those changes. Yeah, he was probably a control freak, yes he probably didn’t tolerate descent, but if you think about what he did, and the commitment, that’s some heavy stuff. I wouldn’t be able to do it, most people wouldn’t be able to do it. He is a deeply committed man who is complicated, but most interesting human beings are complicated. He made immensely positive impact on society. The fact that he was a flawed man shouldn’t undermine all the positive that he accomplished.
Cesar's Last Fast opens in L.A. on April 25th and it's currently playing in New York...
Read the first part of the Interview Here
Carlos Aguilar: Besides the fact that opportunity to make the film presented itself to you in such a incredibly serendipitous manner, did you have any sort of personal connection to the Chavez story?
Richard Ray Perez: In 1969 I was 4 years old, I was in Head Start, which is this public pre-school for poor kids where you get free lunch. There were these university students who used to come and volunteer, mostly from Cal State Northridge. One day me and the other preschool kids were sitting around the desk, we were having our free lunch, and part of it was a fruit cocktail. I noticed one of the college students when he started eating his, he was plucking the grapes out of the fruit cocktail. I asked him, “How come you are doing that?” and he said, “Because the people who own the grape fields they treat the people who picked the grapes terribly. They pay them very little money, they make them live in shacks, they humiliate them, and if they complaint they fired them.” I remember looking down at my grapes, and I saw everything he said in my them. They looked really ugly, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat them, so I started plucking the grapes our of my fruit cocktail. All the other kids that were listening, they looked down at the grapes and they also started plucking them out. None of us ate the grapes for the rest of the year. After that, the ones that continued to be on the free lunch program all through elementary school, I remember we would never eat the grapes.
That was when I was 4 years old, then I went on to learn that my dad had been a migrant farm worker before I was born for 22 years. At that time when I was in preschool I still had aunts and uncles in central California who were farmworkers. Within a couple years the boycott came to my hometown, 20 miles from here in the Northeast valley. They came and they set up picket lines in front of the super markets. My parents would join and they'd take me, and my brothers and sisters. Very early on I was aware of the grape boycott but not really knowing much, then eventually I became more consciously aware thanks to my family supporting the movement.
Aguilar: When did you become aware of Cesar Chavez not in an abstract way, but as the face of the movement?
Perez: I would probably say 7 or 8 years old, not long after. I remember watching TV in 1970 and understanding the news about the Vietnam War. I remember seeing him on TV with the grape strikes. When he came to town, we would go visit my aunts and uncles and my dad would talk to them and ask "Has Chavez been around here?,"so I was aware if him pretty young.
Aguilar: After reviewing the footage and learning so much bout Chavez, how did your perception of him change?
Perez: That was the hardest part, learning that Cesar Chavez wasn't a perfect man. It really began around 2005, there was a series of articles in the L.A. Times written by Miriam Pawel. She is somebody who has written one book about the farmworker movement and one about Cesar Chavez - the first comprehensive biography. When she was a writer for the L.A. Times, she wrote a 4 or 5-part article about the Ufw. It started with the ineffectiveness of today's Ufw and how today's farmworkers are living under the same conditions before Cesar organized them. Then it started going into the latter years and accused Cesar of being an authoritarian, purging people from the union, suspecting people were communists and marginalizing them, really having this control impulses.
There was starting to be more writing about that. People who were purged for the union themselves started writing. One very credible guy, who is now a professor at Harvard, he wrote a book. That was the tough part, to realize all these things about a guy who up until then had been inaccurately portrayed as a saint. His sainthood is edged on your psyche, he is an icon. To learn that he has this darker side, that he is imperfect, and then try to reconcile that realizing it's possible for imperfect people to do amazing things. Because he left a trail of wreckage by not tolerating descent and authoritarianism, that doesn't diminish what he did, it just adds to the complexity of this man. In the end what he did was phenomenal, how he did it, or how his control issues may have halbert the success of the union in the later years, that's a different problem. But I do think those negative things are also true.
Aguilar: The narrative film focuses on the lack of a close relationship between Cesar and his family, why did you decide to not delve into this subject?
Perez: The family relationships didn't seem penetrable. There was no real way to getting that in an honest manner. During the interviews I asked Paul some questions like "Was it hard being his son?." He gave very generic answers "I knew I had to share him" or "He would only show up for part of my sisters' weddings." I didn't have the material to really convey the emotional weight, if there was any behind it. Also, it wasn't that interesting, I didn't think it was interesting in the narrative film. I thought it was forced. It wasn't fully developed, it was like "Cesar go take out the trash and talk to Fernando." It was pasted on the way they tried to deal with his shortcoming of some sort. I'm sure he couldn't have been a perfect dad because of the life he chose. It wasn't the story I wanted to tell. The power was in the fast, and the spiritual commitment, that's what came from the material. I really worked with the most emotional and powerful material that there was, and I constructed the story around that.
Aguilar: As you mention, the spiritual component is crucial for your film. How did you deal with this idea of sainthood around him?
Perez: What was interesting about that sainthood thing, and we talked about this early on with Paul. The archdiocese at one point went to the Chavez family and said, “We want to put him up for sainthood”, and he replied, “My dad was not a saint we don’t want to go there." Whoever represented the church said, “You don’t understand, some saints were really bad people. Some were murderers, and philanders, etc. But they had a shift in their lives”. Some of them have these questionable backgrounds, so we have a misconception of sainthood. That was something really interesting. It also sort of intersected with where I was in my life at that point, spiritually. Growing up, they tried to raise me Catholic, and I was really rebellious. I was very anti-Catholic and anti-Christian for most of my adult life. By the time I came across that material I was much more understanding of the power of Christianity. I’m not a Christian anymore I’m a Buddhist, but by the time I was working on the film I had been meditating regularly for about 7 years. I had a lot of compassion for Christianity, and I saw this and thought, “What this man is doing is intense.” There was all this passion we are not even used to seeing, certainly not in this country, in Mexico yes, people are willing to crawl on their knees for a mile based on their faith. I was raised here, and while I knew that was sort of my grandmother’s Catholicism, I was still shocked by how intense this was. I got it right away because where I was spiritually I saw the power in what he was doing.
Aguilar: With the recent release of the narrative film Cesar Chavez, what do you think are the differences and individual strengths between that film and your documentary?
Perez: I think they are complimentary. The narrative is great because it is getting a broad audience and it is almost like the “Cesar 101,” really introducing this generation of Americans, and possibly a global audience, to who this man was. In that respect it’s doing a wonderful job. From what I hear, people that knew nothing or very little about Chavez really liked the narrative film, this is a mainstream audience. I think it really opens up the door for my film, which, like most documentaries, is targeting a different audience. The documentary is an opportunity for a deeper dive into the subject and much heavier part of his life – the spiritual life.
There is a difference in the form itself between the two. There are two reasons why I’m a documentary filmmaker. The main reason is the power of the medium. The most powerful films I’ve seen have been documentaries. Of course, there are some narrative films that I could never forget, but there are more documentaries that have had that impact on me. The power of the documentary film, when done well, I think is usually more impacting than a narrative, at least for me. The other reason is that documentaries are cheaper, they are more accessible to make.
Aguilar: How did you manipulate and balance the material to create the powerful effect the film has on audiences?
Perez: That’s exactly what a filmmaker working with his editors does. How do you edit this material against all the other material? How do you, on the micro level, sequence the shots to get that effect. Then on the macro level how do you arrange them in the larger 90-minute arc? When I first started watching the footage I had a conceptual idea, but then the challenge was to figure out how to organize that idea onto paper, and then into the edit room being limited by the material you have. Like most documentary editing it was a lot of trial and error. For me it was always important not to bore the audience with information but keeping it around storytelling. I tell people “I’m not a journalist and I’m not a historian, I’m a storyteller."
Therefore I’m going to manipulate these pieces of reality or these piece of truth –because there is no one truth- to put them together into this shape with a desired effect. That’s what I think the essence of documentary filmmaking is, how do you manipulate the material to create an emotional impact, as opposed to just delivering information. “Cesar Chavez was born in Arizona in 1926, then this happened, etc” like those old school PBS documentaries. An example of how we approached the sequencing is the fact that Lorena Parlee didn’t start shooting until day 23 of his fast. We didn’t have Day 1, or Day 2, none of that, but we had to create this impression that the cameras were there at the beginning to sort of launch the ticking clock. I think there is like a Day 10 in there or a Day 15, then Day 24. In the credits we admit “Hey we got a bit creative with the Day numbers” That was a conscious decision I made as an artist.
Aguilar: Where there any images or episode that you decides not to include? If so, why?
Perez: There was a great story where Martin Sheen talks about how he first met Cesar Chavez. It’s a funny story and Martin Sheen is a great storyteller, but we could not find place for it. There was other material I wish I could have included like the granddaughters stitching the lining of the coffin. On the other hand, there were some interviews where people had some really strong opinions about Cesar in the latter days. First of all, I don’t know how credible they were, and I think it would have been irresponsible to include them. There was stuff like these examples that didn’t make it because I don’t think they would have helped the story.
Aguilar: How do you think your film will resonate with "Chicanos" or Mexican Americans, given that Chavez is perhaps their most iconic hero?
Perez: Chicanos are an interesting group, partly because we tend to self-segregate and we have a bit of a chip on our shoulder. A lot of ethnic and minorities do that, that’s why there is a craving for feel-good history, they might say “We are just as good as everybody else, we can fight”. I’m sure it’s going to resonate with them. That’s great. One of the powers I saw in my lifetime came from Cesar Chavez organizing. My dad was beat down from being a farmworker and an uneducated factory worker, and he had this inferiority complex because of that. When he would go out and interact in the “White World” he became a demure man. But when Cesar Chavez came along and showed him that Mexican Americans and Mexicans had power to fight back and challenge the system, I could see that it gave him pride. All of a sudden he felt empowered, that’s incredible. It is not just Chicanos or Mexicans; it is really about poor people. For them to see the film and think that poor people can organize and demand dignity and rights and that it has been done in the past, that would be a wonderful for them to get from the film.
Aguilar: After all the difficulties to make the film, the endless hours watching footage, and through that, getting to know this man, who is Cesar Chavez for you?
Perez: Cesar is this is uniquely committed man. He is committed in a way I think few people on this Earth are. Now, he has flaws, and probably some serious flaws, but it could take that type of person to make those changes. Yeah, he was probably a control freak, yes he probably didn’t tolerate descent, but if you think about what he did, and the commitment, that’s some heavy stuff. I wouldn’t be able to do it, most people wouldn’t be able to do it. He is a deeply committed man who is complicated, but most interesting human beings are complicated. He made immensely positive impact on society. The fact that he was a flawed man shouldn’t undermine all the positive that he accomplished.
Cesar's Last Fast opens in L.A. on April 25th and it's currently playing in New York...
- 4/24/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
The work of a documentary filmmaker is to try to decode via visual statements the chosen issue or figure. Although the artist uses reality as the malleable raw material, this does not imply the final product is rid of subjectivity. Storytelling is a personal matter, and as such, it relies on the nuances and vision of the one manipulating the story. Perhaps that is why Dir. Richard Ray Perez’ depiction of Cesar Chavez is different to that of others. His is a spiritual Chavez, an imperfect man capable of grandeur. Not a saint but a devoted believer who used that faith to benefit others who couldn’t fend for themselves. In the hands of a more conventional creator the story could have been too much of an idealistic homage or a didactic factsheet devoid of any interesting analysis. What the director crafted in Cesar’s Last Fast is a story of sacrifice with the purpose of social change. Utilizing incredibly intimate unseen footage shot by the late Lorena Parlee, filmmaker Richard Ray Perez elaborately made a film that doesn’t want to be the definite biography on the farmworkers’ beloved hero, but at least an honest one, as honest as the relative truth of cinema allows. What the camera doesn’t capture remains mysterious to those who will only meet the man through screens.
In this in-depth two-part interview Mr. Perez discussed with us the origin and unfathomable challenges to get the film off the ground, and his personal relationship to the Chavez legacy.
