San Diego Latino Film Festival 1999

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Welcome to the 1999 San Diego Latino Film Festival!

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e are proud to present you 18 programs of short and feature films/videos which have never been screened in the San Diego/Tijuana region. This year's festival is filled with exciting opportunities and experiences that we hope you will take advantage of. A few highlights you won 't want to miss include: tributes to acclaimed filmmakers Lourdes Portillo and Gregory Nava; the west coast premiere of Wim Wender's Buena Vista Social Club; the presentation of the 1949 Mexican Classic feature, Aventurera; and the .World Premiere of Corpus : A Home Movie For Selena.

This has been a festival of many difficult decisions. We always try to bring you the most talked about Latino films in a fun, smart way. Please forgive any errors we may have made, and let yourself "give in" to these beautiful films. The filmmakers have been most generous to us, and their associates gave us much assistance . We know films of this quality could screen anywhere, so we are indeed fortunate to be able to showcase them in this exciting festival. For that privilege, we owe thanks to many folks and many spirits, thank you.

Honor plays a large part in this festival, and the 1999 San Diego Latino Film Festival pays respect to films and filmmakers that are shaping Latino films. We also have a chance to honor the concept of film festivals themselves. It's a concept that allows a film fan the opportunity to get caught up in the frenzy of film and joy alongside the filmmaker. This festival is growing outward and upward, and that's partly because we have followed a path of inclusion. A path that allows us to celebrate our heritage but also to celebrate the wide influence of film on life.

Thank you to all the volunteers, filmmakers and sponsors for making this festival a reality. We would like to especially thank our presenting sponsor, Lincoln Mercury, for their strong commitment and support in bringing Latino film and video to San Diego.

Enjoy the festival!

Ethan van Thillo & Fred Salas Festival Co-Directors

Festival Staff Festival Co-Directors: Fred Salas Ethan van Thillo

Financial Consultant: Chavez & Associates Festival Interns: Fernando Herrera Geraldine Guigueno Jerry Calderon

Festival Assistant: Erica Alarcon Graphic Designers: Nie Paget-Clarke Alejandro Santos

Festival Screening Committee: Erica Alarcon Eloisa de Leon Rita Gonzalez Judy Harper Irene Marquez Fred Salas Ethan van Thillo

Projectionist: John Miller House Managers: Gustavo Salas Andrew Nagem

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Thankyou San Diego Latino FilmFestival volunteers.

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FestivalAdvisoryBoard Lie. Victor Madero UABC

Isaac Artenstein Independent Director/Producer

Andy Friedenberg Cinema Society San Diego

Francisco Bernal l.C.B.C.

Prof. Richard Griswold San Diego State University

Guadalupe R. Corona University of San Diego Mario Chacon San Diego City College Paul Espinosa Indep·endent Producer

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Judy A. Harper San Diego Dialogue

Julie Rocha El Sol de San Diego Wally Schlotter Wally! & Assoc.

Larry Zeiger Educator

Raj Madhavan TradeEx

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Centro Cultural de la Raza Staff Executive Director: Larry Baza Artist in Residence: Victor Ochoa Technical Assistant: Faustino Ortega

Secretary: Joe Lara

Board of Directors President: Howard F. Hollman

Members At Large: Marco Anguiano Alicia Chavez Ambrosio Rodriguez Elizabeth Urtecho

Vice President: Guadalupe Corona Treasurer: Diane Brand

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Acknowledgements Nicholas Aguilera Diego Aguilera Anita Alban Jose Alvarez Jarko Amezcua Marco Anguiano Jose Carlos Avellar Ruth Bailey Kevin Baxter Francisco Bernal Mark S. Burgess Aida Bustos-Garcia Elida Chavez Michael Clark Sergio De La Mora Eloisa de Leon Nancy Alicia De Los Santos Jerri Denniston Joe Perrelli Omar Gonzalez Rita Gonzalez Ricardo Griswold Chuck Hansen Bel Hernandez Danny Hernandez Howard Hollman John Hudkins Gabriela Johnston Maria Lopez Deborah Loquet Raj Madhavan Lie. Victor Madero Beatriz Margain Deborah Martin Kate McKenzie Luis Medina

Nate Mendez Jimmy Mendiola Fanny E. Miller John Miller Hector Molina Dan Montoya Mike Ornelas Victor Payan Claudia Pearce Carlos Pelayo Shirley and Jessica Phillips Ernesto Portillo Kelly Prasser Dee Ogawa Natalie Orosco Isidro Ortiz George Ramirez Marylin Reed Bill Reed Mary E. Reed Julie Rocha Tommy Rosas Amy Rouillard Fred Salas Sr. Robert J. Salt Steve Spencer Fred Sotelo Milagros Sollano Solis Marc Smolowitz Barrett Travis Lynna Valdez Grace van Thillo Rosalia Valencia Rob Worden Gabriel Zepeda

W.1come

Aventurera (see page 36).

to the 1999 San Diego Latino Film Festival! ............

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Acknowledgements .............................................................

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Centro Cultural de la Raza Mission Statement ......................................

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San Diego Latino Film Festival 1999 Advisory Board ............

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Ticket and Venue Information ....................................................

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Festival Schedule ............................................................

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Festival Sponsors ..............................................................

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En Busca de Un Taco Bueno/ In Search of a Good Taco

by Omar Ezequiel Gonzalez .........................

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Tuesday Schedule and Film Synopses ..........................................

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Wednesday Schedule and Film Synopses .......................................

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City of San Diego's Commission for Arts & Culture, the National Performance Network, the California Arts Council, the Angelica Foundation, the Weingart Foundation, Las Patronas, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Parker Foundation, Pacific Bell, Viejas Casino, the Milarepa Foundation, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and Union Bank of California. The Centro is founding member of the Latino Arts Network of California, partically funded by the California Arts Council.

Our address is: 2125 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92101. Phone: (619) 235 -6135. Fax: (619) 595 -0034 .

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Festival Staff . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......

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Corpus (Bidi bidi boom boom) by Deborah Martin ...................................

he Centro Cultural de la Raza serves as a catalyst in the San Diego and Tijuana border region to preserve, promote, and stimulate the art and culture of Chicanos, Mexicanos, and native tribal societies of the Americas true to the organization's historical and philosophical roots in the Chicano movement. As a multi-disciplinary cultural arts center, the Centro is uniquely positioned to promote a wide array of services and support to the regional art community. Our programs include workshops, performing and literary arts presentations, visual art exhibits, and film and video screenings to the community at large.

The Centro's programming is made possible with the support from the

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Paulina (see page 11).

Amor & Cia (see page 21 ).

Smashing Icon: On the Portillo Influence by Jim Mendiola ............................

Centro Cultural de la Raza - Our Mission

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Contents

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Thursday Schedule and Film Synopses .........................................

20, 21

Friday Schedule and Film Synopses ...........................................

24, 25

Saturday Schedule and Film Synopses ...................................

28, 29, 30, 31

The Conversation by Nancy de los Santos ..........................................

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Sunday Schedule and Film Synopses ..........................................

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The Crisis in Public Television by Chon A. Noriega ..................................

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Print Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 46 Cover Photo: Lumi Cavazos and Roberto Sosa in Fibra Optica, IMCINE.

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Friday

Venues

Ticket Information

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Sunday

1:00 pm

$7 General / $5 Students

United Artists Theatres

$75 for a Festival Pass

Horton Plaza, 4th & F St. (619) 234-8602

1:30 pm

Museum of Man, Gil Auditorium

2:00 pm

(includes all films & parties) 1350 El Prado, Balboa Park (619) 239-2001

Order your tickets by calling:

• TicketMaster at (619) 220-TIXS • Festival Info: (619) 230-1938

Discovery 1 Museum of Man Gil Auditorium Balboa Park see p.28

2:30 pm

Atomic Blue

Opening Night Reception

3:00 pm

Planet Hollywood Horton Plaza

Discovery 2

Or visit our website at:

3:30 pm

Closing Night Party & Dance

www.sdLatinoFilm.com

Museum of Man Gil Auditorium Balboa Park see p.28

4th &B

4:00 pm

(345 B St., downtown San Diego)

Wednesday

Thursday

Adventures of a Catholic Atheist

5:00 pm

Museum of Man see p.29

5:30 pm

5:00 pm

La Vendedora de Rosas

5:30 pm United Artists Theatres see p.16

Opening Night Reception Planet Hollywood see p.10

United Artists Theatres see p.24

6:00 pm

Real Film - Brazil The Portillo Influence

6:00 pm

Aventurera United Artists Theatres see p.36

4:30 pm

Tuesday

Family Day United Artists Theatres see p.36

United Artists Theatres see p.20

6:30 pm

Doces Poderes

7:00 pm

6:30 pm

Fibra Optica

7:00 pm La Ciudad United Artists Theatres see p.10

United Artists Theatres see p.25

Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena

Baile Perfumado

United Artists Theatres see p.17

United Artists Theatres see p.21

9:30 pm Santo Luzbel United Artists Theatres seep. 25

9:30 pm Paulina

Chile: Obstinate Memory

Amor & Cia

United Artists Theatres see p.11

United Artists Theatres seep.17

United Artists Theatres see p.21

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Discovery 3 United Artists Theatres see p.29

Top photo: Neto's Run. Right photo: The Buena Vista Social Club.

