“Díme: Your $0.10”
Media possesses an immense amount of power. So then the question begs: as Latino multimedia-makers is it incumbent upon us to champion subjects and causes impacting our community? Paola Mendoza is an accomplished filmmaker and author who has made this a way of life. As the U.S. wrestles with the 99% vs. the 1% or legislative immigration reform vs. Executive Order; she has positioned herself as lead actor, director, screenwriter and author in touching myriad social issues. After all she has demonstrated that art is social policy and beckons her audience to explore through her curiosity. Born in Colombia and passionate about her Latino culture, she has proven that as storyteller you can successfully navigate in and out of your culture, as well as through those of others in telling universally appealing tales that respect and embrace others’ humanity.
Everyone has a dream in this country. Yet she is well aware that not everyone has attained theirs. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film she converts this power into shining the spotlight on humanizing the struggles of others. From documentary to U.S.-produced Spanish-language film and social campaigns, she takes time from developing a television pilot for an HBO series on a Dominican family in northern Manhattan for an interview at a PRIME LATINO MEDIA Salón in New York City.
Paola Mendoza & Tio Louie
It seems most of your film projects tackle social issues, whether it’s poverty, the plight of inner city Black and Latinos, incarceration, domestic violence and immigration. Are you inherently an advocate who weaves social messages into your media productions?
All of my work has a social message and I’m proud of doing it. I don’t have the privilege to just entertain. I have seen those communities struggle. My family has struggled, I have also, and I now have the privilege to tell these stories.
When I first saw the immigration short you directed, Broken Tail Light, I questioned the choice of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, formerly of Sopranos, as lead actor in a hypothetical Latina role, but as a non-Latina – only to learn that she is a Juban (Cuban-Jewish). What is your thought-process in casting when you insist that you don’t necessarily like to typecast and are determined to throw the net as wide as possible when injecting social messages? By the way, I have to laud you on casting Heaven King, as her daughter in the role of a biracial child to a Caucasian-looking mother?
Jamie-Lynn’s mom is Cuban. Her grandmother came on the Mariel boatlift. She is Latina and is not necessarily something that most people know.
What I think is important within the immigration debate – while obviously Latinos in the U.S. are the ones most affected by immigration and immigration reform – is that there’s also a large population that is not Latino and that are immigrants. I think that what happens sometimes when we’re dealing with these issues is that we need to look at causes strategically. For immigration reform to happen we are going to need a lot of allies who are not just from the undocumented community. We are going to need allies that are immigrants from two, three, four generations back – and that means sometimes non-Latinos.
The America that we’re living in today, I believe, is an America that is diverse in ways that we couldn’t have imagined 25-30 years ago. That means we can have a woman that you really don’t know what she is racially. She may be Latina. Maybe she’s white. She could also have a black child and we don’t question that any more. What I’m talking about in being strategic is going beyond what initially would be the obvious choice, which would be to cast what would be looked at as a Latina, to talk about an immigration story. We have to get those allies and go beyond a particular community in order to push that change that we want – change for immigration reform that we so desperately need in this country. Did I cast a Latina? I feel that it was a choice that came from being strategic.
Broken Tail Lights (3:07 mins)
How was it for a Latina who is not black to make Autumn’s Eyes, a documentary film about three generations of African-Americans in an inner city Jersey City community through the eyes of a three-year-old?
I think it’s always difficult to go into a community and tell someone else’s story. It’s not the first time I’ve done it. I have done another short narrative film that I wrote last year called, Half of Her set in the Chinese community and done in Mandarin. I also did it in a documentary that I directed called, La Toma, which took place in Colombia, but was comprised of Afro-Colombian stories and obviously that’s coming from an outside perspective, as well. It’s always difficult and you can never approach it the same way. But the most important thing is being aware that you’re telling someone else’s story. So the question I ask is, “How can I do that the most effective way possible?”
“Half of Her”
In the case of Half of Her, a Chinese tale, I obviously did a ton of research, because the film dealt with female infanticide, which is also a touchy subject in of itself in the Chinese community. As part of my research, I interviewed women from a shelter in Queens who had left abusive relationships and were recent arrivals in the United States. I also had a Creative-Cultural Consultant on set to ensure that everything was culturally appropriate. For instance, I have a perfect example. Our production designer had put some calendars on the wall that she had picked up in Chinatown with Mandarin characters. Before I shot the scene, I brought in my consultant and I asked if everything looked right. She looked up and noticed that this one calendar in particular was only put up during X and Y holidays and that I had to take it down. Things like that were important, but she also read and gave me creative notes around the script and dialogue.