Carlos Aguilar: Please tell us how you got involved with the project, and how you manged to make a film with such incredible freedom given the stature of this historical figure?
Richard Ray Perez: Several years ago, I had a mentor who really wanted to make a documentary film about Cesar Chavez, for years. He heard the documentary rights might be available. He knew my background, that my father had been a farmworker so he thought I’d make a good addition to the team . . So we met with the Cesar Chavez Foundation, we had a really good meeting with them, and so my mentor started negotiating the contract. He wanted exclusive documentary rights. But ultimately the Chavez Foundation told him that they couldn’t give him exclusive rights because somebody close to the family had a non-exclusive deal to make a documentary. So my mentor stopped pursuing the project.
About two weeks later I got a phone call from the other filmmaker, she said “Hi, I’m Lorena Parlee, I know you were trying to make a film about Cesar Chavez. Well, I’m the filmmaker whose already been working on the project. She said “I’ve been working on a Chavez film for about 10 years, and I’ve amassed 85 hours of Chavez-related footage, about 20 hours have never been seen by the public, I’ve been holding it off for my film. I used to be Cesar’s press secretary. During his fast I had volunteered crews and I had access, I shot all this stuff around his 1988 fast. Then when Cesar died the family let me shoot video of the private rosary service, Cesar’s brother building Cesar’s coffin, the granddaughters knitting the lining in the coffin, etc. I have all this footage and nobody has ever seen it, it is incredibly intimate access. Then there is all this the footage I’ve acquire over the years. But because I’ve never had exclusive rights I’ve been having trouble raising the money”
She wanted my advice, she asked, “Do you think your mentor would be willing to team-up with me and be the producer, and I will direct. We’ll go back to the Chavez foundation and try to get the exclusive rights” And I said, “It sounds like a good idea, but I know my mentor is only interested in directing this film and I don’t think he’d be interested in co-directing with you or producing the project.” I advised her, “If you want to make the film you really want to make, I suggest you pursue this on your own.”
She was totally appreciative; we went on to talk about the farmworkers. Then she asked “How about you? Would you be willing to come on board and help me out as a producer” I said, “I totally would, but I’ve just started a freelance gig. I’m available in 6 months” She replied “I need someone to help me make this film now because I’m being treated for breast cancer, and I could only work on this film two weeks out of the month” I said to myself, if this woman is who she says she is and has what she says, then she has some good material. I said “Ok in 6 months if you haven’t found anybody, call me and I’ll totally work on this project for free, or deferred payment.” 6 months comes around, I don’t hear from her so I thought, “She found somebody else, anybody in their right mind is going to jump on this.” 9 months later I get a phone call from this elderly guy, he says “Hi, I’m Lorena Parlee’s step-father. Lorena died last month of breast cancer, and she left your name and her notes for us to contact you immediately to see if you’d finish her film”
She had told her parents about this conversation where I told her not to work with my mentor, and I think she appreciated that advice. She got sicker and sicker, until unfortunately she past away. It took a long courtship between the parents and me because even though they wanted me to finish her film, they still wanted to gain trust from me. At one point they said, “Come and pick up the tapes, they are in our garage” I said “Wait, we have to have this legally on paper” So I had a lawyer dropped a contract, they looked at it, and legal language is strong, so they flipped out. There was a whole other set of negotiations. In the end, I got a contract from them that said I could use this footage to finish a film as long as she got co-producers' credit and a co-directors' credit. Then after I was done with the footage I had to turn it over to an archive in her name at UCLA.
I went to the Chavez’ people after I had nailed this on paper. I said, "I want to finish Lorena Parlee's film" the first thing they said was "Where is the footage?" They knew she had the footage and they wanted it. I said "I have legal control of the footage for the next 5 years, I want to finish the film, would you give me an exclusive deal?" I had a good lawyer, what he did was, rather than negotiate a whole new contract, he just negotiated transferring the contract they had with Lorena Parlee to me. It gave her editorial control, but he changed it so that I had the exclusive documentary rights. It was something they had already agreed to in the past, and all the terms were pretty Ok except the exclusivity. So he said, "Let me just change that and get them to sign it" and sure enough they did. That’s how I got editorial control.
Lorena had left a 2-hour string out, which was not a film I could make. I saw it and it was just a linear traditional history from the beginning of his life to the end, which had been done before in 1997 with a PBS documentary called The Fight in the Fields. But when I had all the tapes - she had all these VHS tapes - they were labeled Day 23, Day 24, Day 25. I was like “What is this?” so I popped them in and Day 23 is that press conference with Martin Sheen, that’s intense. Day 24, is more drama, more intense. Then everyday gets more intense. First I was like, “Is this what I think it is? Never-before-seen footage” The second thing I thought was “That’s the natural spine of the film” That escalating conflict, and that suspense, “Will he break the fast? When is he going to break it? Will he die before? Will he harm himself?” It was just almost immediate, just looking at those things sequentially I was like “That’s it”. Between the days I could separate them and tell the back story because most people don’t know concretely what he did.
After I got the footage I just started from the ground up. I went back to Lorena’s parents and said, “I see a different film, I see one about his spiritual commitment as embodied by this fast. That’s the film I’d like to make” Her step-father is a retired minister, he totally got it and they were Ok with it, and I basically made my own film with the material.
Cesar's Last Fast opens in L.A. on April 25th and it's currently playing in New York...
In this in-depth two-part interview Mr. Perez discussed with us the origin and unfathomable challenges to get the film off the ground, and his personal relationship to the Chavez legacy.
Carlos Aguilar: Please tell us how you got involved with the project, and how you manged to make a film with such incredible freedom given the stature of this historical figure?
Richard Ray Perez: Several years ago, I had a mentor who really wanted to make a documentary film about Cesar Chavez, for years. He heard the documentary rights might be available. He knew my background, that my father had been a farmworker so he thought I’d make a good addition to the team . . So we met with the Cesar Chavez Foundation, we had a really good meeting with them, and so my mentor started negotiating the contract. He wanted exclusive documentary rights. But ultimately the Chavez Foundation told him that they couldn’t give him exclusive rights because somebody close to the family had a non-exclusive deal to make a documentary. So my mentor stopped pursuing the project.
About two weeks later I got a phone call from the other filmmaker, she said “Hi, I’m Lorena Parlee, I know you were trying to make a film about Cesar Chavez. Well, I’m the filmmaker whose already been working on the project. She said “I’ve been working on a Chavez film for about 10 years, and I’ve amassed 85 hours of Chavez-related footage, about 20 hours have never been seen by the public, I’ve been holding it off for my film. I used to be Cesar’s press secretary. During his fast I had volunteered crews and I had access, I shot all this stuff around his 1988 fast. Then when Cesar died the family let me shoot video of the private rosary service, Cesar’s brother building Cesar’s coffin, the granddaughters knitting the lining in the coffin, etc. I have all this footage and nobody has ever seen it, it is incredibly intimate access. Then there is all this the footage I’ve acquire over the years. But because I’ve never had exclusive rights I’ve been having trouble raising the money”
She wanted my advice, she asked, “Do you think your mentor would be willing to team-up with me and be the producer, and I will direct. We’ll go back to the Chavez foundation and try to get the exclusive rights” And I said, “It sounds like a good idea, but I know my mentor is only interested in directing this film and I don’t think he’d be interested in co-directing with you or producing the project.” I advised her, “If you want to make the film you really want to make, I suggest you pursue this on your own.”
She was totally appreciative; we went on to talk about the farmworkers. Then she asked “How about you? Would you be willing to come on board and help me out as a producer” I said, “I totally would, but I’ve just started a freelance gig. I’m available in 6 months” She replied “I need someone to help me make this film now because I’m being treated for breast cancer, and I could only work on this film two weeks out of the month” I said to myself, if this woman is who she says she is and has what she says, then she has some good material. I said “Ok in 6 months if you haven’t found anybody, call me and I’ll totally work on this project for free, or deferred payment.” 6 months comes around, I don’t hear from her so I thought, “She found somebody else, anybody in their right mind is going to jump on this.” 9 months later I get a phone call from this elderly guy, he says “Hi, I’m Lorena Parlee’s step-father. Lorena died last month of breast cancer, and she left your name and her notes for us to contact you immediately to see if you’d finish her film”
She had told her parents about this conversation where I told her not to work with my mentor, and I think she appreciated that advice. She got sicker and sicker, until unfortunately she past away. It took a long courtship between the parents and me because even though they wanted me to finish her film, they still wanted to gain trust from me. At one point they said, “Come and pick up the tapes, they are in our garage” I said “Wait, we have to have this legally on paper” So I had a lawyer dropped a contract, they looked at it, and legal language is strong, so they flipped out. There was a whole other set of negotiations. In the end, I got a contract from them that said I could use this footage to finish a film as long as she got co-producers' credit and a co-directors' credit. Then after I was done with the footage I had to turn it over to an archive in her name at UCLA.
I went to the Chavez’ people after I had nailed this on paper. I said, "I want to finish Lorena Parlee's film" the first thing they said was "Where is the footage?" They knew she had the footage and they wanted it. I said "I have legal control of the footage for the next 5 years, I want to finish the film, would you give me an exclusive deal?" I had a good lawyer, what he did was, rather than negotiate a whole new contract, he just negotiated transferring the contract they had with Lorena Parlee to me. It gave her editorial control, but he changed it so that I had the exclusive documentary rights. It was something they had already agreed to in the past, and all the terms were pretty Ok except the exclusivity. So he said, "Let me just change that and get them to sign it" and sure enough they did. That’s how I got editorial control.
Lorena had left a 2-hour string out, which was not a film I could make. I saw it and it was just a linear traditional history from the beginning of his life to the end, which had been done before in 1997 with a PBS documentary called The Fight in the Fields. But when I had all the tapes - she had all these VHS tapes - they were labeled Day 23, Day 24, Day 25. I was like “What is this?” so I popped them in and Day 23 is that press conference with Martin Sheen, that’s intense. Day 24, is more drama, more intense. Then everyday gets more intense. First I was like, “Is this what I think it is? Never-before-seen footage” The second thing I thought was “That’s the natural spine of the film” That escalating conflict, and that suspense, “Will he break the fast? When is he going to break it? Will he die before? Will he harm himself?” It was just almost immediate, just looking at those things sequentially I was like “That’s it”. Between the days I could separate them and tell the back story because most people don’t know concretely what he did.
After I got the footage I just started from the ground up. I went back to Lorena’s parents and said, “I see a different film, I see one about his spiritual commitment as embodied by this fast. That’s the film I’d like to make” Her step-father is a retired minister, he totally got it and they were Ok with it, and I basically made my own film with the material.
Cesar's Last Fast opens in L.A. on April 25th and it's currently playing in New York...
- 4/23/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
This Friday April 25th The Filadelfia celebrates its third annual edition with an impressive line up of the best of Latino film from Mexico to Chile to Colombia, The Us and even a film made with the youth of Philly. Opening night film will be the super 1943 classic ‘Maria Candelaria’ starring Dolores Del Rio. For those near the city of brotherly amor we’ve done ya homework and listed their films below!
Opening Night: Maria Candelaria (Mexico)
Starring Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendáriz, Maria Candelaria was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival, and the first Latin American film awarded the Gran Prix. Gabriel Figueroa, the film’s cinematographer, was nominated for an Academy Award for The Night of the Iguana, and is often referred to as “the Fourth Muralist” of Mexico.
A young journalist presses an old artist (Alberto Galán ) to show a portrait of a naked indigenous woman that he has in his study. The body of the movie is a flashback to Xochimilco, Mexico, in 1909. The film is set right before the Mexican Revolution, and Xochimilco is an area with beautiful landscapes inhabited mostly by indigenous people.