2:00 am

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El Norte: A Tribute to Gregory Nava United Artists Theatres see p.30

The Buena Vista Social Club

Closing Night Party & Dance

United Artists Theatres see p.31

4th & B 'til 2:00 am

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Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver United Artists Theatres see p.37

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En Busca de un Taco Bueno In Search of a Good Taco

The 1999 San Diego Latino Film Festival is presented by:

ffiLINCOLN Mercury ij

by Omar Ezequiel Gonzalez

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Major Sponsor

AmericanAirlines® Something special in the air.® FilmSponsors

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ASSOCIATED STUDENTS

~Energy

CA LIFORNIA CO UNCIL FOR THE HUMANITIES

SiDU

CULTURAL ARTS

Radio Sponsors

NewspaperSponsors 'Vlht .ian'.Diego ~ , ~:

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SanDle,,..

Web Site Sponsor

TV Sponsor

1, 19KBNT-TV UNIVISION

Host Sponsor

Printer Sponsor P1tintin9 INCORPORATED

Audio Visual Sponsor

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t all began with Cine Estudiantil. Five years ago David Riker's Student Academy Award winning short, La Ciudad, was screened at the festival that is now the San Diego Latino Film Festival. Unfortunately I missed it, but I remember reading about it. In fact, that year's festival catalog cover was an image from the film. (Which is now the homeless puppeteer segment of the feature anthology.)

I finally saw David's film a year ago when Ethan van Thillo (this years co-director and founder of the festival) projected the film on to the wall of his house. I was blown away. It is an amazingly poetic film about a traveling puppeteer's relationship with his daughter. It is a metaphor of the migrant experience captured in the other segments of La Ciudad.

It was through an act of fate that David and I ended up teaching film making at the same school in Los Angeles over the summer. Within minutes of meeting we were talking about two of our greatest passions: film and tacos. Finally I had met someone that challenged the preconceived notions of what it is to be a filmmaker today. A true revolutionary in a world of false consumer revolutions.

As a young filmmaker it is sometimes hard to find a mentor that you can really look up to.

Someone that can help you see the world of film in a different light while at the same time provide you with practical strategies for survival.

But in reality we were just kindred souls in search of the perfect taco.

It was through these various quests for a great taco that I got to know David Riker. As we sat in the cool summer air we shared tacos, personal histories, horchata, and philosophies.

"El Gran Burrito" - Santa Monica at Vermont, Los Angeles. Very friendly. Colorful, full of life, and open 'til 2 a.m. Reasonable prices. Flavorful.

Juke box with a good selection of music. The first thing we see as we walk in is Miguel chopping a mountain of onions.

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Before we go any further you should read a synopsis of La Ciudad. Kay Armatage of the Toronto Film Festival has written a good one: "La Ciudad is a narrative snapshot of a side of New York that is rarely seen: the city of illegal immigrants, the homeless, seasonal workers, sweatshops, and laborers from Manhattan's Latin American neighborhoocls. An intensive collaboration with the immigrant community over a fiveyear period has resulted in a complex four-part narrative in which the subjects of the film are its principal actors.

Set in the present day, the film follows four separate stories of immigrant life. A young laborer, scavenging for bricks, is killed when a wall collapses; two teenagers from the same village fall in love, then lose each other in a housing project; a homeless father tries to enroll his daughter in school; a young garment worker seeks justice in the sweatshops."

It takes immense courage to make a film such as this one. These are the experiences of millions of people that have tom the roots of their experience in order to create personal histories in a new world. continued on page 8

David Riker's film

Director David Riker (right) during filming of La, Ciudad.

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La Ciudad When:

Tuesday,7 pm Where:

U.A.Theatres Horton Plaza

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T u e s d a y ... un taco bueno continued from page 7

It is also a documentation of the immense struggle that workers face every day. It is a beautifully honest film that gives voice to those that are forced into silence.

But how does one end up making such a film? I can think through it logically, but in the end it's all a guess.

As a child David never established roots in any one place. His father was involved in international business and the family was constantly moving around the world. As an adult he continued to jump around as a photojournalist.

This continued exploration of the world led him to new realizations . How can you photograph the misery and beauty of shared cultures and not be changed? How long can you place suffering on silver halide and not be moved to change the conditions which you photograph?

Photography led him to the moving image.

Armed with a video camera he drove to a logging town in Maine on the US - Canadian border. He was there to document the struggle of striking papermakers united in their fight against exploitation. A year later he had put together a powerful statement on the strength of solidarity.

Ironically, it was the documentary form that pushed him into narrative. His ideals had not

changed. The forms he had been using began to stifle the expression of the stories he wanted to tell.

What if you could shape and control the presentation of the experiences you wanted to expose?

While enrolled in the NYU graduate film making program he began to harness the true power of narrative to expose and transform. In New York he also connected with a group of people that shared the disrooted experience of his life: the predominately Latino migrant workers who shared the neighborhood he lived in.

The multi-layered experiences of these new immigrants were distilled into the four short stories of La Ciudad.

"Taqueria" (taco shop) one block away from "El Cinco y Diez" (Five and Ten) in Tijuana. The street is full of life. I just bought some Chinese soap at an open air swapmeet with multicolored nets casting a beautiful light over the vendors. We walk by and stop at quiet taco shop. The tacos are the best this side of Gordos. All we want to do is sit in the shade, eat, and read the histories written on the faces of beautiful people that pass by.

David has an incredible spirit. He is an intense, passionate, fun loving person. But what really sets him apart is his ability to capture the beauty of an experience while at the same time documenting the struggle inherent in that experience. This is a very honest and humane way of looking at life.

A scene from the Bricks story of La Ciudad.

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A scene from the Puppeteer story of La Ciudad.

His outlook on life dictates the method in which he works. David might be a filmmaker by trade, but he is an activist at heart. What if by helping shape the narratives of those without a voice you can create a film that shifts the consciousness of an audience? Maybe in documenting struggles you can help create social change.

In many regards La Ciudad is the grand child of Neo-Realism and a first cousin of Salt of the Earth.

In these films the fiction creates a stronger sense of reality.

In addition, the making of each of these films is as amazing as the films themselves.

David began by talking to the people of his neighborhood and gaining their trust over time.

Sincerity and a true interest in the people he talked with helped in this regard. He then collected the various stories of those he interviewed and wrote a screenplay. The screenplay was taken back to the various communities and critiqued. They would point out inconsistenci es or jumps in reality. Once the screenplay was approved he begun the casting process. This was basically the process of choosing from the various faces and personalities that he had encountered throughout pre-production. He also had to take into account who would be willing to take time out of their full work schedules to act in a film. Since most of the cast consisted of nonactors they would meet in the basement of a local church two, maybe three nights a week for several months.

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On top of all this David had to work long hours to pay his bills while struggling to raise the money needed to produce such a non-commercial film.

In the end, you can not watch La Ciudad without developing a sense of the love and respect David has for the people that populate the film.

There is a certain admiration for the beauty and strength in the faces of the neighborhood portrait studio.

This attitude is a part of his everyday life. At every taco shop we visit there is a feeling of comradery. David is there not only to eat a taco but to share in the mutual experience of humanity.

In the face of every taco shop worker he sees a narrative. It is usually a bitter sweet story of both beauty and struggle. Sometimes it's the beauty in struggle. Someday a narrative film will be made about the lives of those that make gourmet creations with tortillas, salsa, y came.

Carne is turned. Sweat comes down. Blades hit meat. Stories are told. Tortillas are flipped . Change is made.

Dos mas de asada. Con todo.

(Two more steak tacos. With everything .)

Omar Ezequiel Gonzalez is a young, up and coming filmmaker. In addition to working on his own projects, he is currently an assistant to a director for a major Latino motion picture. He can be reached at omar@calocine.com or at (800) 786-0747. n o

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• Tuesday, March 9th

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La Ciudad

Paulina

5:30 pm - Opening Night Reception at Planet Hollywood, Horton Plaza

9:30 pm - Paulina

7:00 pm -La Ciudad

Opening Short Film - Sometimes My Feet Go Numb (1997, 3 min., 35mm, USA) Director: Lourdes Portillo Sometimes My Feet Go Numb is director Lourdes Portillo's filmed ode to the magic of performance. It is a lyrical balm for death and the sometime~ beautiful mystery of despair.

Selma Hayek in Sfstole-Diastole.

Opening Short Film - Sistole-Diastole (1998, 20 min., 35mm, Spanish w/ English Subtitles, Mexico) Director: Carlos Cuaron The loteria of life gets played out splendidly in Cuaron's film. The light-as-magic-dust cast features Selma Hayek, Roberto Sosa, and the luminous Lumi Cavazos.

