For directors Joel Juarez Sanchez and Alberto Barboza, both UCLA
alumni, box-office success is the last thing on their minds.
Their films received numerous awards this summer, including a
shared award for Best Short at the Los Angeles Latino International
Film Festival. Sanchez’s “Pelea de Gallos”
received a Director’s Guild of America award and won Best
Short in the San Diego International Film Festival, and Barboza
received a UCLA Director’s Spotlight award for his
“Premeditation.”
But while going mainstream might not have been these two award
winners’ first priority, Sanchez and Barboza were recently
presented with an opportunity to widen their range of exposure more
than they could ever imagine.
Their two films, Sanchez’s “Pelea de Gallos,”
and Barboza’s “Premeditation,” aired on premium
cable for the first time Wednesday night on Showtime and will
continue to run throughout the month of October as part of a
special Latino Filmmakers Showcase series.
“We’re definitely in a transition, a change of
becoming more present and more aware,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez and Barboza have collaborated since they began the
graduate division of the Master’s in Fine Arts program in
1997, and continue to support each other’s work. While they
may have different approaches, both seek to represent the Latino
culture in the most faithful way without selling out to the box
office.
“Pelea de Gallos,” set in Acapulco, Mexico, is about
a man who is in conflict with his true self and the
“macho” world of cock-fighting. This film is actually a
metaphorical reflection of his own choices as a director facing the
stigma of Hollywood, says Sanchez.
“I was in a fork when I shot this film,” said
Sanchez. “Did I want to enter the commercial Hollywood world
or continue my trajectory and cover themes and issues important to
me that wouldn’t become a box office success? It was that
difference between entering this big world, what I saw as the
“˜macho’ world, and being true to myself.”
With American box-office hits having infiltrated Mexico and the
rest of the world, it had proven difficult for any regional films
to garner attention. Sanchez and Barboza seek to modify this
reality through positive cultural exchange.
“Film has become a way to colonize other cultures, to
suffocate them,” said Sanchez. “In Mexico, 95 percent
of the movies playing at any time are U.S. films. I’m not
making films only for Latinos, but also to start pushing back from
this choking effect by other films to say, “˜Hey world, here
we are!’ I’m trying to share Mexican and Latino
culture, the faces of our people, with the rest of the
world.”
Seeking to maintain an honest code of representation, the
directors consider the specificities of their culture as essential
to depicting the true nature of Latinos.
“Premeditation,” based on a one-act play by Evelina
Fernandez, consists of a conversation between a married woman and
the hit man she hires to kill her husband, wherein tempers flare
and the two redefine their contract. Barboza recreates the cultural
nuances of middle-aged Chicanos while telling this romantic
tale.
“I want to share this story with the public in
general,” said Barboza. “But I’m hoping that
I’m honest and true to our experience as Chicanos in this
country, and that the Chicanos will appreciate the particularities
within my film. I wanted to allow actors to be who they are, to
speak with the regional accents that they have, not to hide
them.”
Professors, many who have served as mentors to the students in
the department, agree with their efforts to depict their culture as
faithfully as possible.
“What’s so wonderful about (Sanchez’s) films
is that he creates a tone first, and he’s very
consistent,” said A.P. Gonzalez, head of production and vice
chair of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.
“The films are being shot in Mexico, where he was born, and
where he still goes back as often as he can. He gives us something
original about his culture that we hardly get to see. He’s in
the place where he can put together American financing and Mexican
talent. He will be one of the people that will bridge the two
cultures.”
Sanchez, having worked closely with Gonzalez, agrees that the
sharing of Latino culture is vital to the growth of diverse modes
of cinema.
“Alberto and I will be one of the ones to say that Latino
culture in the United States needs to start being shared with the
entire world, and that we are doing it already through our
films.”