American Pachuco: The Legend Of Luis Valdez has arrived in Gainesville and you won’t want to miss it.
American Pachuco : The Legend of Luis Valdez
Saturday night was transformed into a cinematic celebration with the anticipated screening of the documentary “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez”, written and directed by David Alvarado. The first screening was sold out but the film is showing all week.
The documentary narrates the story of the famous Chicano storyteller, theater and film director, Luis Valdez. During 1965 farm strikes in Delano, California, Valdez founded The Teatro Campesino, a group that performed skits to dramatize the cause of the farmworkers.
Known for the play and movie “Zoot Suit” and “La Bamba”, Valdez transformed the American cultural landscape by bringing Chicano stories from the farm fields to Broadway and Hollywood. Later in his life, he was awarded the 2015 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities by President Obama for “bringing Chicano culture to American drama.”
At the end of the screening, the film received a standing ovation from the Gainesville community. UF professor Rafael Ramirez Solorzano served as moderator for the conversation and said “As I say theater sometimes is very medicinal, when you experience theater, it gives you hope, and fulfill some of your dreams and I just wanted to say, my heart is full to see how you captured this amazing storyteller”.
Director Alvarado joined the conversation virtually and when asked what was the the first thing that he wanted the audience to understand about the life of Luis Valdez, his reply was “the film was always going to be belonging in America.”
Alvarado shared during the Q&A “when I met Luis, I was 21 years old and he told me the story about his life, from being raised as a farm worker, as a migrant family, to creating theater as a tool for social activism. And then going from there to Broadway and Hollywood, as a young filmmaker, he really showed a path that I was really inspired by from a very early age”.
In Alvarado’s words, “the film is about joy, about the love of artistic creation, family and the sense of anybody who belongs in America. Chicanos belong here too”.
We were happily surprised that the film is narrated by Edward James Olmos in the most vibrant voice from his character “El Pachuco” from the play “Zoot Suit”, who is also an interviewee in the documentary together with activist Dolores Huerta and others.
The producer Lauren DeFilippo was also present during the conversation and shared with the audience that many people have been trying to tell Valdez’ story, but he saw something in Alvarado that he said, this is the guy to do it.
A great number of material was collected for the developing of the documentary, DeFilippo added “there was this incredible archive of footage, we rescued over 80,000 feet of undigitized footage for the film and that will go to be available to the public upon release of this film on the internet archives and it’s not only Luis history but it’s really history in America and the history of so many people.”
When asked what was part of making the documentary caused the most emotion, Alvarado said ”it was something that Luis Valdez tapped into, the indigenous roots of the Chicano and how that’s expressed in contemporary American Chicanos and Latinos, other immigrants and those of us that can find the pride in who we are, and declare that we belong here.”
If you’re looking for a night of amazing cinema, storytelling, and a lot of emotions, bring your friends to the Hippodrome Cinema which will keep showing the film until September 6. The film will continue touring independent film theaters around the country.
The visit of producer Lauren DeFilippo, UF professor Rafa Ramirez Solorzano and Director David Alvarado for a panel was the ultimate treat for the audience.
