Please, Don't Bury Me Alive! Q&A | Colin Gunckel, Efraín Gutiérrez, Cristina Ibarra, Chon Noriega

[KJ Relth-Miller] Good evening everyone and welcome to UCLA Film  and Television Archive's virtual screening room. My name is KJ Relth-Miller. I'm a Film  Programmer with the Archive and it is my pleasure to introduce our program this  evening- a screening of "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" ("Por Favor No Me Entierres Vivo!"), from 1976. Today's screening will be preceded by a pre-recorded introduction from Sundance  Award-Winning independent filmmaker Christina Ibarra and will be followed by a post-screening  discussion with filmmaker Efrain Gutierrez and Director of UCLA Chicano Studies Research  Center, John Noriega. That discussion will be moderated by Colin Gunckel, Latina- Latino Media  and Art and Latin-American Cinema historian. This program is presented in partnership  with the UCLA Chicano Research...uh... Chicano Studies Research Center, which was founded  in 1969 as the Mexican-American Cultural Center, with a commitment to foster multi-disciplinary  research efforts as part of the land-grant mission of the University of California. That mission  states that University of California research must be in the service of the state and maintain  a presence in the local community. We would like to acknowledge that this program is currently  being broadcast from occupied Tovaangar land in the greater Los Angeles area. As a land-grant institution the Film and Television Archive at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples  as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar. A couple of quick housekeeping notes before we  get started here- in the event of a technical difficulty tonight you can check the email  address that you used to register for this program... uhm...when you signed up on Eventbrite or you can  watch our social media. Uhm...I would suggest going to Twitter for updates on how to continue to view the  program and you can find us on Twitter @ UCLAFTVArchive. So this program will be archived  here on Vimeo at this same link for repeat viewings and for sharing soon after the end of  this program. This link will be active for one week following this evening's program. "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive" Alive!" ("Por Favor No Me Entierres Vivo!"), is presented in English and Spanish with English subtitles. Captions for today's program, introduction and Q&A will be posted at this  same link within the next week. The UCLA Film and Television Archive is looking at options to make  real-time closed captioning available for future virtual screening room programs. We appreciate your patience as we work to make that possible So I would now like to turn it over to two people  whose impressive and enormously valuable work in the field of Chicana and Chicano and Latina and  Latino film research and scholarship really make them the ideal candidates to introduce this film  program today and discuss the cinema legacy of Efrain Gutierrez- Chon Noriega and Colin Gunckel. Chon Noriega has diverse research interests in film and other arts. He is the author of "Shot In America:  Television, The State and the Rise of Chicano Cinema" and is the co-author of "Phantom Sightings:  Art after the Chicano Movement." As Director of UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center, Noriega actively oversees the most extensive Chicano library and archival holdings in the United States, academic press and ongoing research projects. Colin Gunckel is a historian of Latina- Latino  Media and Art and Latin-American Cinema. His scholarship in Chicano art involves work on  the cultural center self-help graphics and art and early punk from East L.A. In every case Colin Gunckel engages archival and primary sources to rethink both historical narratives of Chicano cultural production and the textual analysis thereof. So I want to welcome both  of you and turn it over to Chon Noriega. [Chon Noriega] Well thank you so much KJ it's always a pleasure  to work with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and it is really a very personal pleasure of mine  to really be able to see this film come before uh... a wider audience through the screening  and I encourage everybody out there uh...when you see this, let people you know...uh...make  them aware that this is available and they'll be able to come back here and see it...uh...over the next week. I'm gonna just offer some more personal reflections on my experience with...uh...recovering this film and working with Efrain before turning it over to Colin and our guest, surprise guest  speaker after him. Uhm...in the 1980s, I was doing a dissertation on Chicano cinema and I thought this  is really simple because there's only...uh...ten films and three of them are missing. The three missing  we're Efrain...by Efrain Gutierrez. They'd been written about. We knew they were...they were made  in south Texas. They were shown throughout the U.S. and it actually done well. They had  outperformed a Hollywood film in one instance. But they were gone and no one could find them. So every time I would go to Texas I would say...uh..."Have you seen Efrain Gutierrez?" And usually the response would be "No" and then  somebody would tell me a fantastical story about where he was or what had happened to him. And  I'd come back to Texas again, "Have you seen Efrain Gutierrez?" And I'd hear an even more outrageous story. And over the years I began to wonder whether I really wanted to find Efrain. [Noriega laughs]. And one day in 1996 after almost, you know, a decade I come home and my telephone has a message and this is when they  were recorded on tape, you know. I press it and it winds back and it's, "Hey, Chon Noriega this is Efrain Gutierrez. I hear you're looking for me." And my first thought was, "Oh my god, he found me." [Noreiga laughs]. Then, then I realized, "No, I'm looking for him." I called him back and we just had the most amazing discussion. He had actually found the print for the film you're gonna see and...uh...he had shown it and said it only broke a few times and so I called up the head of the film archive and he said, "Tell him to stop showing the film. You've got to bring that in." And I call him back and I say, "We need to bring it in. I'll send you a federal  express number." He said, "No, no no. I'll just meet you. Give me your address." He hops in a car with his entire family, his daughter's best friend who lives across the street and the best friend's young  child and they drive to Los Angeles with the film and they deliver it to the archive and we  were often running from there. We found the other two films. He was...we did forensic archival  analysis. He checked with all of his producers and we were able to bring all three films in and  thanks to the Ford Foundation and other supporters we were able to restore them. So that's what you'll  be watching today and I'll just end by saying I got to know Efrain when, when  he stepped out of that car and, and I met him and his family you could never  imagine two people that were more on unalike at face...at face value than Efrain me and as we got to know  each other we realized we were very much the same person and it's been a pleasure getting to know  him and this very dynamic and intuitive way he works. He's probably one of the smartest people  I've met in terms of assessing a cultural moment, knowing the details that make that moment "a moment" and figuring out how to do something that hasn't been done before, like, make a feature film and actually bring it to an audience that is starving for images reflecting their culture. You'll have a chance to hear from us as we discuss and ask questions of him. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm glad you're here watching this film and I hope you really enjoy it. I'm turning it over now to Colin who is a PhD from here and who really worked very closely with the Chicano Studies Research Center on bringing this film forward to the public, Colin take it away. [Colin Gunckel] Thank you so much Chon and thank you KJ. and the UCLA Film and Television Archive for having me today. I'm just going to say a few words about "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" and a little bit of the historical context and then we can follow up in the Q&A for anyone that's interested. It's the first Chicano feature film. "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" is both a landmark and somewhat of an anomaly. As you'll see it doesn't look very much like many of the other productions we associate with Chicano cinema during the period. Many of those focused on cultural affirmation, historical reclamation,  political mobilization and by contrast this film is often gritty, pessimistic and at points unsettling. It was also produced in San Antonio, Texas. Distant from the cultural and political foment on the West Coast which is often assumed to be the epicenter of Chicano art and cinema during  the period but in many ways this film occupies a fascinating crossroads in the history of Latino  Cinema in the U.S. To begin with Efrain spent some time in Los Angeles in the early 1970's during the  height of the Chicano Movement. He was not only impacted and influenced by the Chicano Moratorium  of 1970 and other events but he was also involved quite importantly with Los Otros, which was a  pioneering media advocacy organization founded by Ricardo Montalban and other Latino actors of  the previous generation. Efrain was not only involved in that organization in the early 1970's but in actors  workshops including the one that would become a training ground for Sesame Street interestingly enough. He took these experiences with him once he returned to Texas drawing on generations of media advocacy and activism by Latino's with an eye towards fundamentally altering their  positions both behind and in front of the camera. Efrain was also greatly inspired by the example  of Luis Valdez. Many of you probably heard of him and and the El Teatro Campesino- the multimedia arts organization that worked in  conjunction with the United Farm Workers union. Efrain himself would co-found a teatro group  in San Antonio when he returned. You can actually see this group performing in "Please, Don't  Bury Me Alive!" so keep an eye out for that and he would also be involved, quite importantly,  with the establishment of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio in 1979, which was among the many cultural organizations to emerge from the Chicano Movement. It was precisely this grassroots community-based spirit that informs his filmmaking efforts that relied on family, friends,  collaborators and the broader Mexican-American community of San Antonio, many of them non-actors who appear in the film. The popularity of Mexican cinema amongst Spanish speaking audiences in the  United States at this moment also shaped the film in some rather surprising ways. Determined to become a filmmaker, Efrain asked to apprentice with Mexican director Jose Rico Rodriguez who was, strangely enough, making two Mexican films in San Antonio in the early 1970's- one of them a Mexican  wrestling film. Both of them worth tracking down. And indeed, if you look closely enough, you can see  Efrain performing as an extra in both Mexican films but he was discouraged that Rodriguez was  not living up to his promise to mentor him. So Efrain eventually held some camera negatives  hostage until he had finally agreed to let Efrain shadow him and so a filmmaker was born. Uhm...but it was also the Mexican movie theaters across Texas that eventually became a venue for "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" As Efrain toured around the film with him personally from theater to  theater and at these venues the film was received enthusiastically by audiences that were eager to finally see images of their contemporary reality portrayed on screen. And what did those audiences see? In retrospect and what you're about to see is a film that in many ways is a document of San Antonio in the 1970's. A rich document- the fashion, the music, the politics, the attitudes, the landscape of the predominantly Mexican-American west side and, of course, the language. As a person who worked on the initial subtitles for the film, I had to immerse myself in the Tejano slang from the era and grapple with the film whose official language is a specific brand of San Antonio "Spanglish" with  all its humor and fluid code switching. Luckily enough I had Efrain on speed dial when I  just was completely and absolutely stumped. Uhm...but of course what emerges most forcefully from  the film is a document of the filmmaker and his collaborators struggling against every obstacle  imaginable to alter the cinematic representation of Latino's, to document the limited options  available to a young Chicano growing up in this environment, to connect these limitations  to multiple layers of systematic oppression and to a vision of grassroots film industry on  the shoestring budget. Uhm...it ultimately owes its success in its place in history to the support of  a community hungry for new visions of themselves and it is an enduring testament to  what a group of determined individuals can do in the face of representational erasure  and a lack of opportunity in the industry issues that are in many ways just as pressing  now as they were in 1976. So now I'm pleased to introduce Christina Ibarra who, in many ways,  is representative of a new generation of Tejano filmmakers and the co-director of "The Infiltrators" which is now on demand...available on demand. If you have not seen it, you should. Uhm...and she will continue this introduction of "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" Thank you very much and enjoy the film. I'll see you afterwards. [Christina Ibarra] Hi, my name is Christina Ibarra  and I'm a Chicana filmmaker from the U.S -Mexico border. I've been making films for about 20 years but back in the 1990s when I was a student at UT Austin, I remember that my learning had to come from outside of  the Department of Radio-Television-Film because I was really interested in studying Chicano cinema. Uhm...I went to Jim Mendiola's programming of "Cine  Festival" back in the '90s and that's really when I understood just how overlooked we  actually were as Chicano film students. My friends and I came across Efrain Gutierrez  work at San Antonio's longest running Chicano Film Festival. My friends and I were trying to  make our own Chicano feature film at the time. Learning about Efrain's feature films- how he made  them, how he built his audience from scratch...uhm... how these were not short films but these were feature films. We had to recognize Efrain Gutierrez as the "Father of Chicano Cinema." It was incredibly motivating and  upsetting at the same time because it seemed like there was no interest from scholars or independent  film...filmmaking mechanisms to recognize alternative filmmaking language like Efrain's that  looked at identity and discrimination. Seeing this film "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" recently, I asked myself what does this film offer us today in 2020? How can we recognize the importance and value of counter narratives like this, and of authors like Efrain, without condoning the sexism and racism that was prevalent at the time. "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" asks us to question the morality and colonial practices of our country's legal system. His protagonist, Alex, breaks down the systematic racism that entraps  Chicano's in the United States' "American Dream." What