Paulina (1997, 88 min., 16mm, Documentary, Spanish wl English Subtitles, USAIMexico/Canada) Director: Vicky Funari Paulina, a new feature film by Vicky Funari and Jennifer Maytorena-Taylor, is filled with fingerprints. Small hands brush against plants and trees and leave their traces. Fingers press on to grills with crackling green chiles. Hands clutch and grasp, labor and keep busy while a mind voyages with curiosity and fervor. The film documents Paulina Cruz Suarez's life as a domestic worker and through the slow revealing, or peeling back of layers, a childhood secret is unearthed . Several histories emerge through Paulina's testimonial: the struggle of women both in rural and urban communities, the elusiveness of memory and history in constructing a personal narrative, and notions of silence and repression that charge not only family structures, but that of entire communities.

La Ciudad (1998, 88 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles,USA)

En Buscade un Taco Bueno In Searchof a Good Taco

Director: David Riker This festival is extremely blessed to have David Riker's La Ciudad as our opening night keynote film. La Ciudad is composed of four vignettes involving the struggle for survival among the immigrant community in New York City. The first tells of a young bricklayer who is severely injured when an old factory wall collapses on him; the second finds a young man newly arrived from Mexico who meets a young woman from back home only to lose her.

An article about David Riker by · Omar Ezequiel Gonzalez

The third deals with a homeless puppeteer who has contracted tuberculosis from staying in a shelter. He trys to get his daughter in school only to be refused when he cannot produce a rent receipt. The final sequence follows a seamstress who hasn't been paid in weeks as she struggles to pay for a medical emergency back home in her native country. La Ciudad is a powerful example of how film can transform life's tragic experiences into visual poetry. One of the magical elements in La Ciudad is Riker' s inspired direction of nonprofessional actors who were workshopped over a period of time. All of the elements of La Ciudad bond together patiently to provide one of the most moving and unique film experiences you will ever have.

See page 7.

The collaboration among Funari, Maytorena-Taylor, and Cruz Suarez involves a negotiation with the codes of documentary and the attributes of narrative cinema. Docudrama sequences involving performers (with a cameo role for Funari as the inquisitive foreigner with a camera in the bus scene) interact with interviews, at times providing Rashomanlike variations. For example, several dramatic recreations of one pivotal event in Paulina's life reflect the conflicting mindsets of the generations involved. Hands break through frames displaying snap-shots (both falsified documents and family portraits), all the visual and audio elements blend to tell the sometimes more fantastic-and-terrifying-thanfiction account of one woman's (formerly invisible) history. - Rita Gonzalez, curator and independent filmmaker.

A scene from the brick laborer story of La Ciudad.

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Tuesday, March 9th

Mathyselene Heredia Castillo plays Paulina at age 18 in the non-fiction feature film Paulina.

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Smashing Icon: On the Portillo Influence

by Jim Mendiola ast summer, in a 400 year-old building in Mexico City, a group of young brown people waited patiently for Lourdes Portillo .

Like her, they were filmmakers - of the North American variety. It was the third day of a U.S. Chicano academic conference set deep in the heart of the motherland and this was a screening of their student films .

All that week, while walking through el centro historico, a fun game was spotting Chicanos among the Mexicans. Not hard to do when faced with the gringo obviousness of a crisp UCSB Tshirt or a pair of Gap Khaki shorts. But then, sometimes not. Post-Nafta, a Dallas Cowboy T-shirt for sale in the Z6calo was just as Mexican as its Che counterpart. Even if it was a Rage Against the Machine version. We all looked the same: it's just the pesky signifiers that were melding.

I mention this because distinctions of identity, or, rather, the drama of their erosion, are important factors in the accumulated work of Lourdes Portillo. The students wanting to show her their films that day understood that. Instinctively. Selfdescribed queers, feminists, an old school Chicano nationalist or two, a Nuyorican single mom, narrative filmmakers, as well as documentarians, all recognized in Portillo, and her work, their own melding lives and their own eroding catorizations.

The three films in the festival's program Columbus on Trial, Sometimes My Feet Go Numb, and the world premiere of Corpus - represent Portillo's various artistic, personal, and political preoccupations over the years. And stand, too, as prime examples of the filmmaker's continuing challenge to Chicano/Latino film expectations - in form, subject matter, and gendered point of view. Works that also - it can never be overemphasized - stand on their own as contributions and counterclaims to the discourse of American independent film.

Tribute to Lourdes Portillo The Portillo Influence

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Early Years Born in Chihuahua, Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, California since the age of thirteen,

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â&#x20AC;˘ When: Wednesday, 5pm and 7 pm

Lourdes Portillo. Photo by Nie Paget-Clarke.

Portillo began her filmmaking after moving to San Francisco in the mid-'70s .

Fresh out of art school, the Latino Bay Area was a formative element in her development as a film maker and a thinker. Unlike the more nationalistic fervor of the ongoing Chicano movement, San Francisco in the mid -70s embodied a more encompassing Third World perspective. Artistic groups such as the Editorial Poche -Che collective, flourished.

It was a political and artistic sensibility that fostered solidarity rather than differences; shared goals for people of color rather than counterproductive, I, me, mine agitation . And it informed the encompassing, status-quo challenging aesthetic strategy that Portillo has carried with her throughout her subsequent body of work.

Columbus on Trial Columbus on Trial (1993), Portillo's collaboration with the Chicano comedy group Culture Clash, is an irreverent Quincentennial fantasy that imagines putting the famous Italian explorer up for literal historical judgement. While the political critique of the humor is firmly in the historical theatrical tradition of old time carpas and '60s actos, the look of the film is cutting-edge in terms of its use of projected video for more implicit cultural commentary.

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... on the Portillo Influence continued from page 13

SometimesMy Feet go Numb When: Tuesday, 9:30 pm Corpus When: Wednesday, 7:00 pm Columbuson Trial When: Sunday, 1:00 pm Where: U.A.Theatres Horton Plaza

Sometimes My Feet Go Numb

This short video film experimental hybrid is an expressive and moving interpretation of a poem by the same name by African American poet Wayne Corbitt. The piece utilizes dramatic, wide-angle shots of the poet's various body parts over his autobiographical restrained voice over detailing the physical and psychological effects of AIDS drugs on his body. Portillo's combination of non-Latino subject matter as well as her inventive approach to form demonstrate her willingness to challenge cultural as well as documentary expectations.

Corpus

This Tejano film opens with a shot of a Japanese mural and words from Rene Tajima-Pena.

Audacious once again in its transgression of Latino film the opening also works on a thematic level, telling the larger story of how Selena, in her death, was/is truly something to everyone . Like Lourdes is. It's no wonder she's found herself here.

Corpus is a groundbreaking new documentary on legendary Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla.

Lourdes Portillo calls Corpus "my most Mexican, Chicano, Tejano film to date; it's community-

A scene from Las Madres, a documentary film for which Lourdes Portillo and Susana Munoz received an Oscar nomination.

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based, talking about subtle things like color and representation."

A sensitive exploration looking into the almost coltish fascination of the post-Days Inn Selena, the documentary, among many other things, embodies the self representing power of unmediated storytelling. Of telling the unique story about a Tejana by a Chicana.

With Corpus, Portillo goes deep into the familiar People Magazine/Entertainment Tonight level of mythmaking that has 'til now simplistically represented the famous singer's story of fame and death. Among the complex Tejano/Latino issues Portillo explores are musings on body image among Mexican American women; of the empowering self worth Selena's unique career gave to young brown girls everywhere; and, of course, a true life folk tale told from a specific region of America rarely heard from.

Portillo's fascination into the media frenzy of Selena's death set the stage for this latest project.

"Corpus was devised as a tape to say certain things about Selena, with no frills whatsoever," Portillo says. But for a dynamic visual stylist such as Portillo - one who decorates her office with Wong Kar-Wai film posters - "no fancy cameras" is a relative term.

"It's a purely Tejano piece," Portillo says. "This is not a film for Sundance, or those other festivals, this is more a film for us, for ourselves as a Mexican American community."

With this latest doc, Portillo continues a two decade long filmmaking struggle to "be that kid that came to this country (from Mexico), that wants to explain herself to the white people ... of trying to make sense of who I am and make them understand the jewel of what my culture is."

"With Corpus," Portillo told me, "I want to say that there was a deeper story than the one being regurgitated by the mainstream media. About an unsophisticated girl and her unsophisticated father and about how as much as he wanted money and wealth he didn't know, ultimately, how to protect his daughter in the most sublime way. He allowed evil to enter the picture."

Jim Mendiola is a free -lance journalist, filmmaker, and Tejano-based member of the new Chicano intelligentsia .

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A Tribute to LourdesPortillo

Opening Short Film - Barbacoa (1998, 24 min., Video, USA) Directors: Mike Cevallos & Gibby Cevallos Barbacoa presents a charming look at one Tejano family as s~en through the eyes of its youngest son. A tribute to a Sunday morning ritual and the typical suburban Chicano childhood, Barbacoa is filled with humor and small precious moments, culminating in the all-important Sunday meal.

From the morning newspaper route to church and to a game of street Barbacoa. baseball, this film reminds us that culture is transmitted, almost unobserved, through the small simple occurrences of an average day. - Victor Payan, writer and independ ent filmmake r.