The woman in the painting is María Candelaria (Dolores del Rio), a young Indian woman who is constantly rejected by her own people for being the daughter of a prostitute. She and her lover, Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendariz), face constant struggles throughout the film. They are honest and hardworking, yet nothing ever goes right for them. Don Damian (Miguel Inclán), a jealous Mestizo store owner who wants María for himself, prevents them from getting married. He kills a piglet that María and Lorenzo plan to sell for profit and he refuses to buy vegetables from them. When María falls ill with malaria, Don Damian refuses to give the couple the quinine medicine necessary to fight the disease. Lorenzo breaks into his shop to steal the medicine, and he also takes a wedding dress for María. Lorenzo goes to prison for stealing, and María agrees to model for the painter to pay for his release. The artist begins painting a portrait of María, but when he asks her to pose nude she refuses.
The artist finishes the painting with the nude body of another woman. When the people of Xochimilco see the painting, they assume it is María Candelaria and stone her to death.Finally, Lorenzo escapes from prison )to carry María's lifeless body through Xochimilco's canal of the dead.
Bad Hair/Pelo Malo (Venezuela)
The third film from the filmmaker and plastic artist Mariana Rondón, Pelo Malo stars Junior, a 9 year-old with "bad hair". He wants to have it straightened for his yearbook picture, like a fashionable pop singer. This puts him at odds with his mother Marta. The more Junior tries to look sharp and make his mother love him, the more she rejects him, until he is cornered, face to face with a painful decision.
To Kill A Man/Matar A Un Hombre (Chile)
Read the Review
Read the Interview with Dir. Alejandro Fernandez Almendras
A thriller about a hardworking family man Jorge who is just barely making ends meet. When he gets mugged by Kalule, a neighborhood delinquent, Jorge's son decides to confront Kalule, only to get himself shot in the process. Sentenced to a scant 2 years in prison for the offense, Kalule, released and now intent on revenge, goes on the warpath, terrorizing Jorge's family. With his wife, son and daughter at the mercy of a thug, Jorge has no choice but to take justice into his own hands, and live with the emotional and psychological consequences.
Lines of class and masculinity ignite friction in this rugged thriller, adeptly shot with a discerning eye. Director Alejandro Fernández Almendras elevates raw grit to a new level with a tone that is both elemental and prophetic. Rife with unnerving tension, To Kill a Man is ultimately a surprising exploration of the heavy burden of what it takes to do what the title suggests.
Anina (Colombia)
Read the Review
Anina Yatay Salas is a ten-year-old girl. All her names form palindromes, making her the butt of her classmates’ jokes, and especially of Yisel’s, who Anina sees as an “elephant.” One day, fed up with all the taunting, Anina starts a fight with Yisel during recess. The incident ends with the principal penalizing the girls and calling their parents.Anina receives her punishment inside a sealed black envelope, which she is told not to open until she meets with the principal again a week later.She is also forbidden to tell anyone about the envelope. Her classmates pressure her to find out what the punishment will be, while they imagine cruel physical torture.
Anina, in her anxiousness to find out what horrible punishment awaits her in the mysterious black envelope, will get mixed up in a series of troubles, involving secret loves, confessed hatreds, close friendships, dreadful enemies, some loving teachers, and also some evil teachers.Without her realizing it, Anina’s efforts to understand the content of the envelope turn into an attempt to understand the world and her place in it.
The Devil’S Music (USA)
When the new sound of jazz first spread across America in the early twentieth-century, it left delight – and controversy – in its wake.As jazz's popularity grew, so did campaigns to censor "the devil's music." This documentary classic has been hailed by the New York Times as a documentary that "addressing the complex interaction of race and class… engages viewers in a conversation as vigorous as the art it chronicles,” featuring timeless performances by artists such as Louis Armstrong and vocalist Rachelle Ferrelle, plus interviews with giants of social and musical criticism such as Albert Murray, Marian MacPartland, Studs Terkel, and Michael Eric Dyson. The Devil's Music is Written, Produced and Directed by Maria Agui Carter and Calvin A. Lindsay Jr., and Narrated by Dion Graham.
I, Undocumented/Yo, Indocumentada (Venezuela)
Yo Indocumentada (I, Undocumented) , exposes the struggles of transgender people in Venezuela. The film, Andrea Baranenko’s first feature-length production, tells the story of three Venezuelan women fighting for their right to have an identity.
Tamara Adrián, 58, is a lawyer; Desirée Pérez, 46, is a hairdresser; and Victoria González, 27, has been a visual arts student since 2009. These women share more than their nationality: they all carry identifications with masculine names that do not correspond to their actual identities. They are transgender women, who long ago assumed their gender and now defend it in a homophobic and transphobic society.
The House That Jack Built (USA )
Jack Maldonado is an ambitious Latino man who fueled by misguided nostalgia, buys a small apartment building in the Bronx and moves his family into the apartments to live rent-free. His parents, Carlos and Martha, sister Nadia, brother Richie and his wife Rosa, Grandmother/Abuela and cousins Hector and Manny, all under one roof. Tension builds quickly as Jack imposes his views on everyone around him, including his fiancée, Lily. All the while, he hides the fact that his corner store is a front for selling marijuana but soon has to deal with new unwanted competitive forces. It's only a matter of time before Jack's family and 'business' lives collide in tragic fashion.
Aqui Y Alla Crossing Borders (USA)
The “Aquí y Allá’ transnational public art project explored the impact of immigration in the lives of Mexican immigrant youth in Philadelphia in connection with youth in Chihuahua, Mexico. The documentary highlights the testimonials of the youth on both sides of the border working towards the creation of a collaborative mural in South Philadelphia.
Cesar’S Last Fast (USA)
Read the Review
In 1988, Cesar Chavez embarked on what would be his last act of protest in his remarkable life. Driven in part to pay penance for feeling he had not done enough, Chavez began his “Fast for Life,” a 36-day water-only hunger strike, to draw attention to the horrific effects of unfettered pesticide use on farm workers, their families, and their communities.
Using never-before-seen footage of Chavez during his fast and testimony from those closest to him, directors Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee weave together the larger story of Chavez’s life, vision, and legacy. A deeply religious man, Chavez’s moral clarity in organizing and standing with farm workers at risk of his own life humbled his family, friends, and the world. Cesar’s Last Fast is a moving and definitive portrait of the leader of a people who became an American icon of struggle and freedom.
La Camioneta (Guantemala)
Every day dozens of decommissioned school buses leave the United States on a southward migration that carries them to Guatemala, where they are repaired, repainted, and resurrected as the brightly-colored camionetas that bring the vast majority of Guatemalans to work each day. La Camioneta follows one such bus on its transformative journey: a journey between North and South, between life and death, and through an unfolding collection of moments, people, and places that serve to quietly remind us of the interconnected worlds in which we live.
Forbidden Lovers Meant To Be (USA)
Working with talented high school students from North Philadelphia at Taller Puertorriqueño’s Youth Artist Program, filmmakers Joanna Siegel, Melissa Beatriz Skolnick, and Kate Zambon sought to capture the personal and artistic journeys of the youth through film. While facilitating collaborative film workshops with the students, themes of race/ethnicity, cultures, language, and identity emerged. Throughout this process of engaging in story development and visual representation, the students created a video of their own, while the filmmakers documented the process using metafilm techniques. The students' short film, Forbidden Lovers Meant to Be, highlights the talent and creativity of these youth. Forbidden Lovers Meant to Be was created by the spring 2012 Youth Artist Program participants: Amy Lee Flores, Ricardo Lopez, Michael Mendez, Zayris Rivera, Tashyra Suarez, Nestor Tamayo, Yoeni Torres, Karina Ureña Vargas, and Kara Williams. (Amy Lee Flores, Ricardo Lopez, Michael Mendez)
Tire Die (Argentina)
The first film of the first Latin American documentary film school (The Escuela Documental de Santa Fe), this documentary focuses on the children in the neighborhood known as Tire Dié in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina, who wait daily for the passing train to ask for money from the passengers, shouting “Tire dié!” (Toss me a dime!).
Dubbed as the father of the New Latin American Cinema, Fernando Birriwas one of the first filmmakers to document poverty and underdevelopment. Tire Dié was part of the exhibition, Latin American Visions, produced by International House, 1989-1991.
The Illiterates/Las Analfabetas (Chile)
Ximena, played by the incomparable Paulina García (Gloria) is an illiterate woman in her fifties, who has learned to live on her own to keep her illiteracy a secret. Jackeline, is a young unemployed elementary school teacher, who tries to convince Ximena to take reading classes. Persuading her proves to be an almost impossible task, till one day, Jackeline finds something Ximena has been keeping as her only treasure since she was a child: a letter Ximena’s father left when he abandoned her many years before. Thus, the two women embark on a learning journey where they discover that there are many ways of being illiterate, and that not knowing how to read is just one of them.
For the schedule please visit: http://flaff.org/
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
Opening Night: Maria Candelaria (Mexico)
Starring Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendáriz, Maria Candelaria was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival, and the first Latin American film awarded the Gran Prix. Gabriel Figueroa, the film’s cinematographer, was nominated for an Academy Award for The Night of the Iguana, and is often referred to as “the Fourth Muralist” of Mexico.
A young journalist presses an old artist (Alberto Galán ) to show a portrait of a naked indigenous woman that he has in his study. The body of the movie is a flashback to Xochimilco, Mexico, in 1909. The film is set right before the Mexican Revolution, and Xochimilco is an area with beautiful landscapes inhabited mostly by indigenous people.
The woman in the painting is María Candelaria (Dolores del Rio), a young Indian woman who is constantly rejected by her own people for being the daughter of a prostitute. She and her lover, Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendariz), face constant struggles throughout the film. They are honest and hardworking, yet nothing ever goes right for them. Don Damian (Miguel Inclán), a jealous Mestizo store owner who wants María for himself, prevents them from getting married. He kills a piglet that María and Lorenzo plan to sell for profit and he refuses to buy vegetables from them. When María falls ill with malaria, Don Damian refuses to give the couple the quinine medicine necessary to fight the disease. Lorenzo breaks into his shop to steal the medicine, and he also takes a wedding dress for María. Lorenzo goes to prison for stealing, and María agrees to model for the painter to pay for his release. The artist begins painting a portrait of María, but when he asks her to pose nude she refuses.
The artist finishes the painting with the nude body of another woman. When the people of Xochimilco see the painting, they assume it is María Candelaria and stone her to death.Finally, Lorenzo escapes from prison )to carry María's lifeless body through Xochimilco's canal of the dead.
Bad Hair/Pelo Malo (Venezuela)
The third film from the filmmaker and plastic artist Mariana Rondón, Pelo Malo stars Junior, a 9 year-old with "bad hair". He wants to have it straightened for his yearbook picture, like a fashionable pop singer. This puts him at odds with his mother Marta. The more Junior tries to look sharp and make his mother love him, the more she rejects him, until he is cornered, face to face with a painful decision.
To Kill A Man/Matar A Un Hombre (Chile)
Read the Review
Read the Interview with Dir. Alejandro Fernandez Almendras
A thriller about a hardworking family man Jorge who is just barely making ends meet. When he gets mugged by Kalule, a neighborhood delinquent, Jorge's son decides to confront Kalule, only to get himself shot in the process. Sentenced to a scant 2 years in prison for the offense, Kalule, released and now intent on revenge, goes on the warpath, terrorizing Jorge's family. With his wife, son and daughter at the mercy of a thug, Jorge has no choice but to take justice into his own hands, and live with the emotional and psychological consequences.
Lines of class and masculinity ignite friction in this rugged thriller, adeptly shot with a discerning eye. Director Alejandro Fernández Almendras elevates raw grit to a new level with a tone that is both elemental and prophetic. Rife with unnerving tension, To Kill a Man is ultimately a surprising exploration of the heavy burden of what it takes to do what the title suggests.
Anina (Colombia)
Read the Review
Anina Yatay Salas is a ten-year-old girl. All her names form palindromes, making her the butt of her classmates’ jokes, and especially of Yisel’s, who Anina sees as an “elephant.” One day, fed up with all the taunting, Anina starts a fight with Yisel during recess. The incident ends with the principal penalizing the girls and calling their parents.Anina receives her punishment inside a sealed black envelope, which she is told not to open until she meets with the principal again a week later.She is also forbidden to tell anyone about the envelope. Her classmates pressure her to find out what the punishment will be, while they imagine cruel physical torture.