does this film say about the need for radical  action when our public institutions fail us? What does it offer us in thinking about the hustle  to create a Chicano imaginary that is not about assimilation but creates complex, contradictory  and multi-dimensional portrayals. There are several provocative gestures here that seem problematic  today- like the main character's "mujerio" ways, his womanizing and his anti-black sentiments. Yes, there are some elements that are clearly offensive uhm...but that shouldn't take away from Efrain's  challenge to us- to define our identity and our stories in a way that centers us, in a way that these films can be made both for us and by us. The outlaw in this film reminds me that  sometimes you have to break the rules in order to change the rules-whether these  are unwritten social codes or public laws or cinematic grammar. Anyway, thank you  for letting me introduce this important and overlooked cinematic history and the "Father of Chicano Cinema." Hope you enjoy it. Well, welcome to the Q&A session. I hope you  enjoyed the film "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" I have two brief announcements before we start. I'll be moderating the conversation. I'll also probably be participating in the conversation as well but I just had two additional announcements: one, unfortunately Christina Ibarra is not able to join us this evening for the Q&A session so we apologize for that; and two, we'll be starting with a conversation between Chon and Efrain, our guest, uhm...but please do if you have questions we'll uh... we'll, we'll take some questions from the audience. Uh...enter those into Vimeo chat and you can enter those anytime and we'll take those...uhm...as they come. Now but first I'd like to to introduce our esteemed guest. You know him from the film "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" uh...director Efrain Gutierrez. So if this were a theater there would be a warm applause. Good to have you with us. Uh... did you say something about the chats? I did. So entering...entering your questions into Vimeo chat. [Noriega] So, uhm...yeah, so we should start this uh... Efrain it's, it's uhm...that film is, is, it's so amazing and as Colin said at the beginning, it really is distinctive. Can you just say a little bit about how you uhm... What made you do this? Because you were actually working teatro uh... back in the early 70's and then, then suddenly you're making a film, right? Well, it was... just uh...I know that... I...not so much that I attracted me to it but that we saw it happening. And to me I saw it happening particularly in California and my involvement is the need to do a Chicano film. I mean, we'd seen films and, you know, I grew up but uh...like Sabino and I, we grew up like a lot of people disappointed in how we were portrayed. So that was an issue that was already you know, before we went to California. We grew up seeing, you know, uh...uh...for lack of ourselves on film. But uh...when I went to California uh...in my second year or almost third year of college there, I went to East Los Angeles College and that's when I started more or less really feeling that what we need for the Chicano... even though the Chicano culture was with us and the Chicano... word (?) was already popular in San Antonio but, you know, I understood "Chicano" as kind of just... a term that identified to me kind of the tough guys, you know, the not the...so much the "pachuco's" but uh...they were the guys that you kind of respected like [undecipherable] but that's as far as I understood, you know, not the politics or what have you even though I grew up with everything that...that uh... I learned when I started getting involved in the Chicano Movement and when I... got to California and I lived in California uh...I started hearing more about the injustices, you know, in our education. I had not really paid attention, you know. I just assumed that that's the way the world was. We're...Mexicano's...so we gotta get used to the education or the lack of education or the unequal education that we were getting. Like...I didn't really even understand that I went to a segregated school uh...in San Antonio, in Edgewood when I started school. I realized that until not too long ago, a few years ago, that Edgewood, that school that I went to, was actually a segregated school because they segregated based on when you knew...if you spoke English or not. Uh...and this is something that was illegal but this is the way that they were getting away... way after the the Mendez vs. Westminister that happened in California on uh...no discrimination. But uh...they kept students that did speak Spanish...no tests or whatever. If you...they tested, if you spoke English, they would let you go to the first grade. If you didn't speak English you went to "pre"- what they call uh... "pre-primer" or "pre-premer." That's what it was. "Pre-primer," basically, was to get all the kids that didn't speak English or even if you spoke a little bit but if you didn't communicate, I guess, good enough for them they would put you in a remedial group...year. So I started school, like I said, first grade when I was seven years old because when I was six going on seven I was introduced to "pre-primer" in Edgewood Independent School District. And a few years ago that I started looking into it, I said, "Wow, that was introduced, you know, in 1952" was "pre-primer" introduced in San Antonio and I started school in 1953. We would go to school half-day uh...to learn English basically and I already knew how to read in Spanish. I already knew how to write in Spanish. I could translate certain things to the teacher but because I didn't speak good English like most of the kids in the barrio... you know, so we were held back. So, like I said, my education into the political process of growing up, you know, was more with the teatro group and uh...I see Luis Valdez as being very influential because he was...not so much the first teatro but uh... the first teatro that was political. The first teatro that, that was you know, working to organize, especially at the time that uh... the farm workers. And then, you know, then more professor's but I think at the same with, with uh... I give credit to uh...with this guy uh...with uh...a kids show uh... [Noriega] "Sesame Street?" "Sesame Street." Yeah. What was his name uh...Emilio Delgado. [Noriega] Yeah. Emilio. He was the first Chicano on "Sesame Street." And Emilio was uh...one of my teachers. He was at a church there in...in East Los Angeles and then we used to rehearse under the Mexican-American, like I can't remember the term...the name of the group, but he was...he had a TV show there at the time, I think it was a kids show. We had uh... he was an actor. He was, you know, doing commercials. He was already involved in acting. He was called uh... in '70 to go to work in New York with uh..."Sesame street." I remember when he got the series he went to New York and I came to San Antonio. Was it...so was it...so was it he, for instance, and Luis Valdez that... because both of them were involved, I mean, although Luis Valdez began with the teatro and ended up making films and... [Gutierrez ] Right. [Gunckel] uhm...and translating those, those performances to film were those examples influential to you in the in that sense then of moving from teatro to cinema? Well...that, that uh...moving from teatro was, was uh... was more...see, because he wasn't doing cinema. There was really no Chicano's doing cinema and that's what, to me, that I didn't understand why. When I was in California I was trying to be an actor. Uh...and that's when I met when I went to school and I became uh...uh... a student with uh...uh... Ricardo Montalban who had uh... like a school, a theater-art kind of school there, in one of the studios in