From Here To There (1998, 41 min., Video, Documentary, USA) Director: Maria Teresa Rodriguez From Here To There is a refreshingly new way to look at the age old issues of family and identity. We are all tugged by the desire to know who we really are, and who our fathers are. From Here To There takes it one step farther by raising questions and issues about being bi-racial, in this instance Irish and Colombian .

A Day Without a Mexican (1998, 28 min., 16mm, USA) Directors: Sergio Arau & Yareli Arizmendi Serious issue raising filmrnaking can be fun; A Day Without a Mexican makes that very clear in its 28 minutes of mock investigative reporting . What would it be like if there were no Mexicans in California?

From Here to There.

The Apple Is Delicious .

The Absolution of Anthony .

The Absolution of Anthony (1998, 13 min., 16mm, USA) Director: Dean Sloter The Absolution of Anthony is a provocative film about an adolescent boy coming to terms with his feelings of desire for members of the same sex. This dif~icult p~ocess of selfdiscovery is heightened by the frustrations he experiences while making erotic, anonymous telephone calls. These frustrations are compounded by a lack of pri~acy _at home, awkward interactions with a sympathetic local priest (Victor Garber), and alienation ~om the other youths in the neighborhood. There is also a power struggle between ~thony, his ~andfathe~, and his Latino heritage - a heritage that traditionally embraces machismo and reJ~cts se~sitivity or perceived weakness in males. It is against signific~t o_dds that ~thony 1sba~ling for acceptance, both from others and himself. - Joe Ferrellz, dzrector,FtlmOut San Diego.

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Corpus: A Hom e Movie f or Selena (1999, 47 min., Video, USA) Director: Lourdes Portillo Corp us is brilliant, intense, visceral, and certainly one of the warmest documentaries about Latinas ever made. Corp us makes us think about Selena in a whole new way. Was that really what she looked like? Is that really her smiling out at us from the tour bus in this video? Lourdes Portillo makes us realize that when Selena was killed at that Days Inn f;, . .

-~*-, everythmg changed . We charged backwards :_:i-f~ ;.:: ~---into our collective brown psyche . The differ- · · ' ence Corp us shows us is that as Mexican Americans we also charged down into our hearts for answers to what life deals us and for the answer to the tragedy of Selena Quintanilla. .I'~ ..

The Apple is Delicious (1998, 13 min., 16mm, USA) Director: George Reyes . . .

In The Apple is Delicious we visit the heart of George Reyes. t.lis beautiful fil~ mixes poignant questions about growing up new in this culture, questions that all children of color have, with heartbreakingly beautiful filmmaking . This film is delicious.

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Wednesday, March 10th

7:00 pm - Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena (Film Sponsor: Sempra Energy)

5:00 pm -The Portillo Influence

See page 13.

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• Chile: Obstinate Memory

Influ ence is a strong order to put on someone; Infl uence me, teach me, entertai n m~. Director/Art ist Lourdes Portillo has strongly influenced the new La tino fi lm movement. She has made it L~urdesque. In paying homage to her the San Diego Latino Film Festival did not want to f reeze her work m ~ mom~nt, our festiva l, but to show that her work breeds and breathes. The w~rks we hav~ chose~fo~ our tribute nzght all reflect the sensibilities that Portillo has brought to the Latzno aesthetzc. Tonights lms_all share Portillo 's love of Jun, love of color, and love of self in .film. Her works are all self-consc ious m the best sense of the phrase, she trusts her taste and her style. The 1999 San Diego Latino Fi~m Festi~al is proud and lucky to pay tribute to Lourdes Portillo. Thank you Lourdes. - Fred Salas, Festival co-director.

An article by Jim Mendiola

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Corpus (Bidi bidi boom boom)

An article by Deborah Martin See page 18.

9:30 pm - Chile : Obstinate Memo ry Chile: Obstinate Memory (1997, 52 J, min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Canada) Director: Patricio Guzman In Chile: Obstinate Memory, director Patricio Guzman returns to his native country to screen his long-banned film The Battle of Chile. While in Chile, Guzman films the sometimes agonizing reaction of survivors of that dark period of Chilean history plus the startling awakening of a new generation of students who must all come to grip with the horrors of the past. Chile: Obstinate Memory beautifully combines questions of memory with raw emotion. It is a powerful viewing experience.

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Chile : Obstin ate Me mory.

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(Bidi bidi booin booin) Tribute to Lourdes Portillo The Portillo Influence

Corpus When: Wednesday, 7:00 pm Where: U.A.Theatres Horton Plaza

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by Deborah Martin Bidi bidi boom boom ...

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K, so maybe Selena's songs didn't have the most intellectually engaging lyrics around.

Bidi bidi boom boom ...

And maybe she wouldn't have been invited to pack up her gaudy bustiers to take part in Lilith Fair, had she lived to see Sarah McLachlan give birth to the ovary-centric tour.

Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi boom boom ...

But her place in pop culture is probably more assured than that of the music industry princesses who lived to see the sun come up April 1, 1995, partly because she didn't, and partly because of her fans. Four years after the president of her fan club gunned her down in a Corpus Christi hotel room, scores of fans still flock to the Texas town to visit her home, the boutique that sells her clothing line and her grave. In Lourdes Portillo's new documentary, Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena, they share the spotlight with her. Portillo paints an affectionate portrait of the slain Tejano star and her somewhat troubling legacy.

The film opens with the images that first brought Selena to the attention of many English-speakers: Gritty shots from Spanish-language news-crews of her killer, Yolanda Saldivar, in a stand-off with

police after the shooting, followed by shots from the funeral.

Portillo pointedly pulled footage from Spanish stations.

"She wasn't so well-known by most Americans," she said. "Spanish stations really focused on ¡ her (death). Americans glossed over it, and were kind of cavalier about it."

Portillo herself didn't know much about Selena until the murder. But, as anyone who has seen her other work can attest, Portillo knows a good story when she sees one. And this one has enough raw material to launch dozens of fairy tales and soap operas: Selena, whom many believe was on the verge of almost unprecedented success on both the Spanish and English charts, goes to a hotel on the outskirts of her hometown to confront Saldivar, the manager of her clothing store. There have been financial improprieties, and Selena's family has advised her to fire Saldivar. Some believe Saldivar had a crush on Selena, which might explain why Saldivar responded so passionately to her impending dismissal. (The possibility of prison time if she had, indeed, cooked the books might have been a factor, too.) Saldivar tries to take her own life.

Selena tries to stop her, and the gun goes off.

Selena bleeds to death, Saldivar goes to prison and Selena's fans grieve for years.

Given all the juicy details, it's surprising there haven't been thousands of documentaries and bio pics, authorized or otherwise. ("Otherwise" is

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Two frames from Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena.

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Selena's tombstone.

A scene from Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena.

probably more likely, given her family's notorious protectiveness of her image.) Gregory Nava's glossy Selena is hardly definitive, as Corpus demonstrates.

Portillo spent a year on the film, drawn to her subject by the obvious story elements, by Selena's enduring appeal to poor Latinos and by the dichotomy of her legacy. The contradictions crystallize perfectly at the Tejano Academy in Corpus Christi. Young Latinas with dreams of their own shots at stardom speak emotionally about her death, confessing they couldn't even listen to her music afterward because it upset them too much.

They also say Selena showed them blonde hair and a fair complexion aren't required for success -- an important lesson that would be saluted without reservation had it not come from a woman who made her living in outfits a hooker might covet.

The barbed side of the lesson is illustrated in shots of pre-pubescent girls waggling their still-developing hips while singing songs of passion and desire.

Writer Sandra Cisneros builds on those images during an informal gathering of Latina scholars .

Cisneros says she thinks Selena stood for some dangerous ideals. Nevertheless, she bought a Selena key-chain because it was the first time she had ever seen a Latina other than the Virgen de Guadalupe memorialized like that. It seems Latinas (or any other minority, for that matter) have to take their role models where they can find them if they seek them in the American mainstream. Selena's message, good and bad, probably reached more impressionable minds than the works of the accomplished Latinas tossing back margaritas in the film. (Portillo is doing her part to even the score. She's putting the finishing touches

on a film about the dinner, which anyone who sees Corpus will definitely want to check out.)

Portillo draws a snappy parallel between the young Latinas' sentiments and those of a Latino drag queen who "does" Selena in his act. (Even in San Antonio, where Cisneros is a prominent member of the community, you're unlikely to find a keychain stamped with her face, much less a drag queen with an impression of her.) The young man says Selena's fame allows him to express pride in his culture by playing a prominent Latina entertainer rather than sticking to more traditional (read: Anglo) drag icons.

The shots of him padding his pantyhose and the girls vamping with their microphones underscore the film's title. "Corpus" means body, and Selena's body was part of her appeal -- not just because she was sexy, but because she had fuller hips and a pronounced rear end. She showed her fans you don't have to be a stick to be sexy.

Selena herself moves through the film via video and home movie snippets. Hearing her sing lends a strong sense of loss to the film, another masterful work that fits well into the Lourdes Portillo. Photo by Lori Eanes.

Portillo pantheon.

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Deborah Martin spent one year working at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, two blocks from Selena's memorial. She now is the assistant arts editor at the San Antonio Express-News.