Anina, in her anxiousness to find out what horrible punishment awaits her in the mysterious black envelope, will get mixed up in a series of troubles, involving secret loves, confessed hatreds, close friendships, dreadful enemies, some loving teachers, and also some evil teachers.Without her realizing it, Anina’s efforts to understand the content of the envelope turn into an attempt to understand the world and her place in it.
The Devil’S Music (USA)
When the new sound of jazz first spread across America in the early twentieth-century, it left delight – and controversy – in its wake.As jazz's popularity grew, so did campaigns to censor "the devil's music." This documentary classic has been hailed by the New York Times as a documentary that "addressing the complex interaction of race and class… engages viewers in a conversation as vigorous as the art it chronicles,” featuring timeless performances by artists such as Louis Armstrong and vocalist Rachelle Ferrelle, plus interviews with giants of social and musical criticism such as Albert Murray, Marian MacPartland, Studs Terkel, and Michael Eric Dyson. The Devil's Music is Written, Produced and Directed by Maria Agui Carter and Calvin A. Lindsay Jr., and Narrated by Dion Graham.
I, Undocumented/Yo, Indocumentada (Venezuela)
Yo Indocumentada (I, Undocumented) , exposes the struggles of transgender people in Venezuela. The film, Andrea Baranenko’s first feature-length production, tells the story of three Venezuelan women fighting for their right to have an identity.
Tamara Adrián, 58, is a lawyer; Desirée Pérez, 46, is a hairdresser; and Victoria González, 27, has been a visual arts student since 2009. These women share more than their nationality: they all carry identifications with masculine names that do not correspond to their actual identities. They are transgender women, who long ago assumed their gender and now defend it in a homophobic and transphobic society.
The House That Jack Built (USA )
Jack Maldonado is an ambitious Latino man who fueled by misguided nostalgia, buys a small apartment building in the Bronx and moves his family into the apartments to live rent-free. His parents, Carlos and Martha, sister Nadia, brother Richie and his wife Rosa, Grandmother/Abuela and cousins Hector and Manny, all under one roof. Tension builds quickly as Jack imposes his views on everyone around him, including his fiancée, Lily. All the while, he hides the fact that his corner store is a front for selling marijuana but soon has to deal with new unwanted competitive forces. It's only a matter of time before Jack's family and 'business' lives collide in tragic fashion.
Aqui Y Alla Crossing Borders (USA)
The “Aquí y Allá’ transnational public art project explored the impact of immigration in the lives of Mexican immigrant youth in Philadelphia in connection with youth in Chihuahua, Mexico. The documentary highlights the testimonials of the youth on both sides of the border working towards the creation of a collaborative mural in South Philadelphia.
Cesar’S Last Fast (USA)
Read the Review
In 1988, Cesar Chavez embarked on what would be his last act of protest in his remarkable life. Driven in part to pay penance for feeling he had not done enough, Chavez began his “Fast for Life,” a 36-day water-only hunger strike, to draw attention to the horrific effects of unfettered pesticide use on farm workers, their families, and their communities.
Using never-before-seen footage of Chavez during his fast and testimony from those closest to him, directors Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee weave together the larger story of Chavez’s life, vision, and legacy. A deeply religious man, Chavez’s moral clarity in organizing and standing with farm workers at risk of his own life humbled his family, friends, and the world. Cesar’s Last Fast is a moving and definitive portrait of the leader of a people who became an American icon of struggle and freedom.
La Camioneta (Guantemala)
Every day dozens of decommissioned school buses leave the United States on a southward migration that carries them to Guatemala, where they are repaired, repainted, and resurrected as the brightly-colored camionetas that bring the vast majority of Guatemalans to work each day. La Camioneta follows one such bus on its transformative journey: a journey between North and South, between life and death, and through an unfolding collection of moments, people, and places that serve to quietly remind us of the interconnected worlds in which we live.
Forbidden Lovers Meant To Be (USA)
Working with talented high school students from North Philadelphia at Taller Puertorriqueño’s Youth Artist Program, filmmakers Joanna Siegel, Melissa Beatriz Skolnick, and Kate Zambon sought to capture the personal and artistic journeys of the youth through film. While facilitating collaborative film workshops with the students, themes of race/ethnicity, cultures, language, and identity emerged. Throughout this process of engaging in story development and visual representation, the students created a video of their own, while the filmmakers documented the process using metafilm techniques. The students' short film, Forbidden Lovers Meant to Be, highlights the talent and creativity of these youth. Forbidden Lovers Meant to Be was created by the spring 2012 Youth Artist Program participants: Amy Lee Flores, Ricardo Lopez, Michael Mendez, Zayris Rivera, Tashyra Suarez, Nestor Tamayo, Yoeni Torres, Karina Ureña Vargas, and Kara Williams. (Amy Lee Flores, Ricardo Lopez, Michael Mendez)
Tire Die (Argentina)
The first film of the first Latin American documentary film school (The Escuela Documental de Santa Fe), this documentary focuses on the children in the neighborhood known as Tire Dié in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina, who wait daily for the passing train to ask for money from the passengers, shouting “Tire dié!” (Toss me a dime!).
Dubbed as the father of the New Latin American Cinema, Fernando Birriwas one of the first filmmakers to document poverty and underdevelopment. Tire Dié was part of the exhibition, Latin American Visions, produced by International House, 1989-1991.
The Illiterates/Las Analfabetas (Chile)
Ximena, played by the incomparable Paulina García (Gloria) is an illiterate woman in her fifties, who has learned to live on her own to keep her illiteracy a secret. Jackeline, is a young unemployed elementary school teacher, who tries to convince Ximena to take reading classes. Persuading her proves to be an almost impossible task, till one day, Jackeline finds something Ximena has been keeping as her only treasure since she was a child: a letter Ximena’s father left when he abandoned her many years before. Thus, the two women embark on a learning journey where they discover that there are many ways of being illiterate, and that not knowing how to read is just one of them.
For the schedule please visit: http://flaff.org/
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
- 4/23/2014
- by Juan Caceres
- Sydney's Buzz
Equally lionizing but richer in detail than the recent Michael Peña-led biopic César Chávez, this occasionally stirring doc portrait of the late Latino labor organizer and civil rights icon frames his legacy around a single act of protest.
In 1988, the 61-year-old Chávez undertook a water-only fast that lasted 36 days, serving as both a personal boycott of California grape growers and penance for not doing more to protect farm workers from pesticides. Ostensibly directed by Richard Ray Perez, the film has a credited co-director in former Chávez press secretary Lorena Parlee—who died in 2006, but clearly was the caretaker of such exclusive footage as loved ones uneasily standing vigil at the weakened Chávez's bedside. ...
In 1988, the 61-year-old Chávez undertook a water-only fast that lasted 36 days, serving as both a personal boycott of California grape growers and penance for not doing more to protect farm workers from pesticides. Ostensibly directed by Richard Ray Perez, the film has a credited co-director in former Chávez press secretary Lorena Parlee—who died in 2006, but clearly was the caretaker of such exclusive footage as loved ones uneasily standing vigil at the weakened Chávez's bedside. ...
- 4/16/2014
- Village Voice
2014 is now in full swing, the Sundance Film Festival has closed its doors, and film festivals like South by Southwest and Tribeca are generating more buzz for the year’s noteworthy indie narratives and documentaries. In recent years, documentaries such as Restrepo, Gasland, and Searching For Sugarman went on to become heavyweights. This year’s contenders include topics taken from popular memoirs and biographies, along with subject matter pertaining to youths and youth culture. Below, you’ll find a comprehensive list of Sundance and non-Sundance documentaries to keep an eye out for this year, equipped with official synopsis and trailer when available. 2014 is shaping out to a versatile year in the documentary world, ranging from heavy-handed family dramas such as Tracy Droz Tragos’ and Andrew Droz Palermo’s Rich Hill, to baseball biographies such as Chapman and Maclain Way’s The Battered Bastards of Baseball and Jeff Radice’s No No A Dockumentary,...
- 3/9/2014
- by Christopher Clemente
- SoundOnSight
Recently during the latest Sundance Film Festival, Ambulante, the non-profit aimed to promote documentary as a tool for social change and cultural transformation, celebrated its upcoming U.S. launch with an Ambulante California reception. Founded by Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Pablo Cruz as part of Canana Films in 2005, this traveling documentary film organization presented two films during the festival Cesar's Last Fast by Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee (Read Carlos Aguilar' Review) and The Measure of All Things by Sam Green and yMusic.
Both Luna and Bernal have had several films played at Sundance in diverse roles as actors, producers, and even directors. Their titles include Who Is Dayani Cristal?, Abel, Sin Nombre, and the breakthrough hit directed by Alfonso Cuaron Y Tu Mama Tambien. "Ambulante was born out of a need to create spaces for cinema in Mexico like those we encountered while traveling to other countries presenting our films" said Diego Lune about the Ambulante initiative. "Throughout the years Sundance has undoubtedly been one of the most significant platforms for me as a filmmaker, and a vital meeting point to connect with the public and artist community. It is a source of inspiration for what we have conceived up until now with Ambulante, and it is very exciting to finally realize our dream of introducing Ambulante California at Park City" concluded the multifaceted Mexican filmmaker.
Executive Director, Elena Fortes said, “We are thrilled to be here representing Ambulante for the first time at the festival. Sundance Institute is the leading champion of supporting urgent non-fiction stories and developing the independent and courageous filmmakers of our time. Through our traveling platform, Ambulante strengthens that shared mission of broadening documentary culture by bringing these films directly to the general public to develop a diverse audience for the non-fiction narrative."
Newly appointed Director of Ambulante California, Christine Davila confirmed the documentary Cesar's Last Fast will be the very first film to be presented at the Ambulante California Film Festival at a special free community screening in Los Angeles in May. "It really could not be more fitting and representative of the programming vision and local context we have in mind for Ambulante California than to inaugurate our California launch with this insightful look at one of our iconic bi-cultural American political leaders.Cesar's Last Fast epitomizes the type of film we deem is crucial to support by bringing it directly to the communities to carve out a space for engagement and the dialogue it sparks. We are looking forward to co-representing the film and creating and inspiring social cinema intervention with the public at large"
Ambulante California is made possible in part through the Ford Foundation. The organization is currently seeking the rest of their funding through their fiscal sponsorship with the International Documentary Association (Ida). Fortes adds, "We are extremely grateful to the Ford Foundation and the Ida for their support in this critical development phase." We also want to thank the Consulate of Mexico in Utah for their support.
The Ambulante California Film Festival tour will run from September 21 to October 4 across the Greater Los Angeles area and each day it will offer a free screening at a different venue, from universities, high schools, and museums, to community centers, parks, and makeshift outdoor spaces. Expanding on Ambulante's global mission, Ambulante California is the first official attempt to establish a long-term presence of Ambulante outside of Latin America. A crowd-funding campaign will be launched in the spring, along with an open submissions call for California-produced documentary short films, a selection of which will be presented as a highlight of the festival. The overall strategy is to make the development of the festival highly interactive by inviting the public to take part in the shaping of the festival. One of the ways to get involved is to vote on which places the Ambulante tour should consider stopping at to put on a screening event.
Ambulante
Ambulante is a non-profit organization that focuses on supporting and promoting documentary film as a tool for social and cultural transformation. Founded in Mexico in 2005 by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Pablo Cruz, Ambulante brings documentary films and training programs to places where they are rarely available in order to create a participative, informed and critical public, cultivate new forms of expression, and encourage debate in Mexico and abroad.
Each year, Ambulante organizes an international film festival that tours Mexico for three months. Ambulante presents over 100 documentaries, invites more than 100 guests from Mexico and abroad, and holds screenings in over 150 venues. Ambulante’s objective is to promote documentary film within Mexico and reach a broader audience by screening films in a wide array of venues.