Hollywood. And uh... the, you know, those...those are the, the... I thought he...I even asked him, "Why don't you make a Chicano movie?" [Gunckel laughs]. And you know, he said, "Well...no, no, no. It's too involved." "You got to worry about the Screen Actors Guild and you got to worry about all these kind of things," which I didn't even know about unions or know anything about that. [Gunckel] Right. You know, I just didn't understand. He's such a famous guy and everybody knows him in California. And then when I met uh...he went to visit us at EMAC (?) uh... the other...Anthony Quinn! He was doing a TV show called uh... "[Something] and the man," you know, or "[Something]..." a TV show that came out in the '70s (?), only lasted one year, but Anthony Quinn did that TV show and I thought... I asked him the same thing, you know, "Why don't you do a Chicano movie?" The term "Chicano" was not used...publicly here uh...in the media at all uh...but in California it was already, you know... what's his name uh... Ricardo Montalban was, you know, [undecipherable] in 1970 when I was out there Chicano uh...creating...uh ,uh...I don't know...a group...a political...uh, uh... something that, that was growing and something that they were not shying away from music but in Texas, even if you said "Chicano," they would automatically change it to "Mexican-American." They would not use the term "Chicano" when they express meanings of life or... most of the newspapers would deliberately not use the term "Chicano." It was to them, you know, radical or offensive, whatever. So, you know, most of the things, like I said, I...I got this stuff from uh...California and Luis Valdez because I asked him the same thing, Luis Valdez, when I met him. You know, I thought he was the most talented, you know, individual I had met at that time. In '72 was when I met...I met him '71 but we ended up performing Teatro Nacional de Aztlan in Costa Mesa in '72. So in '72 I asked Luis Valdez the same thing and same thing, "[Unintelligible] can go bankrupt." Uh...so when I came to San Antonio with Sabino [Garza] we started talking. We had the same ideas kind of... the same anger about lack of films and what have you. You know, our backgrounds...similar uh...and our education, you know. We realized, you know, we were not...we had been left out, you know. We were uh...way behind in our education and I noticed that when I went to California that Texas was like about, you know, at...at that time, you know where I went to high school like [undecipherable] I graduated from like we were like 20 years behind when I went to, to California and saw the high schools there and my cousin and everything. I mean, it was just kind of mind-blowing. I couldn't believe it, you know. The difference from state-to-state. I mean, probably uh... maybe some better districts in Texas but I didn't go to them. You know, I remember going from my district to... [Noriega] So, we have a lot of interest from the audience in terms of uh... the film and some of the issues related to that. I wonder if we can return to San Antonio? Uh...you hooked up with Sabino and uh...you were involved in teatro, can you just tell us a little bit about the process by which you went from teatro to actually uh...make, starting the process of making a film which, I think, took you almost four years before you brought it out? Yeah, well...when we started doing the teatro I thought it would be kind of easy to... to, to switch over, or easier, because see one of the problems that we have with the teatro is that I had like about 40 kids when I had the Chicano theater. I say kids but most were in high school and I was a little bit older than them but I had about 40 kids that would participate with me in San Antonio when we did like a play at the high school or when we opened uh... Guadalupe. We were the first one's to film at Guadalupe [unintelligible]. I mean uh...what became CineFestival. Uh...but...when we...I remember we would go to "callejero's", we started going to perform uh..."callejero's" and when I met Sabino, you know, I just started getting tired because I mean, we kind of had control and I was almost, you know... my girlfriend and I were about same age, a little older, but we were the chaperones and we're trying to control uh... 17...16, 17, 18 year old kids uh... and then when we would go before, like I mean, 40 from here in the play and then we went to performing California and only 12 could go or 8, I think, or 9 all together to perform. So we had to change everything around and then when we went to uh... the "callejero's" like here and we went to Purdue and went to Michigan State and we went...started going to the different universities as a teatro... I mean...it was getting to be such a hassle. That, that's when Sabino and I said, "Well, you know, why don't we film it and, like, forget about all these actors and all these headaches and all these problems of taking all these kids" and you know... and then, you know, a lot of times we didn't make any money. We had to pass the hat and you know... uh...I remember when we went to Michigan on one of our  tours after we've been to Purdue to Michigan State. We performed in Auburn, Indiana...Woodburn, I mean, uh... Defiance, Ohio all over in 1972 and actually we ran out of money and everything they gave us, like, food vouchers and stuff. Uh...we would work, like, half a day picking cherries. I took the theater kids to pick cherries. They were lousy. They didn't, you know... I said, "You all would have starved if you would have been, you know, back when I was a migrant worker." But the guy gave us, you know, I remember we got food stamps or whatever they gave us at the time...vouchers and that's how we got back to San Antonio. Uh...but it was, you know, uh...so, even it was getting pretty difficult to...to perform. So we started thinking about, you know, why don't we do a movie and we try to contact people that might knew but we didn't know too many people that were doing that. So I heard that Trinity University had a Film Department. So, I... at the time I figured from different people, you know, you needed so much money and you needed this and so I had already collected about $3 or 4,000- $3,000 to that stash or something like that already. So I just walked into the [undecipherable] to Trinity University and looked at the theater department I couldn't... and I said I wanted to speak to I think the name was uh...uh...Hayes, Bill Hayes. I said I'd like to get with the Director Bill Hayes. The lady didn't even want to let me in, the secretary. So I told him what it was about. He was busy but he must have heard or something but he came up to the front of the office was and he told me to come in and sit down. "What was it about?" I told him, " Look, we're going to do a movie." "We have a...we'll, we'll provide the script." "Uh...we'll provide the actors but we don't know how to film it." "We have no... have to provide the cameras and the technicians" and he said, "Yeah." So he understood...okay, we'll be the production crew and he'll help me get the actors and...yeah. And..."Y'all gonna pay for it?" "Yeah, how much is it?" "So, we'll do it for $24,000... you know, the production in 16mm film." I said, "Okay," and I said, "how do we work that?" because I knew I didn't have $24,000. "Oh, okay. The way we would do it is like you gave us $8,000 up front and then we'll film the film and then when we're finish you know, you get another eight thousand dollars. That'll be 16. And then when we edit it and finish the whole thing and we give you the release print then you give us the other $8,000 and that's $24,000. So I said, "Oh shit. you know. I ain't never gonna do that." So I just went uh...I was gonna leave. I said, "Okay. Well let me think about it." So I started walking out it and then before I