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• Baile Perfumado • Amor & Cia

Real Film - Brazil • DocesPoderes

Thursday, March 11th

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T h u r s d a y

T h u r s d a y

7:00 pm -Baile Perfumado (Film Sponsor: Sempra Energy)

5:00 pm - Doces Poderes

Opening Short Film-Decisao (1997, 18 min., 35mm, Portuguese wl English Subtitles, Brazil) Director: Leila Hipolito Decisao is gleefully polite filrnmaking that is interesting for the chances it doesn't take but rather lets the leading man take. The chemistry between the leads, the love of soccer, and the clever soundtrack are wonderful.

Doces Poderes (1997, 98 min., 35mm, Portuguese w/ English Subtitles, Brazil) Director: Lucia Murat Director, Lucia Murat, brings her background as a Brazilian journalist into focus in her second film Doces Poderes (Sweet Power). Bia (Marisa Orth), TNA Branch Director, heads the news coverage of the gubernatorial race in Brasilia. As the race unfolds, two candidates take the lead. It is upon the covert interactions with race, sex and money that the candidates, their marketing strategists and news journalists trampoline for power.

Never mind the political issues of the day. Murat cleverly approaches the infrastructure of the political campaign. How each person responds to their work within a campaign is a constant question. As each candidate is further revealed, each of those people must pause and decide how to respond. The boundary of what is right or wrong keeps shifting depending on who you are or what you want. Chico (Antonio Fagunes) heads the opposition's campaign, and Alex, (Tuca Andrada) is Bia's chief news writer. The vague romanticism between the two men and Bia serve as an underscore to the thin ice of committing to anyone or anything. There is one scene in the movie that makes this for mature audiences only. By Eloisa de Leon, independent video/filmmaker, and executive director of the San Diego Dance Alliance.

Baile Perfumado (1997, 93 min., 35mm, Portuguese w/ English Subtitles, Brazil) Directors: Lirio Ferreria & Paulo Caldas In the 1930's in Brazil, a Lebanese photographer and filmmaker sets out to find a legendary and elusive bandit. Using truth and finesse, the photogra pher manages to interview the bandit as well as film him in his private life. Baile Perfumado is an intelligent mix of docu-drama and good old fashioned cops and robbers.

Thursday, March 11th .

Baile Perfumado.

9:30 pm - Amor & Cia Amor & Cia ( 1998, 100 min., 35mm, Portuguese wl English Subtitles, Brazil) Director: Helvecio Ratton In Brazil, at the end of the 19th century, Godofredo Alves, a rich businessman, finds his beloved wife Ludovina in the arms of his partner Machado. From that moment on Alves' world collapses and his life changes into hell. Amor & Cia tells in a goodhumored way the story of a man who is betrayed by the people whom he trusted.

He is a man tormented by a dilemma: what is more important in life, fight for one's love or defend one's own honor?

Amor& Cia.

Marisa Orth in Doces Poderes (Sweet Power).

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-------------IA------------

Sempra the efforts

Energy is proud to support of Centro Cultural de la Raza.

That 's why Sempra Energy is a spon sor of the

th e way in a restructured energy industry;

6th Annual San Diego Latino Fihn Festival - a

offering customers a full menu of en ergy-

cultural program highlighting the works and

related products and services. Its subsidiary

achievements of Latino filmmakers.

companies provide an array of energy solutions -

To find out more about Sempra Energy

Sempra Energy; San Diego's newest Fortune 500

for customers at home and abroad .

1

visit our website at www.sempra.com.

energy holding company, is leading

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f'Ysempra ~Energy

~NationallyAwardedPublication

~Diego's

leading Hispanic Newspaper

El Latino is the most efficient way to reach the Hispanic market , with more than 178,000readers every w eek Member of:

¥ National Association Hispanic Publication NAHP ¥ California Hispanic Publishers Association CHPA

AMERICAN AIRLINES IsPRouo ToSPONSOR THE SANDIEGO O FILM FESTNAL.

¥ San Diego Hispanic Chamber of Commerce SDHCC

AmericanAirlines ® American£~

SanDiego To find out more about American, visit us on the web at www.aa.com American Airlines and American Eagle are marks o f American Airlines, Inc. American Eagle is American 's regional airline associate.

Classified- Editorial-Subsaiptions

Tel. (619)426-1491 Fax (619)426-3206 e-mail: ellatino@pacbell.net

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1Mexico, Mexico!

La Vendedora de Rosas

• Fibra Optica Friday,

Vendedora de Rosas (1998, 35mm, 129 min., Spanish w/ English Subtitles, Colombia) Director: Victor Gaviria Lady is only 13 and already a rebel against the world. She has created a world of her own in the street and pluckily fights to hold on to the little she has: her girlfriends, all kids like her, her drug-dealer boyfriend, her dignity and her pride. She makes concessions to no one. On Christmas Eve, as on any other night, she is selling roses to make a living and to indulge in the dream of a holiday complete with fireworks, trying on new dresses and going out with her boyfriend. But life once again brings her face to face with loneliness, drugs and death. Lady embodies the hidden face of a merciless city 1 Medellin, a city like any other, where street children who have no place in this world fritter away the futile days of their lives.

• Santo Luzbel

Co-Presented by: Mexican Cultural Institute of San Diego and IMCINE.

5:00 pm - La Vendedora de Rosas (Film Sponsor: Sempra Energy)

March 12th

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Opening Short Film - Sistole-Diastole (1998, 20 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Mexico) Director: Carlos Cuaron The loteria of life gets played out splendidly in Cuaron's film. The light -as-magic-dust cast features Selma Hayek, Roberto Sosa, and the luminous Lumi Cavazos.

Fibra Optica ( 1997, 100 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Mexico) ·• Director: Francisco Athie Fibra Optica is a political thriller but it is also a love story set in the world's largest city, Mexico. The characters live within a complex electronic web. Fibra Optica takes place in a Mexico in which the modemz-~:=~~ =~ ization of communication media and computer sci- Roberto Sosa and Lumi Cavazas in Fibra Optica. ences has become a tool of power and intimidation in an atmosphere of social and economic crisis. Our cities were transformed from streets, cafes and bars into a vast network of telephones, fax machines, and e-mail. As we acquire more tools to stay in touch we speed farther and faster into isolation and beyond.

9:30 pm - Santo Luzbel Opening Short Film - Sin Sosten (1998, 4 min., 35mm, Spanish w/ English Subtitles, Mexico) Directors: Rene Castillo & Arturo Urrutia Sin Sosten is the comfort food of animation film.

It is spry, wild, darling and features some of the best animation ever seen in a short film.

Santo Luzbel (1997, 99 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Mexico) Director: Miguel Sabido A group of Indians from the village of Yohualichan try to present a dialogue - play dedicated to San Miguel, but an intolerant priest who considers it an act of blasphemy, prohibits the presentation. The Indians refuse to accept this decision and lock themselves in the church. The confrontation seems to be inevitable. Santo Luzbel features members of the Nahuatl Theater Company.

Vendedora de Rosas.

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March 12th

7:00 pm -Fibra Optica

La, Vendedora de Rosas.

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Friday,

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Noticias

San Dieao ~utda~ia

IS PROUD TO SUPPORT TH£

SAN1>1£GO LATINO FILMFESTIVAL

Lunesa Viernes6pmy 11pm

1,10KBNT-TV UNIVISION

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San Diego Museum of Man, Gil Auditorium

Special Screenings at

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Saturday, March 13th

• Adventures of a Catholic Atheist

San Diego Museum of Man,

U .A. Theatres, Horton Plaza

Gil Auditorium - Balboa Park(see p.4 for location) Saturday, March 13th

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• Discovery 3

1 :00 pm - Discovery 1

4:45 pm -Adventures of a Catholic Atheist (work-in-progress) San Diego Museum of Man - Gil Auditorium.

Running for Bogota (1998, 60 min., Video, Documentary, USA) Director: Odile Iralson In Colombia, a country wrought with drugs, violence, and rampant corruption, a singer and a housewife decide to throw a wrench in the political machin e by running for political office. This is their story.

Work-fu-Progress: A Rough-Cut Viewing and Discussion with Director Adventures of a Catholic Atheist (Work-in-Progress, 90 min., Video, USA) Director: John Mendoza It's the mis-education of Martin, played by Carlos Leon, who decides to tell his family that he no longer believes in God. He decides to drop this emotional bomb on Christmas Eve, you do the hyper-fanatic Catholic family math . Adventures is a brave new film in the making that tells it's audience to join us in the here and now. The performances are engaging and the dialogue smart and funny. Aye, but it's Tia Patricia, played by Karmin Murcello, who steals the film. William Freidkin and The Excorist have nothing on Tia Pat.

Batadania ( 1998, 50 min., Video, Documentary, USA) Director: Megan Mylan Batadinia explores music as means of Running f or Bogota . protest for the children of Banda AfroReggae, an African-Brazilian youth drum corps from one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent slums, or favelas.

Carlos Leon in Adventures of a Catholic Atheist.

5:30 pm - Discovery 3 (Film Sponsor: Sempra Energy) U.A . Theatres - H orton Plaza

Batadania.