Ambulante is currently the largest documentary film festival in Mexico. It includes film screenings, workshops, talks, seminars, symposiums, networking panels, documentary theater, drive-in cinema, and a showcase of documentaries at the Ibero-American Music Festival Vive Latino held in Mexico City. Ambulante opens up different ways of experiencing and understanding documentary film. It is a non-competitive film festival, and over 60% of its program is free.
Additionally, Ambulante Beyond aims to train new filmmakers from Latin America who have limited access to the resources that would allow them to share their stories with a wider audience. Through modular workshops designed to meet the specific needs of its participants, Ambulante Beyond fosters independent production and alternative forms of aesthetic expression so that stories can be told from a unique cultural perspective without being constrained by conventional storytelling models.
To learn more about Ambulante and their different traveling programs visit Here...
Both Luna and Bernal have had several films played at Sundance in diverse roles as actors, producers, and even directors. Their titles include Who Is Dayani Cristal?, Abel, Sin Nombre, and the breakthrough hit directed by Alfonso Cuaron Y Tu Mama Tambien. "Ambulante was born out of a need to create spaces for cinema in Mexico like those we encountered while traveling to other countries presenting our films" said Diego Lune about the Ambulante initiative. "Throughout the years Sundance has undoubtedly been one of the most significant platforms for me as a filmmaker, and a vital meeting point to connect with the public and artist community. It is a source of inspiration for what we have conceived up until now with Ambulante, and it is very exciting to finally realize our dream of introducing Ambulante California at Park City" concluded the multifaceted Mexican filmmaker.
Executive Director, Elena Fortes said, “We are thrilled to be here representing Ambulante for the first time at the festival. Sundance Institute is the leading champion of supporting urgent non-fiction stories and developing the independent and courageous filmmakers of our time. Through our traveling platform, Ambulante strengthens that shared mission of broadening documentary culture by bringing these films directly to the general public to develop a diverse audience for the non-fiction narrative."
Newly appointed Director of Ambulante California, Christine Davila confirmed the documentary Cesar's Last Fast will be the very first film to be presented at the Ambulante California Film Festival at a special free community screening in Los Angeles in May. "It really could not be more fitting and representative of the programming vision and local context we have in mind for Ambulante California than to inaugurate our California launch with this insightful look at one of our iconic bi-cultural American political leaders.Cesar's Last Fast epitomizes the type of film we deem is crucial to support by bringing it directly to the communities to carve out a space for engagement and the dialogue it sparks. We are looking forward to co-representing the film and creating and inspiring social cinema intervention with the public at large"
Ambulante California is made possible in part through the Ford Foundation. The organization is currently seeking the rest of their funding through their fiscal sponsorship with the International Documentary Association (Ida). Fortes adds, "We are extremely grateful to the Ford Foundation and the Ida for their support in this critical development phase." We also want to thank the Consulate of Mexico in Utah for their support.
The Ambulante California Film Festival tour will run from September 21 to October 4 across the Greater Los Angeles area and each day it will offer a free screening at a different venue, from universities, high schools, and museums, to community centers, parks, and makeshift outdoor spaces. Expanding on Ambulante's global mission, Ambulante California is the first official attempt to establish a long-term presence of Ambulante outside of Latin America. A crowd-funding campaign will be launched in the spring, along with an open submissions call for California-produced documentary short films, a selection of which will be presented as a highlight of the festival. The overall strategy is to make the development of the festival highly interactive by inviting the public to take part in the shaping of the festival. One of the ways to get involved is to vote on which places the Ambulante tour should consider stopping at to put on a screening event.
Ambulante
Ambulante is a non-profit organization that focuses on supporting and promoting documentary film as a tool for social and cultural transformation. Founded in Mexico in 2005 by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Pablo Cruz, Ambulante brings documentary films and training programs to places where they are rarely available in order to create a participative, informed and critical public, cultivate new forms of expression, and encourage debate in Mexico and abroad.
Each year, Ambulante organizes an international film festival that tours Mexico for three months. Ambulante presents over 100 documentaries, invites more than 100 guests from Mexico and abroad, and holds screenings in over 150 venues. Ambulante’s objective is to promote documentary film within Mexico and reach a broader audience by screening films in a wide array of venues.
Ambulante is currently the largest documentary film festival in Mexico. It includes film screenings, workshops, talks, seminars, symposiums, networking panels, documentary theater, drive-in cinema, and a showcase of documentaries at the Ibero-American Music Festival Vive Latino held in Mexico City. Ambulante opens up different ways of experiencing and understanding documentary film. It is a non-competitive film festival, and over 60% of its program is free.
Additionally, Ambulante Beyond aims to train new filmmakers from Latin America who have limited access to the resources that would allow them to share their stories with a wider audience. Through modular workshops designed to meet the specific needs of its participants, Ambulante Beyond fosters independent production and alternative forms of aesthetic expression so that stories can be told from a unique cultural perspective without being constrained by conventional storytelling models.
To learn more about Ambulante and their different traveling programs visit Here...
- 2/3/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
God’s Pocket
Many critically acclaimed films and surprise hits over the years have received their start at the Sundance Film Festival, elevating the prominence of the 10-day event. This has led to the acquisition of films at the festival a prestige on its own, as many studios and filmmakers use the positive word of mouth garnered to get the films to distributors and in theatres. Here are the features that were bought at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
Whiplash: Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Miles Teller and Jk Simmons.
Dinosaur 13: A documentary by Todd Miller outlining the discovery of a T-Rex skeleton in South Dakota, and the ensuing fight over its ownership.
I Origins: Written and directed by Mike Cahill, starring Brit Marling, Michael Pitt, Steven Yuen, and Archie Panjabi.
Laggies: Directed by Lynn Shelton and written by Andrea Siegel. The film stars Kiera Knightley,...
Many critically acclaimed films and surprise hits over the years have received their start at the Sundance Film Festival, elevating the prominence of the 10-day event. This has led to the acquisition of films at the festival a prestige on its own, as many studios and filmmakers use the positive word of mouth garnered to get the films to distributors and in theatres. Here are the features that were bought at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
Whiplash: Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Miles Teller and Jk Simmons.
Dinosaur 13: A documentary by Todd Miller outlining the discovery of a T-Rex skeleton in South Dakota, and the ensuing fight over its ownership.
I Origins: Written and directed by Mike Cahill, starring Brit Marling, Michael Pitt, Steven Yuen, and Archie Panjabi.
Laggies: Directed by Lynn Shelton and written by Andrea Siegel. The film stars Kiera Knightley,...
- 1/26/2014
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
Leader of the most vulnerable sector of American workers, Cesar Chavez was a relentless activist whose pioneering advocacy earned him a place among the great figures in world history. His battle against the tyrannical wealthy growers to better the conditions of thousands of Mexican Americans farm workers is chronicled in Richard Ray Perez's competent documentary "Cesar’s Last Fast." Intercutting images from the 36 days of his final and most debilitating water-only fast with the origin story of the National Farm Workers Association (Nfwa), Perez attempts to demystify Chavez's motivation and unshakable stance. Constructing a picture of the iconic man by relying on the archival footage and first-hand accounts of Chavez's struggle from those closer to him, proves to be an effective strategy. Starting in the early sixties, Chavez felt compelled to do something about the savage conditions imposed on the farm workers and the emergence of numerous cancer cases among their children due to.
- 1/23/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Indiewire
James Chressanthis has worked on numerous projects over the last several years as a cinematographer, including "The Watsons Go To Birmingham," "The Makeover," "The Music Man," "Life With Judy Garland," "Ghost Whisperer," and "Hide." His latest, "Cesar's Last Fast," directed by Richard Ray Perez & Lorena Parlee, is a documentary chronicling Cesar Chavez's 36-day water-only fast in 1988. It is screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Which cameras and lens did you use? Betacam, Panavision Genesis, Canon C300 & 5D, Arri Alexa and Canon C300 with Super 8mm, Arri 416 and Panavision Genesis, Arri Super16 SR3, 35mm Panavision. What was the most difficult shot in your movie and how did you pull it off? It was being unobtrusive and capturing the private moments, and the tremendous sacrifice of Cesar Chavez. His breaking of his fast with Ethel Kennedy was the most difficult moment: feeling the tremendous outpouring of emotions while clearly rendering the.
- 1/21/2014
- by Taylor Lindsay
- Indiewire
Sony Pictures Classics has paid around $3m for North American, Australian, New Zealand and German rights to Bold Films’ jazz drummer drama. Separately, Pivot and Univision News have acquired Cesar’s Last Fast.
Miles Teller and Jk Simmons star in Damien Chazelle’s Us Dramatic Competition entry, which stirred Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions to acquire select territories in a separate deal on Friday (17).
Bold Films came on board to finance the film before casting got underway. Blumhouse Productions and Right Of Way Films produced with Bold.
Jason Blum of Blumhouse, Helen Estabrook of Right Of Way and Michel Litvak and David Lancaster of Bold served as producers, while executive producers are Jason Reitman of Right Of Way, Gary Michael Walters of Bold, and Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Brill of Blumhouse.
Chazelle adapted the feature from his award-winning Sundance 2013 short. Wme Global and Bold represented the filmmakers in the deal with Spc, which concluded...
Miles Teller and Jk Simmons star in Damien Chazelle’s Us Dramatic Competition entry, which stirred Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions to acquire select territories in a separate deal on Friday (17).
Bold Films came on board to finance the film before casting got underway. Blumhouse Productions and Right Of Way Films produced with Bold.
Jason Blum of Blumhouse, Helen Estabrook of Right Of Way and Michel Litvak and David Lancaster of Bold served as producers, while executive producers are Jason Reitman of Right Of Way, Gary Michael Walters of Bold, and Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Brill of Blumhouse.
Chazelle adapted the feature from his award-winning Sundance 2013 short. Wme Global and Bold represented the filmmakers in the deal with Spc, which concluded...
- 1/19/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Sony Pictures Classics has paid around $3m for North American, Australian, New Zealand and German rights to Bold Films’ jazz drummer drama. Separately, Pivot and Univision News have acquired Cesar’s Last Fast.
Miles Teller and Jk Simmons star in Damien Chazelle’s Us Dramatic Competition entry, which stirred Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions to acquire select territories in a separate deal on Friday (17).
Bold Films came on board to finance the film before casting got underway. Blumhouse Productions and Right Of Way Films produced with Bold.
Jason Blum of Blumhouse, Helen Estabrook of Right Of Way and Michel Litvak and David Lancaster of Bold served as producers, while executive producers are Jason Reitman of Right Of Way, Gary Michael Walters of Bold, and Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Brill of Blumhouse.
Chazelle adapted the feature from his award-winning Sundance 2013 short. Wme Global and Bold represented the filmmakers in the deal with Spc, which concluded...
Miles Teller and Jk Simmons star in Damien Chazelle’s Us Dramatic Competition entry, which stirred Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions to acquire select territories in a separate deal on Friday (17).
Bold Films came on board to finance the film before casting got underway. Blumhouse Productions and Right Of Way Films produced with Bold.
Jason Blum of Blumhouse, Helen Estabrook of Right Of Way and Michel Litvak and David Lancaster of Bold served as producers, while executive producers are Jason Reitman of Right Of Way, Gary Michael Walters of Bold, and Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Brill of Blumhouse.
Chazelle adapted the feature from his award-winning Sundance 2013 short. Wme Global and Bold represented the filmmakers in the deal with Spc, which concluded...
- 1/19/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Participant Media's cable network Pivot has joined with Univision News to buy the U.S. TV rights to "Cesar's Last Fast," a documentary from directors Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee set to makes its world premiere at Sundance tomorrow on January 19th. The buy marks the first of 10 planned docs to be acquired or co-produced by the two channels as part of a deal announced earlier. "Cesar's Last Fast" will premiere simultaneously in English on Pivot and in Spanish on the Univision Network. The film looks at the final act of protest by Cesar Chavez, a 36-day water-only fast to draw attention the horrific effects of pesticide use on farm workers, their families and communities. The doc, which also tells a larger story about Chavez's life and legacy, includes never-before-seen footage of the great activist during his fast and testimony from those closest to him. "We are extremely happy...