opened the door to leave, [undecipherable] "Efrain?" And I said, "Yes, sir?" "Turn around." He goes, "You really want to do this don't you?" I said, "Sir, I don't know how. But yeah, I want to do this and we're going to do it." And he says, "Well. come here. Sit down." Says, "Look, I could get you a scholarship for...to take film classes and work here at the University. I'm the Director of the Film Department." "I could probably arrange for you to go." And I go, "But that would take me, like, what?" "Three- four years to get a degree." To, you know...that's the way I figured it. It takes four years to get a degree and then you're gonna get a degree then you start making the movie sort of. I said, "No. that's too long. I can't wait that long." And he goes, "You really want to do it?" I said, "Yeah, yeah." "Hold up," and then he..."I'm going to introduce you to a student instructor named Jack Landon." So..alright. So...real nice, super nice guy. I met Jack. Jack comes in and he tells briefly what I'm trying to do. He says, "Jack, Efrain doesn't understand much about the film process." "So we gotta let him audit some of your classes." So I took...started auditing some classes with your teaching film Jack. And then uh...we wanted to film. So...I also around this time we already have the Chicano theater with Sabino as the director and this guy came in from... uh...Saint Paul, Minnesota. Uh...I think he was from New York but even with Saint Paul, Minnesota, with the American Lutheran Church and he was listed in the culture is some or whatever with the group that would be come see the libraries or whatever. So they ran into the theater, the Chicano theater. We had an office almost downtown at the time, our theater hangout and they met Sabino and they, you know, and Sabino told them "Efrain wants to do this." Uh...so then he took them over to me and we talked about it and I thought. Well... He said, "What do you need?" And I said, "Well...uh...we want to film but we need a camera and because Jack told me you need to get a camera, a 16 millimeter camera. Okay?" So he says, "How much does the camera cost?" So Jack had told me, you know, there's a bigger camera in Memphis, Tennessee for $10,000. I said, "Well, they're selling the camera for $10,000." "Is that...?" "Yeah, that's the camera we use." "An Arriflex 16 millimeter, Arriflex. The top of the line because used camera for $10,000." So Jack told me, "Efrain, that's a good camera. That's what we need to buy." So...the guy says, "You know what? Well, come in and apply for a grant." "Uh... sure." So we got a ticket and I got dressed up and took off and went to St. Paul, Minnesota uh...and had a meeting. I told him, "We're gonna make a movie." They said, "Okay. Well what..." they had asked of us, for me, to show a... a clip of the film and the first clip is that...is that scene in the pool, in the pool scene that's in the movie. That one was actually shot by Trinity University- Jack Landon and Smith (?). Yeah, they were...they were all college students. And, you know, I love them because we were completely different. They were, they were all very wealthy kids. In other words, Trinity is a very, you know... [Gunckel] Yeah. ...out here in San Antonio, like the Harvard or whatever in San Antonio. Very expensive and very wealthy people go there. So and mostly white, you know. So and we're all Mexicano's but, you know, they...they like what we were doing and... I could handle. Wait a minute, once we started...let me get back. Anyway, they gave us...eventually they gave us a grant and we got $10,000 and we bought the camera but we didn't know how to load up the camera. We didn't know anything about filmmaking. So we would try to film ourselves. The first scene we tried to film, we had to shoot it three times: One, it came out blurred; Second time or the first time, the sound; the second time, blur. It took us three shots to get one simple scene in and we had to call Jack, like, three times to load up the, you know changing bag black-to-black, you gotta do everything without looking at it. I mean, we're learning all this, you know, like I talked about on the job training. So Jack became, like, my right hand because every time something happened I would call Jack and he always... he never let me down. Jack would say, "Alright Efrain" and go over there and he'd bring his friends over. And he started inviting me to their parties and, you know, we hang out over at Trinity and, you know, they became very pretty cool people. [Gunckel] I was like... Afterwards Bill Hayes opened up... I could get a camera. You know, I didn't...before I got the camera, I could use Trinity's camera while I was waiting for them [undecipherable]. We actually started working (?) with equipment from Trinity. And in the editing we used Trinity's editing and the only thing that, that uh... Bill Hayes asked for was that I had to have students with me. I could check out a camera. I could check out the editing table. Uh...but I could only do it if there was a student like Jack or Smith or uh...William uh...Butt. There were different people and really buddies of the nephew of the grandson of the H-E-B stores here. So, I was hanging around with all these people, you know, that they were you know, such and William such-and-such son, you know. All this...I didn't know. All I knew I [undecipherable]. [Gunckel] Yeah. Was it... They were helping me out. So they were cool people. So that's how it started. So we are actually using their equipment to, to get ourselves started and then a lot of help from Jack and the students there and they helped me edit and we edited the film at Trinity. We...so... that's how the whole, you know...it took a long time to film all that. [Noriega] Uh...I'm noticing that uh...we're gonna be limited in time and so I wonder if we can spend a little bit of time you know, five or ten minutes talking about uh...the release of the film and then I'd like to make sure we have some time to talk about the film itself and some of the issues it raises because we have a lot of interest from the folks that just saw it. And can leave ourselves about five minutes at the end uh...because people are interested in what you think about what's happening now and I know that could go on all night. But there's a lot, there's a lot to comment on but I wonder if we can jump ahead to you've completed the film. Uh...we have a pretty clear sense of the way in which you're able to move things forward and make them happen but you've got a finished film. You've got a a release print and you're ready to show it. Uhm...so do you call up Warner Brothers? Or how do you actually... [Noriega and Gutierrez laugh]. I, well to tell the truth we didn't know. See, because... again going back, we started thinking of doing a film more for the university because we thought instead of taking the kids, we show up, we show a 16mm film about something related to the Chicano Movement or whatever, you know. So our goal really was initially was to go to the universities and, you know, that's how we thought we were going to run it through. We had a lot of influence on the Chicano uh...theater to perform so we said, "Well, maybe we can do this?" So but when we finish the film you know a lot of people got excited with it and started telling me "Wow, this is good, whatever." [Noriega] Yeah, yeah. [Undecipherable]...same thing, it was nice you know. So...and I know anything, the first person that I reached out to is here in San Antonio uh...Luis Zatero (?) who had two or three Mexican theaters in San Antonio. So I go to him because, you know, my father knew his father, you know. You know, [undecipherable] because they owned a store and that's where my father used to shop-the grocery store. So...you know, I go to to Luis Zatero (?) and I tell him "You know, Mr. Zatero (?), you know