Afternoon in the Park (1998, 20 min., 16mm, USA) Director: Mike King This afternoon in the park is no trip to the park of the idyllic American small town, but rather a trip to the dangers of modern day urban life. The young man in this story is confronted with violence and fear, but maybe more importantly he is confronted with having to make a crucial moral decision that could shape the rest of his life.

3:00 pm - Discovery 2 The Doub le Life of Ernesto Gomez-Gomez (1998, 56 min., Video, Documentary, USA) Director: Gary Weimberg Double Life is a biographical documentary/self-portrait of a MexicanAmerican -Puertican teenage boy who learns that he is adopted and that his biological mother is a Puertican revolutionary hero and political prisoner in the U.S.A. Ni Aqui Ni Alla ( 1998, 26 min., Video, Documentary, USA) The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez-Gomez .

Director: Nora I. Cadena Ni Aqui Ni Alla follows a day in the lives of Latino street vendors and musicians roving San Francisco's Mission District. While focusing on the resourcefulness of some undocumented workers finding work at a time when California grows increasingly intolerant offoreigners , the film explores the emotional toll of being caught between two disparate countries.

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Neto 's Run (1998, 20 min., 16mm, USA) Director: Alfredo de Villa Neto is just trying to survive and save enough money to bring his family to New York to be with him, but the obstacles seem endless and increasingly more horrendous .

Will Neto sell his soul for what he wants, and who will pay the price?

Neto's Run.

Mi Abuela (1999, 24 min., 35mm, USA) Director: Albert G. Caballe ro It is always terrific to see a strong Mexican American story that is steeped in tradition but also realistic about the difficulties of life today. MiAbuela is that story. Mi Ab uela is a beautiful film with gorgeous photography, and fine acting . Mi Abuela shows us that in the Mi Abuela.

Mexican American culture, maternity is still everything.

Ni Aqui Ni Alla.

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Chris Rodriguez in Afternoon in the Park.

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Closing Night Celebration -

Closing Night Celebration -

A Tribute to Gregory Nava

Buena Vista Social Club

7:00 pm - El Norte: A Tribute to Gregory Nava Co-Presented by Latin Heat- The Latino Entertainment Industry Trade Publication

9 :30 pm - The Buena Vista Social Club

Saturday,

The Buena Vista Social Club (1998, 90 min., Documentary, 35mm, USA) March Director: Wim Wenders In 1996, Ry Cooder gathered together some of the greatest names from the history of Cuban music to collaborate on the best selling and Grammy winning album The Buena Vista Social Club. This ground-breaking documentary directed by Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, City of Angels), inspired by the album, includes appearances by legendary performers Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Compay Segundo and many other renowned Cuban musicians. Awardwinning recording artist Ry Cooder has composed the musical score for several Wim Wenders films including Paris, Texas and The End of Violence. Wenders now turns the camera on Cooder and his friendship with these legendary musicians. Excited by these colorful characters and their extraordinary music, Wim Wenders traveled to Havana, Cuba to chronicle the cooperation and camaraderie between Ry Cooder and his veteran friends - now known in Cuba as Los Superabuelos (the Super Grandfathers) - as well as their dazzling sell-out concerts in Amsterdam and New York's Carnegie Hall in April and July 1998. Wenders explains that he had no concept for the film other than trying "to do justice to this wonderful, The Buena Vista Social Club. warm, miraculous yet altogether real music." "Music is a treasure hunt," says Cooder "you dig and dig and sometimes you find something. In Cuba the music flows like a river," continues Wenders, "I want to make a film that'll just float on this river. Not interfere with it, just drift along."

Gregory Nava set the mark for Latino film with El Norte . Since then he has continued to be a leader in the Latino film movement. In many ways his films tell the stories of our lives.

In Mi Familia we felt like we were finally being celebrated at a big Mexican-American cinematic pachanga; and in Selena, Gregory Nava gave us a contemporary fairytale complete with the absolute mark of '90s culture, the obsessive fan and the slain idol; but this time they were raza. More than once I have heard young Latino filmmakers say that they wanted to become filmmakers because of Gregory Nava and El Norte. So Gregory Nava is responsible not only for the beaut(ful work that he has given us, but also for the beautiful work that his inspiration will give us. - Fred Salas, Festival co-director.

El Norte ( I 983, 139 min., 35mm, USA) Director: Gregory Nava Over 15 years after it first appeared in the movie theaters, San Diego Latino Film Festival is proud to provide the San Diego/Border Region another opportunity to experience this remarkable film on the big-screen. El Norte is an emotional saga of a brother and sister who leave their violence -tom village in Guatemala to find a better life in the United States. After receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant on strategies for traveling through Mexico, they make their way by truck, bus and other means to Los Angeles, where they try to make a new life for themselves. A compassionate, heart-rending, and unforgettable film, El Norte was nominated for an Oscar at the 1985 Academy Awards for Best Screenplay.

9:30 pm - Closing Night Party & Dance 21 & Up. Party goes 'til 2 am.

Location: 4th & B (345 B St., San Diego)

Two hot live Salsa groups: • From Los Angeles, Orquesta MC#l led by veteran Cuban band leader Mazacote.

• And San Diego's own, Pablo Mendez y la Charanga Renaissance.

David Villalpando as Enrique in El Norte.

David Villalpando and Rodolfo Alejandre in El Norte.

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The Conversation Tribute to Gregory Nava El Norte

When: Saturday, 7pm Where: U.A. Theatres Horton Plaza

by Nancy de los Santos fter each film Gregory Nava has directed since I've known him, we've had what I call The Conversation. It begins with Greg saying, "That's it. My last one. I'll never make another movie."

After principle photography of El Norte (1983), after editing A Time of Destiny (1987), after My Family, Mi Familia (1995), Selena (1996), and Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998) we've had The Conversation. Greg shakes his head and says, "I won't go through it again. Your every hope and dream is met with unimaginable obstacles and disasters. This is my last film. I'll never make another movie." I listen. I commiserate. I argue, laugh, and say, "You'll never stop making movies, Greg, simply because you love them."

The joy we experience when a movie actually moves us, is unpredictable and priceless. Many of us have experienced that joy soon after reading the words, "A film by Gregory Nava". So where is the source of this joy, of this love of storytelling? I have a theory. Greg is one of the most well-read

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Edward James Olmos and Becky Lee Meza in Selena, directed by Gregory Nava.

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I've seen Greg's films with audiences in theatres across the country. I've seen his films with Hollywood studio executives, and grassroots community organizations. I've seen Greg's films with an audience that included the Southwest Education Voters, the National Hispanic Congressional Caucus and the President of the United States. At all these screenings, our stories, our history, our images were met with laughter, cheers, tears, pride, and probably most important of all - recognition of self.

Greg Nava loves Latinas . He's created some of the most memorable Latina characters in contemporary film. El Norte has both "Rosa" and "Nacha", two strong-willed women from different worlds, bonding together with hope and friendship and love. "Maria" in Mi Familia is the bravest Latina set on celluloid, and "Tony" is "the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood." As a Latina, "Tony", personifies a woman's love for her community, her family, and in the end, her man. In fact,

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she loved her man so much, she gives up her religious calling to be with him. That's one strong Chicana. With Selena he celebrated the remarkable life and undeniable talent of a shooting star, along with the unconditional love between a daughter and father. Greg also almost singled-handedly launched the campaign for all Latinas to love, and rejoice in their bodies resulting in what can only be describe as "the age of the beautiful big buttLatina".

Greg loves our history. The repatriation so many Mexican families experienced during the '30s was for a very long time, "our own "dark little secret".

Up to that time I, like so many other Chicanos, had only heard the story at family gatherings : Since told in Mi Familia, it now belongs to the world. He loves our music. Listen to haunting sounds of Los Folkloristas in El Norte, listen to Los Lobos in Mi Familia, or anything from Selena and you'll feel it.

My friend Danny De La Paz once said, "Latinos continued on page 34

' Gregory Nava.

and near-to-genius people that I've known. He knows something about everything. Opera, world history, environmental politics, medieval battles, gourmet wines, Buddhism, baseball, boxing, and Greek mythology - to name a few. But get him on a subject of anything Latino, and his face lights up with this great love and passion for his culture, and our lives. Simply put, Greg loves our stories, our language, our families, our shared and distinct histories as a diverse Latino community. And it shows.

I've sat in screenings of Mi Familia and marveled at the sight of men of all ages and types: grown men, young vatos, hardcore cholos, working class men, white collar businessmen, union leaders, and little boys - crying in the dark. Crying at the images of their families, wives, sisters, hermanos, primos and themselves reflected on the silver screen. Cryin g for the character's and therefore their own predicament, joy, or epiphany. I've sat in Sunday matinee screenings of Selena filled with wailing babies and crowded with beautiful brown faces of little girls watching their heroine, their history, and therefore themselves on the screen.

This is the gift Greg has given to all of us - a realistic image of ourselves, sixty feet high.

