Monday, February 27, 2006
Nuestras Raíces: Tucson becoming locale for indie filmmakers
POLLY HIGGINS
Tucson Citizen
Tucson is a film-rich town.
The large productions may pass us by these days, but for every big project plucked it seems an ever-growing number of small independents pop up.
Not only is our humble 'burg home to plenty of filmmakers, but we have a number of festivals to showcase them as well. One of the relative newcomers is the three-year-old - and free - Nuestras Raíces Literary Arts Festival, which seeks to encompass many aspects of Mexican-American culture.
"Screenwriting is another type of writing, and I'm really interested in all types of playwriting, so to me, it seemed like a natural connection," festival co-coordinator Helen Gutierrez says. "What pleasure you can derive from a play or a video or a film, and also you can learn a lot."
Nuestras Raíces ("Our Roots" in Spanish) opens Friday evening at the Fox Theatre with a homage to the late Lalo Guerrero, a Tucson native and the much-heralded "father of Chicano music." Saturday events at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library and its plaza include storytelling for children, a reading from author Demetria Martínez, Centro Cultural de los America's annual Tamal Festival, artists such as David Tineo selling works and much more.
The film program at The Screening Room, organized by Claudia Jespersen and Giulio Scalinger expanded this year to two days, Saturday evening through Sunday.
"We just say we want it to reflect the Mexican-American experience," Gutierrez says.
Debuting at the festival is "Luis Mena: Monumental Works," a documentary about the local muralist that's been three years in the making. Pueblo High Magnet School teacher Pam Shapiro has shepherded the project through various classes, with 17-year-old Jem Valdillez a constant on the 30-minute video.
Less than two weeks before the premiere, Valdillez was working in a dimly lit room, making final edits.
She laughs when an extreme closeup of Mena's eyes appear on the computer screen.
"We were messing around with some of the effects."
Shapiro's love of documentaries pairs nicely with her goal for students such as Valdillez: "I want to get the kids out in the community."
Her students are - she hopes - on course to finish a half-hour look at South Tucson past and present by the end of the semester.
For Valdillez, the film program has allowed her to investigate a potential career.
"I want to go into editing. I haven't decided if it's commercials or bigger projects," the teen says. "I like putting stories together."
Salpointe Catholic High School grad Jason Aragón, who pursued his passion for the artform at the University of Arizona, has two entries in the festival. Both short documentaries, "Bring Down the Walls" chronicles the local activist organization of the same name and "@ Work" follows Aragón's dad through a day as a mail carrier on the Northeast Side.
"I've been noticing a nice growth of independent film in Tucson," Aragón, 28, says.
Part of that can be attributed to such groups as Pan Left Productions, a collective that offers training and equipment usage. Aragón joined it a year ago.
Anthropologist Mary Charlotte Thurtle was trained through Pan Left, and her first completed film, "Quince Años (Fifteen Years)," screens Sunday. She's also working on "Roller Girls," about the Tucson Roller Derby league.
The nonfiction "Quince Años" contrasts two quinceañeras, one in the rural rainforest of Panama, one in Tucson.
Though there were similarities in the coming-of-age celebrations, such as the tradition of the young woman sharing her first dance with her father, says Thurtle, 44, "the most striking difference is the different economic situations. . . . In Panama, we have footage of people carrying benches to the party so they'd have some place to sit."
Trained through Access Tucson, Tucson native Angela Soto, 45, is another member of Pan Left focused on females in her short "El Día De Un Muerto (A Day of A Dead)." After attending her first Day of the Dead procession in Tucson three years ago - costumed as renowned Mexican painter Frida Kahlo - Soto decided to chronicle the celebration, which led to this story about a young girl who rises from the grave to visit her mother.
Soto's goal, she says, was to capture the meaning of the Day of the Dead and celebrations such as the local procession.
"It's really that love never dies," Soto says.
Soto, who has been making films "off and on" over the past decade, will debut the feature-length "Mia's Journal" at the Wingspan Film Festival March 12.
The journalist creates in her spare time, which is the case with many locals filmmakers.
Edgar Ybarra, 25, is a cameraman in Telemundo's news department. He filmed and edited the fictional "El Silencio de Miguel (Miguel's Silence)" over four weekends.
In Spanish, with English subtitles, the nine-minute story finds the title character in the midst of a mystery.
"I'm really proud that it's been selected," Ybarra says, adding that "El Silencio," which debuted here at last spring's Arizona International Film Festival, is his first film to be screened for the public. "It definitely won't be the last."
Ybarra created the short with his own camera and on his laptop, but, if all goes as planned, he should soon have access to Pima Community College's resources when he returns to school to take more film classes.
Former PCC student Francisco J. Landin Jr. misses those resources as he wrestles the logistics - many of them financial - for a film made outside the womb of a college program. "Santo Paseo," his entry in Nuestra Raíces, was done as part of a cinematography class, where he had some 20 fellow students as crew members.
The Mexico City native says he's committed to maintaining an aesthetic that draws from Mexican art and cultural traditions. A script he hopes to produce, the 26-year-old says, draws upon "an Aztec belief that during disastrous times, people will change into birds to escape."
That project lacks monetary backing, but he's hopeful as he networks outside of school.
"I'm getting some support from NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) and people out in the community that I've met just by going to screenings," Landin says. "The Hispanic film community is growing and becoming more of a staple here."