- 1/18/2014
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
Update: Participant Media has confirmed Deadline’s scoop on the Cesar Chavez pic. Release appears below the original story. Exclusive: In a mid-six figure deal, Participant Media’s TV network Pivot is teaming with Univision to acquire Cesar’s Last Fast, the documentary about Cesar Chavez that will make its Sundance premiere tomorrow in the U.S. Feature Documentary category. The deal is the first major one after Participant and Univision last year formed a venture to acquire smart properties to air on both networks. The film covers the 36-day fast undertaken by Cesar Chavez to bring attention around the world to the dangers of the liberal use of pesticides on farm workers, their families and communities. The 1988 fast, in which Chavez only consumed water, was captured on film by filmmakers James Chressanthis, Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee. It was one of the courageous acts that made Chavez an iconic advocate for farm workers.
- 1/18/2014
- by MIKE FLEMING JR
- Deadline TV
Update: Participant Media has confirmed Deadline’s scoop on the Cesar Chavez pic. Release appears below the original story. Exclusive: In a mid-six figure deal, Participant Media’s TV network Pivot is teaming with Univision to acquire Cesar’s Last Fast, the documentary about Cesar Chavez that will make its Sundance premiere tomorrow in the U.S. Feature Documentary category. The deal is the first major one after Participant and Univision last year formed a venture to acquire smart properties to air on both networks. The film covers the 36-day fast undertaken by Cesar Chavez to bring attention around the world to the dangers of the liberal use of pesticides on farm workers, their families and communities. The 1988 fast, in which Chavez only consumed water, was captured on film by filmmakers James Chressanthis, Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee. It was one of the courageous acts that made Chavez an iconic advocate for farm workers.
- 1/18/2014
- by MIKE FLEMING JR
- Deadline
It’s that time again. The biggest American film festival is upon us, and this year the Ioncinema crew will be descending on Park City with eight feet on the ground and eight eyes on Park City’s various and plentiful screens. Eric Lavallee, Nicholas Bell, Caitlin Coder and I will be covering just about every inch of this year’s festival here at Ioncinema.com, as well as on that ever increasingly vibrant instanews network – Twitter. Be sure to follow @ioncinema and, as stated above, my personal handle @Rectangular_Eye, as we’ll be tweeting throughout the festival with breaking news, reviews, and sightings, all the while trying to keep up with the massive amount of content sure to be coming from this year’s Sundance filmmakers themselves, most of which have their own Twitter accounts and are listed at length below (minus the world & short programs). Whether you...
- 1/16/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Part two in this year’s Sundance Twitterverse series, we are bringing you direct contact with most of next year’s Oscar short list. No one on this list is repped more than the No No: A Dockumentary (@dockumentary) crew, who are all sporting profile pics from the film on their feeds.
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory – @AliveInsideFilm
Editor Manuel Tsingaris – @MTsingaris
Composer Itall Shur – @ItaalShur
All the Beautiful Things – @ATBThingsMovie
Director John Harkrider – @pathetic100
Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart
Cinematographer Naiti Gámez – @naitigamez
The Case Against 8 – @TheCaseAgainst8
Co-Director Ben Cotner – @bcotner
Producer Rebekah Fergusson – @R_Films
Composer Blake Neely – @cowonthewall
Cesar’s Last Fast – @CesarsLastFast
Co-Director Richard Ray Perez – @BraveNewRick
Producer Molly O’Brien – @mobworks
Editor Lewis Erskine – @EditorSavant
Editor Carla Gutierrez – @CarlitaGu
Cinematographer James Chressanthis – @NoSubtitles
E-team - @ETeamFilm
Subject: Human Rights Watch – @hrw
Co-Director Katy Chevigny – @mightychevs
Co-Director...
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory – @AliveInsideFilm
Editor Manuel Tsingaris – @MTsingaris
Composer Itall Shur – @ItaalShur
All the Beautiful Things – @ATBThingsMovie
Director John Harkrider – @pathetic100
Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart
Cinematographer Naiti Gámez – @naitigamez
The Case Against 8 – @TheCaseAgainst8
Co-Director Ben Cotner – @bcotner
Producer Rebekah Fergusson – @R_Films
Composer Blake Neely – @cowonthewall
Cesar’s Last Fast – @CesarsLastFast
Co-Director Richard Ray Perez – @BraveNewRick
Producer Molly O’Brien – @mobworks
Editor Lewis Erskine – @EditorSavant
Editor Carla Gutierrez – @CarlitaGu
Cinematographer James Chressanthis – @NoSubtitles
E-team - @ETeamFilm
Subject: Human Rights Watch – @hrw
Co-Director Katy Chevigny – @mightychevs
Co-Director...
- 1/16/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Cesar's Last Fast, a documentary that showcases never-before-seen footage of activist Cesar Chavez's hunger strike, has been acquired by Univision and Pivot, sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter. Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, and Pivot, the TV network targeting Generation Y from Participant Media, jointly have been looking for properties to acquire. The film will premiere simultaneously on Pivot and Univision in English and Spanish, respectively. Video: 5 Breakout Stars at this Year's Sundance Film Festival The documentary is the first Sundance entry for the two directors -- former farm worker Richard Ray Perez and the late filmmaker and historian
read more...
read more...
- 1/13/2014
- by Rebecca Ford
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its 2014 Competition lineup, made up of several categories. The 30th edition of the event will take place between January 16th-26th in the new year.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
Camp X-Ray (Peter Sattler)
Cold in July (Jim Mickle)
Dear White People (Justin Simien)
Fishing Without Nets (Cutter Hodierne)
John's Pocket (John Slattery)
Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg)
Hellion (Kat Candler)
Infinitely Polar Bear (Maya Forbes)
Jamie Marks is Dead (Carter Smith)
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner)
Life After Beth (Jeff Baena)
Low Down (Joe Preiss)
The Skeleton Twins (Craig Johnson)
The Sleepwalker (Mona Fastvold)
Song One (Kate Barker-Froyland)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory (Michael Rossato-Bennett)
All the Beautiful Things (John Harkrider)
Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart (Jeremiah Zagar)
The Case Against 8 (Ben Cotner, Ryan White)
Cesar's Last Fast (Richard Ray Perez, Lorena Parlee...
U.S. Dramatic Competition
Camp X-Ray (Peter Sattler)
Cold in July (Jim Mickle)
Dear White People (Justin Simien)
Fishing Without Nets (Cutter Hodierne)
John's Pocket (John Slattery)
Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg)
Hellion (Kat Candler)
Infinitely Polar Bear (Maya Forbes)
Jamie Marks is Dead (Carter Smith)
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner)
Life After Beth (Jeff Baena)
Low Down (Joe Preiss)
The Skeleton Twins (Craig Johnson)
The Sleepwalker (Mona Fastvold)
Song One (Kate Barker-Froyland)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory (Michael Rossato-Bennett)
All the Beautiful Things (John Harkrider)
Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart (Jeremiah Zagar)
The Case Against 8 (Ben Cotner, Ryan White)
Cesar's Last Fast (Richard Ray Perez, Lorena Parlee...
- 12/6/2013
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner, and the Sundance Institute has released the full line-up for the competition films that will be premiering!
This year there were 12,218 total submissions, and 117 films were accepted from 37 countries around the world. It looks like there's a lot of good selection of films this year.
The Sundance Film Festival 2014 runs from January 16th to the 26th, and the GeekTyrant team will be there to cover as many movies as we possibly can.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.
“Camp X-Ray” — Directed and written by Peter Sattler. A young female guard at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch.
“Cold in July” — Directed by Jim Mickle, written by Nick Damici.
This year there were 12,218 total submissions, and 117 films were accepted from 37 countries around the world. It looks like there's a lot of good selection of films this year.
The Sundance Film Festival 2014 runs from January 16th to the 26th, and the GeekTyrant team will be there to cover as many movies as we possibly can.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.
“Camp X-Ray” — Directed and written by Peter Sattler. A young female guard at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch.
“Cold in July” — Directed by Jim Mickle, written by Nick Damici.
- 12/5/2013
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
Sundance Film Festival continues to be one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most important, events on the industry calendar, launching as it does some of the most prominent independent films at the start of each year.
This year will be no different, with Sundance announcing last night the initial line-up of films screening in competition, led by Song One, starring Anne Hathaway; Camp X-Ray, starring Kristen Stewart; Infinitely Polar Bear, with Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana; Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg himself; The Skeleton Twins, with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, and Ty Burrell; Life After Beth, with Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, and John C. Reilly; Listen Up Philip, with Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss; Whiplash, starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons; and many, many more.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films,...
This year will be no different, with Sundance announcing last night the initial line-up of films screening in competition, led by Song One, starring Anne Hathaway; Camp X-Ray, starring Kristen Stewart; Infinitely Polar Bear, with Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana; Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg himself; The Skeleton Twins, with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, and Ty Burrell; Life After Beth, with Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, and John C. Reilly; Listen Up Philip, with Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss; Whiplash, starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons; and many, many more.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films,...
- 12/5/2013
- by Kenji Lloyd
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
God’S Pocket
Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition section of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “That the Festival has evolved and grown as it has over the past 30 years is a credit to both our audiences and our artists, who continue to find ways to take risks and open our minds to the power of story. This year’s films and artists promise to do the same.”
For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at...
Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition section of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “That the Festival has evolved and grown as it has over the past 30 years is a credit to both our audiences and our artists, who continue to find ways to take risks and open our minds to the power of story. This year’s films and artists promise to do the same.”
For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at...
- 12/5/2013
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Of the sixteen titles that are listed here there are at least more than half that will be talked about throughout the calendar year up until award season in 2015. It speaks volumes about the quality offerings from American Documentarian filmmakers, but it also says a lot about Sundance programming team David Courier, Caroline Libresco et al. exquisite taste for the form. As is the norm for the Sundance doc-comp, there is plenty of socially conscious films on offer, from Andrew Rossi’s film on the insurmountable rise of student debt, Ivory Tower, to government backed food campaigns that have resulted in massive amounts of American health problems in Stephanie Soechtig’s Fed Up, with plenty of diversity within the program as a whole.
Though our non-fiction guesses have never been stellar, the films themselves look auspicious as all get out. Of this year’s promising batch of American docs, we...
Though our non-fiction guesses have never been stellar, the films themselves look auspicious as all get out. Of this year’s promising batch of American docs, we...
- 12/5/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
The U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competition lineups for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival were announced today and just below I have featured pictures from the 16 films that will be competing in the U.S. Dramatic competition and they feature a lot of names you're going to recognize. The titles begin with Camp X-Ray, which stars Kristen Stewart as a guard in Guantanamo Bay, where she forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Jim Mickle made an impact earlier this year with We Are What We Are and he returns with Michael C. Hall with Cold in July. Fishing Without Nets looks to tell a story similar to that of Captain Phillips, only this time from the Somali side of things; God's Pocket is "Mad Men" star John Slattery's writing and directorial debut and he's lined up an impressive cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins,...
- 12/4/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Last week I offered up my top 5 fiction films to look out for in 2013, and as promised, here is my non-fiction list of films coming through the pipeline bound to make an impression and impact this year. Two are profiles of influential iconic American activists whose work and spirit have left indelible marks on their generation and reintroduction through the docs will serve to celebrate and carry on their positive influence as Latinos. The other films deal with redefining our perception of American identity, gender and human rights while wielding cinematic ingenuity and power. As these films prove, docs can be just as striking in their characterization and cinematic form as their fiction counterparts, in addition to their intrinsic educational value. Take note, all of these are seeking opportunities to engage with their audiences so again click on the links to follow and show your interest in their work so we can bring awareness and demand their exhibition.