we got a movie that we want to show uh... [undecipherable] to show it in your theater. And he goes, you know, "Well...what do you expect? I mean, what's the movie about?" I said, "Well, it's a movie that we shot here in San Antonio, blah-blah." He said, "Well, who is the stars?" You know, like, back then it was... [Noreiga and Gunckel laugh]. I said, "Well... my daughter and my brother. Basically [undecipherable] [Laughter and talking over one another]. ...local people, you know. There's no, no movie stars in it. And he says, "Nah." I said, "Well", I said, "well, look give me 10% and you keep 90%." And they say, "50-50." I said, "I take ten just to show it." So he said, "No. He wasn't interested in it." I said, "Okay." So then we...we had a screening and we sold out the screening that uh... Holy Family Church- we rented a church hall. And...a lot of relatives, some friends but we made about $5,000 in one screening. and then, "Wow." But we still didn't know what to do with it. Uh...because it was just within our San Antonio- very few people. So that's when Jack told me...Jack again comes in and says to me, "Efrain, well have you thought about four-walling?" I didn't know what four-walling meant. He explained it to me, "You can rent a theater." "You rent it and then everything that goes through there is basically you." "You just pay one price." "Oh, okay." So I went in and contacted uh... the theaters here and I looked at the new theater that opened up, Century South in the South Side, so I said, you know, there's a lot of Raza over there. So I went to Mr. uh...I can't remember the name of the guy Santicos (?), John Santicos (?) that owned like 80% of the screens in San Antonio at the time. So I got to Santicos (?) and he didn't really care about what it was about or anything. He just told me, "Well, okay." "You know, it'll cost you $4,000 for one week, $3,000 for the second, $2,000...kind of a sliding scale if you wanna take it like that. You got to pay $500 for advertisement for the newspaper." You know the whole thing. I go, "Oh..." you know. I said, "Well, how do we do this?" He said, "Well Efrain, you have to give me, like, a check for $4,000 uh... like a week before, you know, we start the contract." So the week before the day I said, "Okay." And at this time there's no advertisement. There's nothing. Watch a movie. So now we gotta go and do our own publicity. So I go to a radio station. They turn me down. I go to another radio station uh...that was on the Chicano station uh...KEDA and the man offered me a line of credit. Once I got the first line of credit, like, I would go, like, "Well, I got credit over there." "Oh, you got credit with KEDA?" And then I give the scoop (?) to another radio station. So just the word-of-mouth I got three Spanish radio stations, one English station and two TV stations in English and one is Spanish. So all together I had, like, $12,000 in advertisement before the movie opened and I had not spent a penny yet. It was all, you know, that I was gonna pay and I had not paid also for the theater. So I was looking at like 15, something like that, thousand dollars and I have no money. I'm broke. We had a hard time getting the blow-up to the for $25,000 blow-up for the movie... from 16 to 25, I mean, 35 millimeter. So when we, we showed it and the thing that some people asked me is... because I..I avoided him because I didn't want to give him the check. I gave it to him but the check- there was no money in the bank. So I gave him literally a "hot" check and praying that he wouldn't check it in and, you know, and we end up would bounce after the performance. But anyway, later on Santico (?) told me that he... he kind of figured that, you know, what I was doing and that I didn't have any money. But, you know, he didn't mind and it worked out. I mean as soon as the movie opened up he wanted to, like, "Let's do a partner. Let's go 50-50." And I said, "No, no. You got me on the sliding scale, you know." Uh...I think we made like $90,000, you know, from that [undecipherable]... [Noriega] So you uh...you, you work this kind of pyramid scheme. [Noriega laughs]. Well, it wasn't a pyramid scheme. I mean, I was just... [Noriega] You, you open it uh... I can't...it's a weekend day but you open it as a two o'clock screening. No, twelve. It was a twelve o'clock screening. [Noriega] Twelve o'clock screening, which usually doesn't get many folks, and so you go home to have a few drinks because you get the feeling your legs are going to be broken, right? What, what happened then? What did you... The manager told me "Efrain, you know like... if the movie's going to make any money, it's going to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday." "I mean, you're not gonna make nothing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you know...dead. So if you're gonna make any money it's gonna be those three days." So on Thursday when we premiered it, on Thursday, we had lights and everything and we sold out twice. But again I saw a lot of people, you know, in the film. I saw people, you know, family or what-have-you. So that thing if you go there with me like about $10,000 or something the first night. But now, how is it going to run on the weekend? That was my part...the scary part. So I didn't want to know anything. So I just went home and I didn't drink but I got a bottle of scotch and I had a secretary at the time and my wife and I told them, "I don't want to know anything until Monday," you know. Monday when I'm just...if I don't make any money I'm just literally going to say, "Okay, lock me up because I didn't gotta penny to pay any of you." So uh...that's, you know I was scared that, you know, it happened Monday. I was gonna have to face the music. So I didn't want to talk to anybody but when it started Friday at twelve, you know, I found out later that at twelve like over 50 people for the first time showing. At uh...two o'clock, in other two hours, at two o'clock they had almost 200 hundred people and at the four o' clock it had sold out and by the time I got there, when I got there they showed me at six o'clock what's going on and it was already a line outside. So it was just selling out one after the other. So, I mean but I didn't want to go. They kept calling me to go to the theater and I say, "Hell no. I'm not gonna go." So I said I'm not gonna go until the manager kind of made it like, "No, something went wrong with the film." You know, made like an emergency. I had to go to the theater. So I left around a little bit after six, right around six to go to the theater and I was...I didn't even want to go. I was driving a little old car, you know. I feel really bad. I said... "Oh man...now, you know, problems, you know." "You just don't understand I already have a problem." But when I the parked at the parking lot the parking lot's packed but then there was uh..."All The President's Men" and other movies were going on. So I said, "Well, makes sense." I'm walking very, you know... quite disheartening, you know. Now I'm trying to get to [undecipherable] but then as I started getting closer I see the line and it's a long night outside. We're going around the building and I go... I get closer I see that "Motion by Chicanos un Moreno's" (?) I go, "Could it be?" I started running those last yards. I was running. And sure enough I saw all in lights my poster right there "Please! Don't Bury Me Alive!" and all those people in line. So I asked the manager, "What happened?" He said, "No, Efrain. I just wanted you to see." "They told me you weren't gonna come. Look at this?" "Look at the people? They're all having a good time and they sold out." "The next few...you got a major hit in your hands." I said, "Really?" "Yeah." And sure enough, you know, from there some people took it after we made a deal. They took it to the theater