REEL RASQUACHE CELEBRATES U.S. LATINO FILMMAKERS MAY 5-7

Cal State L.A. film festival to host 25 screenings, awards, ‘Ra?ces de Sangre’ tribute

Calendar listing:

What: 2006 REEL RASQUACHE: 3rd Annual Festival of the U.S. Latino Experience in Film & Art, with classic films, premieres, features and shorts in various genres by national and international independent filmmakers focusing on the diversity of the U.S. Latino experience.

When: May 5-7, 2006

Where: Luckman Intimate Theatre; California State University, Los Angeles

Cost: $9 general, $5 students/seniors per program; $20 day pass; $20 reception programs.

Details: (323) 343-4207, www.reelrasquache.org

Cal State L.A. film festival to host 25 screenings, awards, ‘Ra?ces de Sangre’ tribute

LOS ANGELES, CA - Tributes to legendary actors and filmmakers, screenings of classic films - including the 1931 Spanish-language “Dracula” - and premieres of ground-breaking new works will highlight the Reel Rasquache Festival of the U.S. Latino Experience in Film & Art at California State University, Los Angeles May 5-7.

The third annual exhibition, to be held in the Luckman Intimate Theatre on campus, is the first exhibition forum on the West Coast - and the only one in Southern California - to focus exclusively on the U.S. Latino experience in film. Offering independent U.S. Latino filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their work, the three-day festival this year will present more than 25 films and videos, along with music performances, filmmaking panels, art displays and an awards gala.

An opening-night tribute screening will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Jes?s Salvador Trevi?o’s landmark film “Ra?ces de Sangre” (”Roots of Blood”). Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo will receive the festival’s Pioneer Award; and actor Lupita Tovar, who starred in “Dracula,” will be honored for her career in film.

According to Festival Director John Ramirez, “The festival is especially designed to involve Cal State L.A.’s neighboring communities of East Los Angeles and to bring a broad base of grassroots, professional and academic community members together with U.S. Latino film and video independents and industry representatives.”

Trevi?o’s “Ra?ces de Sangre,” produced in Spanish with English subtitles, depicts factory working conditions along the Mexico-United States border. The film remains vitally relevant, said Ramirez, chair of Cal State L.A.’s Department of Communication Studies. A question-and-answer session with Trevi?o will follow the screening.

The print of “Ra?ces de Sangre” is archived at UCLA, a gift of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and the Consulate General of Mexico. Its screening is generously supported by the Fox Entertainment Group, the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Ramirez said.

Reel Rasquache’s Pioneer Award will honor Portillo for the innovation and excellence of her documentaries. Born in Mexico and identifying with Chicana culture, Portillo has created films that focus on the search for Latino identity, Ramirez said, citing a richly varied range of forms, from television documentary to satirical video-film collage.

Portillo’s latest work, “Se?orita Extraviada” (”Missing Young Women”), is a human-rights documentary about the mysterious killings of young women in Ju?rez, M?xico.

Tovar, the Career Award honoree, began her work in Spanish- and English-language films in the 1930s. She has appeared in more than 30 films, including the 1931 Spanish-language Hollywood production of “Dracula,” which was filmed on the same set during the same period (but at night) as the English-language version that starred Bela Lugosi. Her credits also include the films “East of Borneo” (1931) and “South of the Border” with Gene Autry (1939). Her last feature film, “The Crime Doctor’s Courage,” was released in 1945.

In 2001, Tovar received a Special Golden Ariel, the Oscar equivalent at the Mexico Premios Ariel; and recently she appeared in the documentary “Hedy Lamarr - Secrets of a Hollywood Star” currently in release in Europe.

The festival’s name relates to the term “rasquachismo,” often used to define characteristics of Chicano/a cultural practices and a bicultural sensibility. In her essay “Domesticana: The Sensibility of Chicana Rasquache,” Chicana writer Amalia Mesa-Bains put it this way: “In rasquachismo, the irreverent and spontaneous are employed to make the most from the least… one has a stance that is both defiant and inventive. Aesthetic _expression comes from discards, fragments, even recycled everyday materials… The capacity to hold life together with bits of string, old coffee cans, and broken mirrors in a dazzling gesture of aesthetic bravado is at the heart of rasquachismo.”

On Saturday afternoon, a Reel Rasquache panel discussion titled “Horror, Superheroes, Latinos, Oh My!” will feature Latino filmmakers and production companies discussing the title’s genres, along with animation and current and upcoming films.

Sunday afternoon’s panel will focus on “Personal Mobile Media Content and Distribution (Podcasting).” It will feature filmmakers working in the medium, and experts in the technology and distribution outlets.

Tickets to individual programs are $9 general and $5 for students and seniors. Day passes and tickets to reception programs are $20 each. For details, call (323) 343-4207 or visit www.reelrasquache.org