1. Las Marthas by Cristina Ibarra, produced by Erin Ploss-Campoamor
In Laredo Texas, there exists a debutante ball held by the exclusive Society of Martha Washington that takes place every year celebrating George Washington's birthday. A 114 year-old tradition, the lavish affair presents members' daughters- all of aristocratic pedigree and lineage dating back to the foundation of Texas, who dress up in grand, colonial gowns representing characters from the American Revolution. Las Marthas follows a couple of high achieving, bi-literate and conscious young Mexican Americans going through the lengthy preparations as they enter this rite of passage that ends with a parade that draws huge crowds. What's especially remarkable about the whole patriotic event is that we are talking about a city that is 94% Latino. Laredo became part of Texas in 1848, when everything north of the Rio Grande became the United States. Many families who stayed, benefited off the oil boom and settled into an upper class aristocracy. Many generations later these are still the most prominent Laredo citizens and proud bearers of this historic tradition.
I'm so proud of this chicana sister for revealing this world. She has intuitively seized on and explored this unique legacy, which clearly demonstrates the vibrant bi-culture of Texas and shows how aptly the founding father narrative belongs to Mexican Americans. She is also working on a fiction feature titled Love and Monster Trucks about an 18-year-old Chicana artist named Impala Mata who can't wait to escape her 4x4 truck-obsessed, Texas bordertown family. Sounds so cool. Need to track that one too. Filmmakers website here
2. Cesar'S Last Fast by Richard Ray Perez, produced by Molly O'Brien
Back in the Spring on Chavez's anniversary I wrote about this documentary in progress here on the site. Cut to today and I’m happy to share it is just about ripe and ready for its premiere. Wisely and effectively entering the vast legacy by angling on Chavez's 1988 Fast for Life, the film focuses on conveying the private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind Chavez's struggle for the humane treatment of American farm workers. With each and every day adding up that he refused to eat in protest of the rampant use and ill effects of growers spraying pesticides on farm workers, Chavez seriously risked his health and life and in turn inspired a nation. It boasts never-before-seen footage in which artists and activists came to see him, endeared in solidarity by his fortitude, including the likes of Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Kennedy family, interviews with his son Paul Chavez, Chicano filmmaker Luis Valdez, activist veteran, Dolores Huerta and Martin Sheen, along with showing the press hoopla this man was able to attract back then It’s taken years for the family to trust someone with his story so it’s telling that Rick has managed to gain their support.
Film contact <CesarsLastFast@earthlink.net>
Website, Facebook
3. Ruben Salazar: Man In The Middle by Phillip Rodriguez, produced by City Projects
On August 29 1970, just as the Chicano Moratorium March, a protest denouncing the extremely high number of Chicano soldier casualties in Vietnam (front of the line browns), was winding down, a tear gas canister was suddenly thrown by La County police into the old Silver Platter Cafe on Whittier Blvd, killing the pioneering civil rights journalist Ruben Salazar. Set to broadcast on PBS in the Fall, this documentary is the first thorough investigation into the life and mysterious death of Salazar who was raised in El Paso and went on to become a brilliant reporter covering Vietnam, the Olympics and the Chicano movement for the La Times and Kmex TV 34 television, making him the first Mexican American to cover news for mainstream outlets. In that critical and turbulent moment in the Chicano rights movement, Salazar gave voice, rationale and dignity to Chicanos’ fight to demand equality. An inquest was later regarding his untimely death made but murder charges were never brought. Instead Los Angeles County paid $700,000 to the Salazar family to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Just last month, after two years of requests, Philip Rodriguez finally won the battle to uncover case details when Maldefsued Sheriff Lee Baca for withholding unredacted records regarding the 42 year old case. This new unearthed footage, photos and documents will appear in the film along with interviews with Salazar’s family, friends, colleagues as well as the deputy who threw the fatal tear gas missile, Tom Wilson. So the story goes, there had been allegedly a tip that an armed man entered the bar (hence blindly throwing tear gas while folks were in there?). For the first time we might get answers and insight surrounding the mysterious and suspicious circumstances of this leading Latino voice. As quoted on Kpcc, Phillip Rodriguez says, “I think this is one of the most important stories that has remained on the margins and that has been characterized as a regional or an ethnic story and it’s a fantastic American story”.
4. The Wildness by Wu Tsang produced by Kathy Rivkin
Although this premiered at a few noteworthy film festivals in 2012 including Austin's SXSW, Outfest in Los Angeles and Moma in NYC last December, I’m thrilled to know there is still a long life ahead towards sharing this beautiful experience with the public so it definitely deserves to be on the Watch Out For list. A dazzling requiem to the 7th & Alvarado corner bar joint, Silver Platter, specifically the transformation and haven as a Latin/Lgbt/immigrant community spurred on by the introduction of performance parties known as Wildness, produced by a fiercely talented collective including Wu Tsang, the director of the film. The intersection of stories and people borne out of that multi cultural, trans and cross-generational magic potion is fascinating and poignant to behold in this cinematic and audiovisual piece. The cinematography captures the wonderful and tragic beauty, and by personifying the bar as a majestic hostess welcoming all wayward transients, the film pulses with heart. Currently looking for distribution opportunities (repped by Cinetic). Check out the trailer below and go to the Facebook for more info.
5. Who Is Dayani Crystal? by Marc Silver, produced by Canana and Pulse
I highlighted this unique docu-drama about the discovery of a migrant found dead in the border desert and the unfolding mystery of his identity with the parallel of retracing his journey, as part of my Wtf is Latino at Sundance post. The film will open the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival this Thursday and I will be onsite to cover the audience's reaction (Don't forget to follow me on twitter for my sporadic Sff coverage). Not only is it a feat of ingenuity in the way the narrative is structured, it's an extremely urgent topic deserving a larger audience to provoke more humanity and thought into the pressing immigration reform debate. I guarantee this one will travel to many festivals in 2012 and get theatrical distribution, in no small part helped by the compassionate and driven producer and narrator, Gael Garcia Bernal. Last year, Searching for Sugarman screened in the same Day One screening slot, was subsequently snapped up by Sony Pictures and as of last week officially nominated for an Academy Award. Hmmmm. Get updates by following their twitter @DayaniCristal
Film Contact: lucas@pulsefilms.co.uk...
1. Las Marthas by Cristina Ibarra, produced by Erin Ploss-Campoamor
In Laredo Texas, there exists a debutante ball held by the exclusive Society of Martha Washington that takes place every year celebrating George Washington's birthday. A 114 year-old tradition, the lavish affair presents members' daughters- all of aristocratic pedigree and lineage dating back to the foundation of Texas, who dress up in grand, colonial gowns representing characters from the American Revolution. Las Marthas follows a couple of high achieving, bi-literate and conscious young Mexican Americans going through the lengthy preparations as they enter this rite of passage that ends with a parade that draws huge crowds. What's especially remarkable about the whole patriotic event is that we are talking about a city that is 94% Latino. Laredo became part of Texas in 1848, when everything north of the Rio Grande became the United States. Many families who stayed, benefited off the oil boom and settled into an upper class aristocracy. Many generations later these are still the most prominent Laredo citizens and proud bearers of this historic tradition.
I'm so proud of this chicana sister for revealing this world. She has intuitively seized on and explored this unique legacy, which clearly demonstrates the vibrant bi-culture of Texas and shows how aptly the founding father narrative belongs to Mexican Americans. She is also working on a fiction feature titled Love and Monster Trucks about an 18-year-old Chicana artist named Impala Mata who can't wait to escape her 4x4 truck-obsessed, Texas bordertown family. Sounds so cool. Need to track that one too. Filmmakers website here
2. Cesar'S Last Fast by Richard Ray Perez, produced by Molly O'Brien
Back in the Spring on Chavez's anniversary I wrote about this documentary in progress here on the site. Cut to today and I’m happy to share it is just about ripe and ready for its premiere. Wisely and effectively entering the vast legacy by angling on Chavez's 1988 Fast for Life, the film focuses on conveying the private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind Chavez's struggle for the humane treatment of American farm workers. With each and every day adding up that he refused to eat in protest of the rampant use and ill effects of growers spraying pesticides on farm workers, Chavez seriously risked his health and life and in turn inspired a nation. It boasts never-before-seen footage in which artists and activists came to see him, endeared in solidarity by his fortitude, including the likes of Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Kennedy family, interviews with his son Paul Chavez, Chicano filmmaker Luis Valdez, activist veteran, Dolores Huerta and Martin Sheen, along with showing the press hoopla this man was able to attract back then It’s taken years for the family to trust someone with his story so it’s telling that Rick has managed to gain their support.
Film contact <CesarsLastFast@earthlink.net>
Website, Facebook
3. Ruben Salazar: Man In The Middle by Phillip Rodriguez, produced by City Projects
On August 29 1970, just as the Chicano Moratorium March, a protest denouncing the extremely high number of Chicano soldier casualties in Vietnam (front of the line browns), was winding down, a tear gas canister was suddenly thrown by La County police into the old Silver Platter Cafe on Whittier Blvd, killing the pioneering civil rights journalist Ruben Salazar. Set to broadcast on PBS in the Fall, this documentary is the first thorough investigation into the life and mysterious death of Salazar who was raised in El Paso and went on to become a brilliant reporter covering Vietnam, the Olympics and the Chicano movement for the La Times and Kmex TV 34 television, making him the first Mexican American to cover news for mainstream outlets. In that critical and turbulent moment in the Chicano rights movement, Salazar gave voice, rationale and dignity to Chicanos’ fight to demand equality. An inquest was later regarding his untimely death made but murder charges were never brought. Instead Los Angeles County paid $700,000 to the Salazar family to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Just last month, after two years of requests, Philip Rodriguez finally won the battle to uncover case details when Maldefsued Sheriff Lee Baca for withholding unredacted records regarding the 42 year old case. This new unearthed footage, photos and documents will appear in the film along with interviews with Salazar’s family, friends, colleagues as well as the deputy who threw the fatal tear gas missile, Tom Wilson. So the story goes, there had been allegedly a tip that an armed man entered the bar (hence blindly throwing tear gas while folks were in there?). For the first time we might get answers and insight surrounding the mysterious and suspicious circumstances of this leading Latino voice. As quoted on Kpcc, Phillip Rodriguez says, “I think this is one of the most important stories that has remained on the margins and that has been characterized as a regional or an ethnic story and it’s a fantastic American story”.
4. The Wildness by Wu Tsang produced by Kathy Rivkin
Although this premiered at a few noteworthy film festivals in 2012 including Austin's SXSW, Outfest in Los Angeles and Moma in NYC last December, I’m thrilled to know there is still a long life ahead towards sharing this beautiful experience with the public so it definitely deserves to be on the Watch Out For list. A dazzling requiem to the 7th & Alvarado corner bar joint, Silver Platter, specifically the transformation and haven as a Latin/Lgbt/immigrant community spurred on by the introduction of performance parties known as Wildness, produced by a fiercely talented collective including Wu Tsang, the director of the film. The intersection of stories and people borne out of that multi cultural, trans and cross-generational magic potion is fascinating and poignant to behold in this cinematic and audiovisual piece. The cinematography captures the wonderful and tragic beauty, and by personifying the bar as a majestic hostess welcoming all wayward transients, the film pulses with heart. Currently looking for distribution opportunities (repped by Cinetic). Check out the trailer below and go to the Facebook for more info.
5. Who Is Dayani Crystal? by Marc Silver, produced by Canana and Pulse
I highlighted this unique docu-drama about the discovery of a migrant found dead in the border desert and the unfolding mystery of his identity with the parallel of retracing his journey, as part of my Wtf is Latino at Sundance post. The film will open the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival this Thursday and I will be onsite to cover the audience's reaction (Don't forget to follow me on twitter for my sporadic Sff coverage). Not only is it a feat of ingenuity in the way the narrative is structured, it's an extremely urgent topic deserving a larger audience to provoke more humanity and thought into the pressing immigration reform debate. I guarantee this one will travel to many festivals in 2012 and get theatrical distribution, in no small part helped by the compassionate and driven producer and narrator, Gael Garcia Bernal. Last year, Searching for Sugarman screened in the same Day One screening slot, was subsequently snapped up by Sony Pictures and as of last week officially nominated for an Academy Award. Hmmmm. Get updates by following their twitter @DayaniCristal
Film Contact: lucas@pulsefilms.co.uk...