downtown. Took it to the Varsity where I grew up at the theater drive-in that I grew up going to and then took it to the Century Twins and about four theaters...drive-in's and then from there just people started calling and we started, you know, like we went to Del Rio and then after that we went to El Paso and then we came back and then we went to Valero then we went into Brownsville and we were just going wherever people were calling us. We were exhausted. So, that's when Mexico (?) came in and took advantage of us because, you know, we didn't know what were were doing. [Noriega] We've got about 10 minutes left uhm... and I just want to point out that the, the... your papers, your archival papers are at Stanford University and these include a lot of the business contracts and everything that you work with theaters. Uh...your films are archived here at UCLA. And a few years ago uh...you know, this film entered the National Film Registry as part of the American cinema heritage. Uhm...and really it's much deserved and it really speaks to a very unique kind of cinema uh...which is, I think, particularly noted by it really being a thoroughly bilingual film. And at the time uh...the other Chicano filmmakers that were beginning to do stuff, and they still do it today, you'll have a parent speaking in Spanish and the child translates it and then answers, right? Uhm..which is not very natural. Did you ever consider anything like that? Or was you...were you just doing a film that was just taking as a for basic basically we're going to be ourselves? [Noriega and Gutierrez talking over one another]. That's what, you know, Sabino... Sabino was more grounded and more political than I was, you know. Sabino was to me, like I tell people... I mean, he was a beautiful person and, you know...my right hand. Like we were partners. We...he respected what I wanted and uh...you know, that's the way we spoke. So he and I more or less agreed because a lot of people came in and, and when we were starting to do it, like, wanted to know, "What are you going to do it in? In English or you're going to do it in Spanish?" "Or you're going to," like you said, "translate? Are you gonna..." So even cheese stuff (?)... when I met cheese stuff (?) already and cheese stuff (?) was like, "Well why...you know, why do you want to change it?" "Do it, you know, like "Tex-Mex." You know, kind of what was known, you know, slang for our language. So, I said. "Yeah just do it they way, you know, [undecipherable]?" And it's true. You know, like uh... I had talked to my father in Espanol. You know, my daughter in Ingles. You know, my friends English and Spanish combination. [Undecipherable]. [Noriega] It's, it's... We grew up that way. [Noriega] It strikes me that uh...people going to the film or seeing a film in which the people on the screen talk like them. [Gunckel] Yeah. [Noriega] And one thing I always find very fascinating about your films, because so many of it are shot in, in actual locations, they also had a good chance of seeing themselves on the film...on the screen. Well, I mean... [Noriega] I know, I know...Colin, he's got all these records behind him, I think he wants to follow up about the music. [Gunckel] Yeah. But I want to...I also wanted to...I also I, I, I... the, the Steve Jordan album with "Run, Tecato, Run." That song in it is always slipping through my grasp. I'm always looking for that. I love that song. That's your second film. But, but uhm...I've always been interested in the use of music in your film as someone who loves to handle music. And, and the way that it almost seems, I guess, organic or... or documentary like. So it's not, it's not say a soundtrack laid on top, it is, but it also seems like a language to come from the environment. Yeah...yeah, I mean if you...if you really understand Spanish and you listen to the....to the music that you see in the background you know he's laying what's going on or he's going to tell you what's happening or the reason that he's there. In other words the music, to me, uh... I... could have started editing or learning to edit that Jack, you know, also introduced me to being able to... to set a tone with the music they want to say and express, you know, ourselves. I mean, I wish I had to do some other music that, you know, would've also been fine but uh...we were going at the time I was going with the musicals that I knew. They were in the Tejano...the Chicano music, you know, that we wanted. Like in this first movie, we had more of uh..."conjunto" kind of "musica." With the Steve Jordan in "Run, Tecato" we had a little more of the uh... west side, you know, kind of sound with "conjunto." And then in, in the last movie that I made, for anybody who's seen it, is uh... low..."A Lowrider Spring Break in San Quilmas" which is low riding weekend. Anyway...on that one, you know, we tend to show more the "blue" sound, more of the uh.. what we call the "west side sound" in San Antonio. But uh... all this music is the music that I grew up with, you know. We grew up with a mixture of English and Spanish and when it was in Spanish it was called "conjunto" and as we grew up with Chicana musica was "conquesa" (?) uh..."Tejano", which became "Tejano". Uh...but we really we adopted Chicano before it was, you know, like a lot of the- "The Latin Breed," "The Royal Jesters," a lot of the older groups, "Sonny and the Sun Goes"- all these older bands, you know, that are known in the west coast because they're more uh... uh...slow, you know, lowrider kinda... [Gunckel] Like lowrider music. Yeah. So, I mean, that's...that's the west side sound of San Antonio and...but...so I, I used it like if you- "Amor Chicana es Para Siempre"- to me...now that one, you know, it's not it's the one that in real (?) they had a lot of problems that I think but that one, the "musica," if you just listen to the music that Henry Balderrama from "La Patria" plays on it and comes out in the movie, I mean, the music will tell you the story. Uh...every song that comes on with what's going on or what's happening in the movie is telling the story just like a ballad, like a "corrido" and you've got, like, about six different songs that will come in "Amor Chicano Para es Siempre" that will tell a story. Uh...here, I was just learning in the first one. So...you know, now which I had more time to do more things but I don't want to apologize now or anything but uh... I just want people to understand that we did this with no money. Uh...no understanding of what we were doing. We would ask somebody and then we would go do it. It's like if I'm asking, you know, "Okay, uh...how do you open up uh..." "uh...a camera so I, you know, to load it up?" Or something like that. He'd show me and then I would go do it or something like that. So... [Noriega] We got about three minutes and I want to ask you a quick question from the audience and Colin will end with the last question from the audience but uh...can you just say a little bit about you know... you're, you're playing the main character, you wrote this, you're the director uhm...but the main character's... he's, he's not...he's an anti-hero. He's not really...all good. He's not all bad. He's a very mixed figure. He's, he's sexist. He's racist. He's got vision. Uh...can you say a little bit about that choice? Yeah. [Noriega] It's like trying to pick somebody that's, that's...that, that mixed like that. Well, we wanted to be able to cover what was actually going on at the time. And what we're talking about aside, you know, like we talked about education. Remember we, you know, I...I talk bad about education in the film, you know. I cut down like people feel like "Oh, you called the teacher this or that certain thing." Anyway, so what I'm saying is we weren't happy with it when we went to Kennedy. And so when we graduate, Alex and I