This was one extreme when I don’t know the culture nor speak the language. The other extreme is Autumn’s Eyes when we’re talking about a story that is being told through the eyes of a black family in New Jersey and specifically, in Jersey City. While the story is of a black family, the story is being told through their eyes and the issues of this family in particular are the universal issues essentially around poverty. I don’t necessarily need a Creative-Cultural Consultant from this perspective. In this story, I myself can be that sensitive person who is aware that I am a bridge to tell these stories. I’m not trying to interpret the story, but I’m just trying to allow those characters to co-literally walk over me to get their stories out to the world. Yes, there’s a debate about interpretation. I have to edit. I choose certain things that end up in the story, absolutely.
I don’t believe that certain people in certain cultures have ownership over their own stories all the time. I say this all the time, because there has been a history of people going in and appropriating other people’s stories, telling their stories and not doing them justice – and doing the people a great disservice. I am very cognizant of that happening. I just don’t feel that we as a society, as a culture, as a people should then lock up our stories and say, “They’re only for me to tell.” And I’m sure this is a sensitive subject, but I think that if you are the only one telling your own story, sometimes you won’t get that outside perspective – which can be beneficial and helpful in pushing your story out to a larger audience. I’m saying this because I have also been on the flipside where as a Colombian, people have come in and told my story from Colombia and done us a great disservice and I get very angry and frustrated. I’m left feeling that I want everyone to leave my stories alone, to get out of my country – and thinking aloud, “What are you doing here – these are not for you to tell.” But I also realize that sometimes it’s important for others to tell these stories.
For instance, case in point, is the documentary feature, Marmato that won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival by someone from the U.S. (Mark Grieco) who told a story set in Colombia. Of course, a Colombian should have told that story – 100%. But in this case, this guy came in, was able to get the story done because he had the ability, the equipment, the access – whatever it was. He told this really important story. So do I think because he’s not Colombian he shouldn’t have told the story? No, I think he has the right and he certainly has the obligation to tell that story. You just have to do it respectfully – compassionately. He has the right to tell it, yet to be aware that you are telling someone else’s story.
It’s not for the faint-hearted to go in and tell another culture, another person’s story. I think if you’re doing it well and if you’re doing it right, there’s a lot of responsibility – it’s a lot of stress that you put on yourself, because I can speak from experience. I want to make sure that I’m doing it right and I want to ensure that I’m doing the story justice. I don’t want to be that person that goes in and appropriates the person’s story and takes it away from them and makes them worthless – that is not sensitive to give them the voice they would have wanted spoken.
For me, every film whether it’s from my culture or not, is really important. I knock on wood when I say this. I am especially touched when subjects featured in a film that I have made that are outside of my culture agree with the finished product. When they have approved and they say that I did them worthy – that I was worthy of doing their story – I think that’s important.
Even with the film that I am doing right now in Colombia that tackles issues related to sex and gender-based violence in connection to the armed conflict, A Paso de Mangles (Steps from the Mangroves) is set in an Afro-Colombian community that is not my story, that is not my experience, but I’ve done a lot in order to make sure that those women whose story I’m telling have had a say in how their story is told. The subject-matter in this story is essentially rape is a weapon of war. It’s a fiction film.
I celebrate your making the successful feature film, Entre Nos (Between Us). But I especially laud you on making a Spanish-language film in the United States in stacking the odds a little higher against you when marketing an independent film for distribution? What was the reasoning that went into making that decision?
What is truthful to this story and film is that it had to be told in Spanish. There was never a question about making it in English or Spanish. It was always going to be made in Spanish, because it was what the film required.
Being aware of the business side of the film industry in the U.S., we also knew we had to make the film for as little money as possible, because that would made the market smaller and more strategic. We made that film for pennies because we wanted to be truthful to the film. By allowing it to made for much less than most people want to make their first film, we were able to be truthful and that truth resonated throughout the film. That is why this film has had such a long life and an amazing one.
This little film has done outstandingly well on Netflix and it’s on Netflix in Latin America. I can’t tell you how many people I talk to within the Latino community and beyond, that love the film, support and relate to it – even if it’s not their personal story. They understand the story from the perspective of what the mom is going through by being an immigrant.
I think that’s an important thing about art that if your choices are rooted in truth, then ultimately that’s going to reflect in the final product. This also goes for my PSA on the immigration project that was also rooted in truth and because it was rooted not only in reality, but rooted in artistic truth in just three minutes, we were able to be so impactful.
TIO LOUIE/Louis E. Perego Moreno
President of Skyline Features is an interactive content producer and educator who for the past 33 years has owned a bilingual (English and Spanish-language) multimedia and educational production company developing documentaries, television programming and advertising commercials featuring Latinos, Blacks, Women, Urban Youth and LGBT. He is also the Executive Producer of PRIME LATINO MEDIA, the largest network of Latino multimedia-makers and actors in the metro-New York area that gather once a month to interview proven leaders in the community.
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