- 1/17/2013
- by Christine Davila
- Sydney's Buzz
Adding to our Wednesday feature LatinoBuzz, Christine Davila, Sundance programmer is contributing Chicana from Chicago, her take on the Latino scene. Here is our first outing:
Diverse Voices, Universal Content
Runaway Renegade
Described as the largest gathering of Latinos working in media in the U.S., the 13thannual National Association of Latino Independent Producers (Nalip) Conference presented by Time Warner, most actively by way of HBO Latino and NBC Universal, and The National Latino Media Council, took place this weekend at the model tourist convention hub, Universal City Sheraton. Nalip finds itself in a bit of a transition following Kathryn Galan’s departure as Executive Director who spent almost eleven years at the organization shaping it into what it is today. The search is still on for a replacement but guiding the transition as Interim Director is the affable Beni Matias who started with Nalip from its inception. A couple of the board members are new, including Rosa Alonso, founder of My Latino Voicewho will lend her digital marketing expertise to the organization. These high level leadership changes can potentially bring about a revitalized and evolving mission to Nalip’s growing legacy. Covering the conference for Latin Heat Online Magazine, I greatly enjoyed the ability to observe and take part with an inquisitive gonzo-like spirit. Indeed I’d be remiss if I did not approach the significant Latino organization with an on-the-ground, critical eye, especially now while it is in a very ‘review mode’ on how to continue to stay relevant. Its crucial to recognize its monumental formation and landmark achievements. Equally as crucial is to identify how to pragmatically further the conversation it began thirteen years ago about Us Latino representation in front and behind the camera. Most important is to distill the relevant but sometimes incongruent messaging – for instance, the Robert Rodriguez keynote illustrated a polar opposite way of thinking to that of Ron Meyer’s keynote (Do we want to Break Out or Break In to the mainstream?), which makes for an intriguing forum of deeper discussion.
New Works/New Voices: A Storyteller's Journey panel with Tamir Muhammad, Tribeca Film Institute, Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival, Gun Hill Road filmmaker Rashaad Ernesto Green moderated by Luis Castro, HBO
Lovely RRRRRRita - recipient of Nalip's Lifetime Achievement Award and exclusive Egot (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) club member
What to expect from Chicana from Chicago’s multi-part Nalip coverage? A couple of case-studies/interviews with Rashaad Ernesto Green who epitomizes the Diy mentality which made his feature debut, Gun Hill Road a unique success story, the filmmaker Michael D. Olmos and his star, Gina Rodriguez ofFilly Brown who embody the Us Latino pop culture flavor.
I’d like to recognize the influential Gatekeepers at non-profit, artistic development institutions responsible for introducing the most fresh, diverse and underrepresented voices to audiences, like Shari Frilot, Senior Programmer at Sundance Film Festival, Tamir Muhammad, Director of Feature Programming at Tribeca Film Institute and Richard Ray Perez who is the newest and welcome U.S. Latino staff addition at Sundance Institute’s Documentary Feature Program. I’m also most excited to give you a heads up on fresh new film and multi-media projects in the works, and I’ll make sure to dish on the fancy Awards Gala.
I found the theme of Nalip 2012’s, “Diverse Voices, Universal Content” sounding futuristic and empowering, yet initially too broadly defined and perfunctory. I strongly feel that the more focus we can bring to next year’s themes, the better we’ll be able to advance conversation. That said, I’ve identified a few key points that were strong merits of this year’s Nalip, and an excellent way to frame and contextualize what was really being said:
Training our content producers and artists, to not only compete but to raise the bar and expectations in every industry. Advocate and encourage our friends of color and diversity in all professions, in particular policy-making fields, towards becoming ‘Decision Makers” The need to vocally and financially support ‘our own content’, as peers but especially obligate those in a position of power who represent us and utilize our fan-dom (Robert Rodriguez with his new El Rey network) Networking and sharing with peers, and takeaway the hard lessons learned by our elders, those who first paved in-roads into mainstreams, like Rita Moreno and Jerry Velasco, recipients of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards. Developing our individual and personal voices with which we distinguish our mestizo identity while simultaneously relating the universal the power of storytelling
Overall, I found Nalip an absolutely positive and celebratory environment. . I’m happy to share my thoughts but I would love and need to hear from You. I invite you to engage and kindly ask you to share your comments and observations from this year’s Nalip, and in general the landscape of Us Latino representation in media as you’ve experienced it.
Diverse Voices, Universal Content
Runaway Renegade
Described as the largest gathering of Latinos working in media in the U.S., the 13thannual National Association of Latino Independent Producers (Nalip) Conference presented by Time Warner, most actively by way of HBO Latino and NBC Universal, and The National Latino Media Council, took place this weekend at the model tourist convention hub, Universal City Sheraton. Nalip finds itself in a bit of a transition following Kathryn Galan’s departure as Executive Director who spent almost eleven years at the organization shaping it into what it is today. The search is still on for a replacement but guiding the transition as Interim Director is the affable Beni Matias who started with Nalip from its inception. A couple of the board members are new, including Rosa Alonso, founder of My Latino Voicewho will lend her digital marketing expertise to the organization. These high level leadership changes can potentially bring about a revitalized and evolving mission to Nalip’s growing legacy. Covering the conference for Latin Heat Online Magazine, I greatly enjoyed the ability to observe and take part with an inquisitive gonzo-like spirit. Indeed I’d be remiss if I did not approach the significant Latino organization with an on-the-ground, critical eye, especially now while it is in a very ‘review mode’ on how to continue to stay relevant. Its crucial to recognize its monumental formation and landmark achievements. Equally as crucial is to identify how to pragmatically further the conversation it began thirteen years ago about Us Latino representation in front and behind the camera. Most important is to distill the relevant but sometimes incongruent messaging – for instance, the Robert Rodriguez keynote illustrated a polar opposite way of thinking to that of Ron Meyer’s keynote (Do we want to Break Out or Break In to the mainstream?), which makes for an intriguing forum of deeper discussion.
New Works/New Voices: A Storyteller's Journey panel with Tamir Muhammad, Tribeca Film Institute, Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival, Gun Hill Road filmmaker Rashaad Ernesto Green moderated by Luis Castro, HBO
Lovely RRRRRRita - recipient of Nalip's Lifetime Achievement Award and exclusive Egot (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) club member
What to expect from Chicana from Chicago’s multi-part Nalip coverage? A couple of case-studies/interviews with Rashaad Ernesto Green who epitomizes the Diy mentality which made his feature debut, Gun Hill Road a unique success story, the filmmaker Michael D. Olmos and his star, Gina Rodriguez ofFilly Brown who embody the Us Latino pop culture flavor.
I’d like to recognize the influential Gatekeepers at non-profit, artistic development institutions responsible for introducing the most fresh, diverse and underrepresented voices to audiences, like Shari Frilot, Senior Programmer at Sundance Film Festival, Tamir Muhammad, Director of Feature Programming at Tribeca Film Institute and Richard Ray Perez who is the newest and welcome U.S. Latino staff addition at Sundance Institute’s Documentary Feature Program. I’m also most excited to give you a heads up on fresh new film and multi-media projects in the works, and I’ll make sure to dish on the fancy Awards Gala.
I found the theme of Nalip 2012’s, “Diverse Voices, Universal Content” sounding futuristic and empowering, yet initially too broadly defined and perfunctory. I strongly feel that the more focus we can bring to next year’s themes, the better we’ll be able to advance conversation. That said, I’ve identified a few key points that were strong merits of this year’s Nalip, and an excellent way to frame and contextualize what was really being said:
Training our content producers and artists, to not only compete but to raise the bar and expectations in every industry. Advocate and encourage our friends of color and diversity in all professions, in particular policy-making fields, towards becoming ‘Decision Makers” The need to vocally and financially support ‘our own content’, as peers but especially obligate those in a position of power who represent us and utilize our fan-dom (Robert Rodriguez with his new El Rey network) Networking and sharing with peers, and takeaway the hard lessons learned by our elders, those who first paved in-roads into mainstreams, like Rita Moreno and Jerry Velasco, recipients of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards. Developing our individual and personal voices with which we distinguish our mestizo identity while simultaneously relating the universal the power of storytelling
Overall, I found Nalip an absolutely positive and celebratory environment. . I’m happy to share my thoughts but I would love and need to hear from You. I invite you to engage and kindly ask you to share your comments and observations from this year’s Nalip, and in general the landscape of Us Latino representation in media as you’ve experienced it.
- 4/25/2012
- by Christine Davila
- Sydney's Buzz
In the two weeks since I conducted this interview, The New York Times' executive editor Bill Keller announced that he would be stepping down from his position to become a full-time writer once more, paving the way for managing editor Jill Abramson to make history as the first woman to lead the venerable news organization in their 160-year history. In some ways, the fact that the news came after the Times' media columnist David Carr and director Andrew Rossi did press for the documentary "Page One: Inside The New York Times," but before the film was released in theaters, felt like a cruel cosmic joke, the ultimate indictment of holding onto any bit of information in an era where speed is everything.
But as much as Rossi himself would've surely liked to have included a scene to capture that milestone in his film (he was able to attach it in...
But as much as Rossi himself would've surely liked to have included a scene to capture that milestone in his film (he was able to attach it in...
- 6/13/2011
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's rising star power has earned him a New York Times review of his public statements over the last year, and the Times comes very close to calling Christie a liar. In a carefully worded story by Richard PÉREZ-PEÑA, the Times reviewed Christie's public statements over the past year and determined "some of them do not hold up to scrutiny." As Perez-Pena writes, Christie's "misstatements, exaggerations and carefully constructed claims belie the national image he has built as a blunt talker."...
- 3/10/2011
- by Mark Joyella
- Mediaite - TV
In Their Boots documents the stories of troops coming home from the battlefield, the young wife whose husband never returns, the child who will never know her mother. Each episode is told form the first-person — there is no narrator. This makes for very compelling and, at times, gut-wrenching storytelling. Now in its third season, the series is branching out to encompass more voices and tell different stories. This spring, five veterans were selected from over 100 applicants to have a chance at telling theirs. The five fellows attended a three day production workshop in Los Angeles and will be given a professional camera man, a $7,500 stipend, and a $10,000 budget. Their episodes will be released this summer. A production of the of the Brave New Foundation, the series is funded by the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund of the California Community Foundation. It is Executive Produced by documentarian Richard Ray Perez, and produced by Abe Greenwald,...
- 5/31/2010
- by Brady Brim-DeForest
- Tubefilter.com
- If you want to get an early peek at some of the docu titles/docu subjects for future editions of the Sundance Film Festival, then grab an eyeful at the films and filmmakers that received grants from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. Here are the press release factoids for the 2009 grants: a record number of proposal submissions were received and considered for this round, totaling close to 900 applicants working in 61 countries. 15 feature documentary films in either development or in production/post-production will receive awards. The funded projects include nine U.S. stories, eight female directors and five first-time feature directors. Films funded tell stories of a cinema restoration project in the West Bank, the revival of an indigenous American language after being silenced for 150 years , a Cambodian journalist ‘s attempt to understand the men and women who took part in the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, and a citizen
- 8/19/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
Kudos to The New York Times for scoring five 2009 Pulitzer Prizes! As Times reporter Richard Pérez-Peña breathlessly notes on the website (because who reads the paper anymore): “Only twice has an organization won more than five in a year: in 2002, when The Times won seven, and last year, when The Washington Post won six.” After a disastrous fiscal year, it must be exciting for The Times to celebrate an almost-record-setting achievement. The obvious message is: exemplary journalism still matters. But the deeper message is one Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s beleaguered publisher and chairman, should take to heart. The Pulitzer Prize was established when Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, leaving a bequest to create the eponymous award. An immigrant from Hungary, Pulitzer struck it rich by combining the St. Louis Post and the St. Louis Dispatch to make the—wait for it—St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Next, he purchased the New York World,...
- 4/21/2009
- Vanity Fair
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