went to school- the guy that I based the story on- it's like a combination of myself and a combination of Alex Ayala (?), my best friend in high school who went...actually went to prison and who was doing drugs and stealing and doing... You know, that's...that...that was Alex. I was a little bit more like Sabino the guy that played the... the teatro because I started getting... what saved me was I give a lot of credit with the Chicano Movement getting involved in the teatro, getting... because if I were to stick with Alex I probably would have ended up in prison also with him. But see...when we were growing up there were really no opportunities for employment in San Antonio in the 60's. I mean in the 60's Vietnam was going on, you know. The opportunity was to go to the army, you know, and if you were lucky enough, you know, you could get a job as a policeman and this was the kind of job that were available to us. In other words, we didn't have uh... college automatic that we were gonna go to. Most of us were not going to college. So when...when all this is going on and then the, the machismo that was going on, you know... [Noriega] Yeah. ...the, the drug scene that was starting to open up. The, the liberalism that, that was happening, you know, that uh... we grew up going to high school in the 60's and then, you know, the Civil Rights Movement, you know, bang hits us in '66-'67, you know, then we start seeing it actually, you know, around us. So, when you see all these things and Alex was more of a uh... you know, he was a playboy kind of, you know, he wasn't really uh... involved in, in...[undecipherable]. Actually he was...came from divorced parents. He, you know...there was issues in, in... in his upbringing. So, when you...when you see this it was just like we were lost between the late 60's, beginning of the 70's. We were confused. We were lost. I remember we even waited...we were gonna sign up, three of us to go and sign up in the service in 1967 around that time and only David Perez signed up. "Hey listen, I..." what, what I'm getting at- we were kind of confused trying to understand what's going on in the world, what's going on with us. Then we got, you know...he got married about the same time. He had a child around the same time. So, you know, like between '66 '67 '68 '69, you know, those years were very confusing to, to... for not only me, for a lot kids...young kids at that particular time. [Noriega] You're, you're really trying to capture that moment and all of its uh... contradictions, ambiguity uh...not, not tell a morality tale but really show the way things are how people spoke, what they listen to, right? Yeah, because look, like I tell people, "Hey listen, like I said, we weren't trying... we just wanted to be treated the same." And like I said, "We weren't." You know, like Alex shouldn't have bought...should have got gone on probation. Was his first major offense or whatever and I saw cases that we're similar to that. So...and you know we had a very uh...Judge Woods, you know, was one of the most racist judges that we've had [undecipherable] here in San Antonio. So when you look at all these, you know, this was just something that...that...that...that system was just getting flooded. The prison system, is also happening with uh...uh... [Noriega] Heroin, right? Well with the heroin but, but I'm getting... when you're getting arrested, the conspiracy theory starts happening. The conspiracy was not...I think it came in '71, if I'm not mistaken. Before the conspiracy theory they would take, let's say, they arrested three or four and busted... they would take the guy that was holding the gun, whatever. But once he went to the conspiracy theory then they would come and they would take three or four of you just because you happen to be [undecipherable].... So the conspiracy theory, whenever they hit somebody... anybody that knew about was worried about it because they gonna... [Noriega and Gutierriez talking over one another]. [Noriega] We're gonna have to wrap it up. So... I want to leave Colin with the last question and we need to have like a... a Twitter-level response to kind of size up the current moment. Colin, take it away. [Gunckel] Yeah, the two things, that I'd, I'd... if you look at the current landscape, I mean, you talked about uhm... uh...the lack of representation, the lack of images of Latinos uhm... and that being part of your motivation for doing this. The fact that no one was making Chicano cinema and asking everyone, "Why no one is?" Uhm... so, I guess it's a kind of a two-part related question, what is... [Noriega] I think you get one part. [Gunckel] One part. How do you, how do you see that situation today? And what advice would you have for a young Chicano-Latino filmmaker uhm...who wants to make their own cinema? Who wants to... [Noriega] Come to the last minute before they cut us off. Well...what I, what I think is that a lot of Chicanos are missing out. You know, everybody's trying to be Hollywood. Everybody's trying to be... I guess that's where the money is but, you know, there's so many stories that have not been told that are way more, you know, interesting that, that need to be, you know... there somebody might already dare to, to... that they'll blow you away. Why not tell, like I told uh... uh...Christina when I met her, I told her about a book called "The Rebel" and that, I said, that's about two ladies, actually three if you combined uh...the one from New York. It would be one Anglo lady, one from Mexico and one from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and one from Laredo, Texas. And remember, we're talking about Jovita Idar and we're talking about uh...Leonor Villegas de Magnon. They started the "White Cross" that, you know, helped Mexico. They were the two most influential women that got involved in Mexico. Jovita Idar fought the Texas Rangers by not allowing them to go. Jovita Idar opened schools. I mean, you know, and..and... and, you know, like uh...if I'm not mistaken there's a picture of uh... Villegas de Magnon walking into Mexico City when Carranza first took over Mexico City and she's riding on a horse and this is a woman, you know, during revolution and, you know, it's a beautiful book. I recommend it, "The Rebel." (Undecipherable), It's about Villegas de Magon but it tells a little about the story of, of uh... Jovita Idar- one of my all time favorite Chicanas. [Gunckel] I would, I would, I would also add that your story would make a great film Efrain if any of the filmmakers out there that would like a story that needs to be told. I...I wouldn't, you know like I said, [undecipherable] I guess it doesn't mean I'm not gonna be around but I'm trying put as much of it down [undecipherable] certain things. My wife, my kids hopefully we'll put something together. But uh...yeah, I think, that uh...that will be interesting. I think that uh... I won't be around to see it but I hope they do. [Noriega] Well, let's let people out of here but uh... we're not going to be around much longer on this show. I want to thank everybody uh...for sticking with us. Let your friends know uh... both this discussion and the film are available for the next week. The discussion will continue. Colin, thank you so much and for a wonderful introduction and it's nice to see you all again. You too, Efrain. [Gunckel] That's right. Good to see everybody. [Gutierrez] Nice seeing you all. [Noreiga] You really are a national treasure and you've really brought very unique stories into being through cinema and I really appreciate you being a role model but also directly encouraging people to go out there and find the different stories. Not the ones Hollywood, you think, Hollywood wants to do. So, thank you. I thank you all and I thank you for the audience that's out there...[undecipherable]. [Everyone laughs].