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... The Conversation continued from page 33

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realize Greg is writing their history, our history, in shadows and light, and they love him for it." Walk with Greg Nava in any city with a sizable Latino population and you will see him approached by someone Latino, be it Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban , Central or South American, rich, poor, educated, drop out , beauty queen or storekeeper. They stop to tell him how much they enjoyed El Norte, or Mi Familia, or Jennifer Lopez, as Selena.

Selena. They tell him how his films affected them, or their tia, or their mother, or Greg's love for filmmaking is only surpassed by how it is their family's story, or even how they his love for his family, for his sons Christopher and would have told the story. They do this because Teddy, for his long time partner Anna Thomas, and they trust Greg will listen to them. They do this for his gente. I believe his love for the movies because they claim Greg as their own; after all, springs from those around him, offering the perfect environment to create films and movie images that he's one of us.

Movies we love leave us with a haunting image or so many Latinos can embrace and cherish, and in a distinct feeling that can return without a moment's the end, love.

Greg's love for the movies and his gente was notice, quite similar to cupid's arrow. From El Norte many may remember the harrowing and horrifying nurtured during his childhood in San Diego by his rat tunnel scene. Some may remember the washing parents Betty and Rudy, and his brother John (the machine scene or the "learn to talk like a Mexican" accomplished artist and sculptor). His extended scene. Say El Norte, and I see Rosa's face as she disfamily lived on both sides of the border which was covers her mother missing, the very essence of her then only a little more than a checkstop. Greg replaced by a flock of butterflies. Mi Familia is basispent as much time in Baja California as he did in cally about love. A family's love for each other, for California. His first film was made on 8 mm and their culture, as they discover what they will sacrititled The Day Everyone Disappeared. I don't fice for each other, what they will give, and take think the film has a Latino theme, but if viewed from each other. And in the end, it's about one today, I'd bet we'd witness the beginnings of what man's love for his woman, his wife, his family. I would grow into a lifetime love, and result in some close my eyes and see "Maria" in the river with her of the Latino community 's most beloved films.

"A Film by Greg Nava" means you'll feel somebaby, I see "Jimmy" walking down a street in East L.A., and dancing salsa with his new wife. Selena is thing good, you'll laugh and cry, and you'll leave with hope in your heart . It means you'll see a love. The love of a father, the love of a husband, the movie that will allow you to look into your soul, love Selena had for her community, and how much and into his heart. After each film he finishes, I've they loved her right back. In what must be considcome to expect The Conversation. But I know ered one of Hollywood's great entrances, I'll always Greg Nava will never stop making film, because remember Selena being met with an ocean of love Greg Nava loves the movies. And, we the audiby fans at Houston's Astrodome. And yet, I think it is Eddie Olmos' "It's tough to be a Mexican ence, all share in that love.

American" speech that I love the most, because it -14 Febrero, 1999 makes me love myself!

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s u n d a Family Day

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• Atomic Blue • Aventurera Sunday, March 14th

• Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver

Family Day Co-Presented by: San Diego Union-Tribune

5:30 pm - Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver

Opening Short Film - Columbus on Trial ( 1993, 19 min., Video, USA) Director: Lourdes Portillo Festival Tributee Lourdes Portillo's 1993 video is a satirical courtroom clash over the issue of Christopher Co]umbus. It is visually stunning and still today, very fresh, sick silly fresh. Features Culture Clash.

Sunday, March 14th

Opening Short Film - Santo Golpe (1997, 35mm, 11 min., Animation, Mexico) Director: Dominique Jonard A charming animation piece about a holy heist in Chiapas. The language is unique, as is the voice of this piece created by the children of this region.

1:00 pm -Atomic Blue

Rafael Robledo as Atomic Blue Mexican Wrestler.

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Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver (1997, 90 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Mexico) Director: Juan Pablo Villasenor Five elderly men form a music group and dream of playing for a live audience. A concert for friends at the nursing home where they live is not exactly what they have in mind. They escape from the nursing home in search of their dream. Along the way, they confront the city, nursing home authorities, the police, their family and everyone else who is determined to destroy their only chance to perform. Finally, it seems like life is too good to be true when they are hired to play musical backup for a group of strippers in a run-down nightclub. A compelling, funny and moving film, Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver is about lite, death, and the quest for happiness.

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Columbus on Trial, directed by Lourdes Portillo.

Atomic Blue Mexican Wrestler (1998, 127 min., 16mm, USA) Director: Richard Salazar Atomic Blue brings a time honored tradition, the Mexican wrestling film and drops it in modern day Los Angeles. The story is pure hero fodder as a young Mexican American boy goes desperately searching for a hero to save all the days. He finds Atomic Blue, a Mexican wrestler. Blue is running away from his past but as long as he is wearing that blue mask he must always fight evil. The film skips along at break-neck speed thanks to a vibrant soundtrack and exciting wrestling sequences. Sometimes we have to suspend belief and just get sweeped up in a film, and in the case of Atomic Blue, we won't be sorry.

Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver.

3:30 pm -Aventurera (Film Sponsor: Sempra Energy) Opening Short Film - Cuba 15 ( 1997, 12 min., 16mm, USA) Director: Elizabeth Schub Tzunami, a small town Cuban girl celebrates her 15th birthday and brings us along for the wild dance. Tzunami and this film will utterly charm you and literally dance their way into your heart.

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Aventurera (1949, 93 min., 35mm, Spanish wl English Subtitles, Mexico) Director: Alberto Gout Aventurera has been lauded as the quintessential cabaretera, the melodramatic musical films made popular in 1950's Mexican Cinema. Starring the legendary Ninon Sevilla as Elena, a schoolgirl in Chihuahua City living a seemingly happy life. When Elena comes home one day and discovers an unexpected devastating situation her charmed life starts a downward spiral that ends up in Elena's warped cabaret stardom. Along the way there are jewelry store heists, failed romances, mistaken identities, and fabulous musical numbers. This film is a must see and a very special presentation of the 1999 San Diego Latino Film Festival.

Ninon Sevilla (right) as Elena in Aventurera.

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Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver.

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The Crisis in Public Television

by Chon A. Noriega UCLA Department Film and Television

atino programming on public television is in a state of crisis, due in large part to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which defunded the National Latino Communications Center (NLCC). Established in 1974, the NLCC operated as a consortium that funded, distributed and promoted Latino-themed programs on public television. The recent defunding raises questions about NLCC itself (for which it must stand accountable); but the way in which CPB has handled the situation suggests a far more troubling fact: Latinos remain excluded from public television across the board. In addition to the persistent underrepresentation of the Latino community, CPB has now held up Latino production funds for two years while it has rebuffed requests from the Latino community and its producers to enter into a dialogue about establishing a new or reformed consortia. CPB is operating as if Latinos were not part of the public that provides its funding and makes up its audience base, let alone produces its programming !

How we got to this impasse goes back nearly a decade to the Public Telecommunications Act of 1988, which increased minority funding and created the Independent Television Service (ITVS), both as a result of an aggressive lobbying effort by independent producers for greater access and more diverse programming. In particular, Congress earmarked $3 million per year out of the CPB Television Program Fund for the production of national minority programming, while it also required tha: CPB file an annual report on its provisions of service to minority and diverse audiences. Starting in 1991, then, one third of these production funds went to the minority consortia ($200,000 each), which had previously received only administrative support from CPB, and the remaining $2 million went to a Multicultural Program Fund. Overnight, the consortia went from program syndicators dealing with individual stations and regional groups to program producers working with PBS and other national organiza-

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tions. But the production funds for each consortia amounted to less than the budget for a one hour documentary; the consortia mission was systemic, but the resources meager. Congress also established ITVS - against the wishes of CPB and PBS - with a $6 million annual budget for independent productions for public television. But, as Patricia Aufderheide notes, "it also replicated traditional organizational problems by putting CPB in charge of ITVS, ...and by perpetuating public television's financial agony." These limited concessions, then, signalled a "crisis of mission" within public television that would only get worse.

With its share of annual minority production monies, the NLCC established a program development fund that included a re-grant program with the New York-based Latino Collaborative as well as a Latina screenwriters grant. But by the mid1990s, with increasing loss of federal funding, the NLCC looked for "self sustaining streams of revenue," staking a claim as an "investor" in its funding and distribution activities. NLCC Educational Media created a video distribution service that not only became self-sustaining, but rapidly expanded at a time when other distributors were downsizing or folding. The NLCC Video Collection targeted both the educational and home markets, bringing together Latino-themed documentaries, short narratives, independent features, and forgotten "classics" from the Hollywood studio era. NLCC Educational Media also became involved in merchandising, most notably around the four-part NLCC documentary series, Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (1996), selling a CD-ROM, educator's kit, companion book, T-shirts, baseball caps, and a poster.

NLCC also established an archive with over 5,000 videotapes and 200 reels of film, including the KMEX-TV collection documenting the past three decades in Los Angeles.

The pressure to privatize reflected a conflict within CPB toward the minority consortia: on the one hand, CPB wanted to minimize if not eliminate the impact of the consortia on its budget; on the other hand, CPB wanted to maintain control

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For more information on the conference mentioned in this article contact: Chon A. Noriega UCLA Department of Film and Television 405, Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095

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... Crisis in Public Television years. Another group addressed the need to reform the NLCC (as "our own institution") and to reclaim the $1.2 million infrastructure support that CPB had committed for NLCC but never delivered. These two groups represented nearly one hundred independent producers, station producers, curators, media advocates, policy analysts and academics. But CPB did not respond to either group; nor did it seek input from other Latino organizations. Then in November 1998, CPB selected Edward James Olmos as head of an interim organization. Olmos, a celebrity-actor with good intentions, commercial ambitions, and limited experience with public television protocols, represented a third option between independent producers and "our own institutions." CPB 's option: a publicity coup that denied Latino producers equitable participation in public television. Since that time, the two Latino producers groups have joined in protest of CPB's failure to engage and support Latino producers, establishing political alliances and calling a national conference to be held in San Francisco in June 1999. The conference will establish the parameters for an institution defined "by" Latinos rather than "for" Latinos.

If I end here with a glimmering of hope, it is that producers have an opportunity to enter the larger political and policy arena within which public and commercial media operate . Oddly enough, that arena has become somewhat more representative than the media itself. There are more Latino political actors than dramatic ones! And the roles might be better, too ....

over the consortia rather than have them become autonomous or semi-autonomous entities as in the case of ITVS. Most CPB monies go direct to PBS and stations; the remaining monies (six percent of the total budget) cover the general program fund and minority consortia. In other words, the consortia allocations represent a significant percentage of the funds which CPB itself controls. In 1994, the minority consortia negotiated with Executive Vice President Robert Coonrod (now President) for a $5 million allocation that would increase production monies and allow the consortia to build "capacity" or infrastructure. In the process , the Multicultural Program Fund was shutdown in protest after failing in its mission to fund minority-themed programs. Starting in 1995, its $2 million allocation was turned over to the consortia, thereby tripling their production monies ($650,000) and nearly doubling their administrative support ($350,000).

But the consortia never received the monies to develop capacity .

For its part, NLCC's production of the Chicano! series during its rapid expansion resulted in both merchandising opportunities and managerial challenges. In the end, NLCC alienated its constituen cy - in part due to a lack of follow-up and services, in part due to personality conflicts - while the day-to -day operations ran into financial mismanagement. In Fall 1997, the CPB Office of the Inspector General conducted an on-site audit that resulted in the grand jury indictment of NLCC's former business manager, who then pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud during 1995. The audit documented various inappropriate expenditures as well as conflicts of interest with respect to the board, then presented twenty procedural recommendations to be implemented by the executive director and board. But CPB's response appeared more predatory than procedural. In March 1998, NLCC shut down since CPB had withheld funding for over a year. CPB then made reinstatement of funds contingent on the firing of Jose Luis Ruiz as executive director. Even after Ruiz was removed, however, CPB continued to withhold funds, plac ing Latino production funds in limbo throughout 1998.

In the interim, a Latino producers coalition approached CPB seeking the release of the production funds that had been frozen for nearly two

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Readers turn to The San Diego Union-

Tribunefor information about leisure activitiesthroughout the San DiegoTijuana region. A sponsor of the Latino Film FestivalFamilyDay on March 14,the Union-Tribuneis the best source for regional news and entertainment.

Sources: Aufderheide, Patricia. "Public Television and the Public Sphere ." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 8 (1991): 168-183.

Baxter, Kevin. "Groups Voice Concern Over Funding for Latino Programming." Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1999, F2, Fl5.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reaching Common Ground : Public Broadcasting's Services to Minority Groups and Other Groups. A Report to the 103rd Congress and the American People Pursuant to Pub.L. 100-626. July 1, 1994.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Office of Inspector General. Operation Audit of the National Latino Communications Center. Audit Report No. 9802. March 31, 1998.

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www.sdLatinoFilm.com ...youryear-round connectionto currenttrendsand the latesthappenings in LatinoCinema!

Televideo San Diego is proud to be a sponsor of

San Diego Latirio Film Festival 1999 l Felicidades !

I Interviews withfilmmakers I Articleson LatinoCinema I Linksto Latinowebsites I Upcoming screenings I CallforEntries2000 I Pressreleases I Filmreviews

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The Absolution Of Anthony Dean Slotar A NakedBaby Production P.O. Box 20039 New York, NY, 10025 tel: 500-346-6541 mobile: 917-774-2193

Adventures of a Catholic Atheist John Mendoza 6404 Hollywood Blvd. Ste.327 Hollywood, CA 90028 tel: 323-464-7168 e-mail: MendozaEnt@worldnet.att.net

Afternoon in the Park Mike King 234 Ainslie St. 3rd floor Brooklyn, NY 11211 tel: 718-599-9265 (NY) tel: 213-883 -1615 (LA)

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Batadania Megan Mylan

El Norte Nava Films

tel: 415-821-4336 e-mail: meganmylan@aol.com

1041 N. Formosa Ave. Ste 8.

Los Angeles CA, 90046 tel: 323-850-3155

Buena Vista Social Club Artisan Entertainment 157 Chambers St. New York, NY, 10007 tel: 212-386-6866 fax: 212-577 -2890 e-mail: pcambell@artisanent.com

Chile: Obstinate Memory First Run/Icarus Films 153 Waverly Pl. New York, NY, 10014 tel: 212-727- 1711

Columbus on Trial Lourdes Portillo See Xoch itl Films

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Paulina

Fibra Optica Francisco Athie

Turbulent Arts 673 Oak Street #1 San Fransisco, CA 94117 tel: 415-552-1952 fax: 415-552-3620

From Here To There Maria Teresa Rodriguez 1320 S. Alder St. Philadelphia, PA 19147 tel: 215-467-4417 fax: 215-467-4417 e-mail: marait@astro.ocis.tem ple.edu

Running for Bogota Odile Iralson Brown Hats Productions 3629 38th St. NW #302 Washington, D.C. 20010

Santo Golpe Dominique Jonard

La Ciudad North Star Films c/o Echo Lake Productions, LLC

See IMC/NE

See IMC/NE

Santo Luzbel Miguel Sabido

Amor& Cia Helvecio Ratton See Riofilme

See Xochitl Films

213 Rose Ave., 2nd floor Venice, CA 90291 tel: 310-399-9164 fax: 310-399-9278

The Apple is Delicious George Reyes

Cuba 15 Elizabeth Schub

La Vendedora De Rosas Victor Gaviria

See IMC/NE

636 Greenwich St. Apt 808, New York, NY 10014 tel: 221-443-4828 e-mail: GEORGE1372@aol.com

188 N. 8th St. Brooklyn, NY 11211 tel: 212-791-0319

9359 Wilshire Blvd Beverly Hills, CA 90212 tel: 310-550-10 85 fax: 310-550-1182

Sistole-Diastole Carlos Cuaron

9107 Wilshire Blvd . Ste. 750 Beverly Hills, CA 90210 tel: 310-275-2429 fax: 310-275-8849 e-mail: luchador@earthlink.net

Aventurera Michael Donnelly Shadowfax Film Co. INC 2307 Douglas Rd 5th floor Miami, FL 33145 tel : 310-455 -2810

Baile Perfumado Lirio Ferreria & Paulo Caldas

A Day Without a Mexican Sergio Arau & Yareli Arizmendi P.O. Box 46877 Los Angeles, CA 90046 tel: 213-935 -0634 fax: 213-935-4188 e-mail: artnaco@primenet.com

Doces Poderes Women Make Movies Inc. 462 Broadway, Ste.500 K NY, NY , 10013 tel: 212-925-0606 e-mail: orders@wmm.com

See Riofilme

Barbacoa Mike & Gibby Cevallos

The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez Gary Wiemburg Luna Productions

214 N orthhaven, San Antonio, TX 78229 tel: 210-342 -4872

3411 Irving St. San Francisco, CA 94120 tel: 415-661-4666

See Riofilme

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Sin Sosten Rene Castillo & Arturo Urrutia

See IMC/NE

Sometimes My Feet Go Numb Lourdes Portillo

MiAbuela Albert G. Caballero Knightmare Pictures

See Xochit l Films

930 Figueroa Terrace, Suite #446 Los Angeles, CA 90012 tel: 213-482 2173

Film Companies

Neto's Run Alfredo de Villa

Riofilme Praca Floriano

62 West 45th St. 3rd floor New York, NY, 10036 tel: 212-768-7600 fax: 212-768-8505

19/14 Andar Centro Rio de Janiero , 20031-030 Brazil tel: 55-21-220-0790

Ni Aqui Ni Alla Nora I. Cadena November 20 Productions

Decisao Leila Hipolito

1812 Page St.# 4 San Francisco, CA 94117 tel: 415-666-0205 fax: 415-831 -8934 e-mail: nov20@sirius .com

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Por Si No Te Vuelvo a Ver Dominique Jonard See IMC/NE

See/MC/NE

Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena Lourdes Portlillo

Atomic Blue Mexican Wrestler Richard Salazar

www ..cloud9ehuttla.com

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IMCINE Tepic #40 Mexico, D .F. 00760 tel: 525-574 -4902 fax: 525-574-0712

Xochitl Films 981 Esmeralda St. San Francisco , CA 94110 tel: 415-646-1614 fax: 415-642-1609

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