Midwest Tex[t]-Mex Correspondent Kristy Rawson with a Report on CineSeattle

Cineseattle, the first International Latino Film Festival, was a hastily organized, flying-by-seat-of-pantalones effort that nonetheless clearly indicated that we can anticipate a promising future for this annual event. The flying pants in question were those of a young set of Seattle Latinas/os (emphasis en “os”) who pulled together an impressive grass-roots organization managing to completely eschew cineaste high-hat aires.

The curator and artistic director, Jorge Enrique González-Pacheco, who hails from Cuba originally, put together an eclectic menu of films ranging from proven international festival fare to debuting student work. Forever Lupe (2007)--the Mexican mediometraje that initiated my curiosity about the festival--is an example of the latter. Also in the student category (San Francisco State this time) was Rafael Flores’s 10 minute film, Jale (2009), an earnest comment on the situation faced by Mexican migrant workers --- shot, says the director “in true guerilla fashion.”

The good news here is for aspiring filmmakers: this new come-as-you-are, democratic festival model means there might be space for young and up-and-coming creators to find an audience within a viable venue. Furthermore (for better or for worse) my Cineseattle experience would indicate that the unschooled filmmaker need not feel intimidated by her/his film-school-graduate counterpart.

In addition to the aforementioned, other Mexican, Mexico-centered, or border-related offerings included two terrific(!) documentaries, both shot on video: No Son Invisibles: Mayan Women and Microfinance (USA/Mex, 2008) and Hecho en Los Angeles (USA, 2008). The latter being a many-award winner about community/worker organization (not union exactly) in the LA garment district.

There was also one narrative short, Niña Quebrada (USA, 2008, directed by Seattle's own Diana Romero), about a Mexican girl sold into prostitution in the United States. Though well made, the fictionalized treatment here, of such deadly serious subject matter, erred on the side of sentimental/anecdotal.

Last, there was a major Mexican feature, El Viaje de Teo (2008), an immigration-themed IMCINE picture sporting high production values and an unsubtle “stay-at-home” massage. Here's a look:



Not that the Mexicanidad was a focalizing factor for Cineseattle. As articulated in the festival literature, González-Pacheco dedicated the festival to the booming domestic cinema industry in Columbia. And, indeed, some very satisfying Columbian films were shown (The festival opener, Te amo Ana Elisa, 2008, was a standout!).

But the pinnacle was the final screening: Uruguay's Gigante (Adrián Biniez, 2009), an understatedly brilliant film about love in the time of surveillance. Someday I’d love to see it projected...

...which brings us to what is, for me, the takeaway of the weekend: If this event is any indication, there’s a festival model afoot that is not about “film” at all, it’s about media and about communities coming together for a shared viewing experience. At Cineseattle we watched 35mm features on DVD, documentaries and features shot on video, digital amateur work..., we actually screened a DVD of a 35mm short film that, for reasons of expense, was never bought out of post-production: in other words a film that, as such, doesn’t actually exist yet and may never. My point being that the rarefied celluloid object is the least of concerns here. Is there a “genre” of grass-roots media festivals fitting this description?... Occasioned by an era of accessible technologies and transnational online networking? Can you bring people out to screen a DVD if primarily for the shared experience? Tell us about the democratic media festival near you!

Xicano/Chicano Photography: Gronk's Eyegiene

New, Hygienically-Sealed Copies of Tex[t]-Mex, Available from Amazon.com for $11.86

update: October 7, 2009

For some reason, Amazon.com is running a sale on Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America!

Venta, Venta, Venga, Venga--it was $12.87, but is now going for $11.86--the cover price is $22.50! Gracias to Jeff Bezos at Amazon and UT Press for making this firesale available via the internets! If you are a regular Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog visitor and want an autographed copy of the book (with a custom designed cartoon as well), just drop $16 (free shipping) in an envelope to w. nericcio, sdsu lit, mc 6020, SD, CA 92182.6020 with your name and return address and I will get a paperback copy of the book off to you in no time!

Always Wash Up! Practice Good Eyegiene! (Disney Style)

Amazing New Rita Hayworth Prints Auction

More info here.

Rita Hayworth in Gilda...



and Lady From Shanghai...

ChicanOsmosis/XicanOsmosis Jaime Hernandez Style: The Origins of a Graphic Narrative Genius in His Own Words

Gracias to Daniel Hernandez for tipping my eyes to this cool brief chat with Love and Rockets maestro Jaime Hernandez. Hit the image, left, for the linkaso.

High Fashion Chicana Metamorphosis: Eva Longoria in Citizen K Magazine

There are high-resolution scans of the fashion spread here (other versions are here). The most curious image for the purposes of Eyegiene is the one above. It is a montage of three shots of Eva, as "patient," "doctor/cinematographer (16mm, no less)/voyeur," and gurney attendant. Most of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America was a meditation on the history, consequences, and legacy of Mexican figuration in the mass media--Ruven Afanador, an illustrious fashion photographer from Bogotá, Colombia, has, with his brilliant lens and his equally compelling Mexican-American model/actress, said all I said there, and all I can hope to say in my next volume, Eyegiene, with a few snaps of his camera and maybe a quick session with photoshop.

Chicanos In Space Revisited! No Backing Down for Jose Hernandez on Immigration Reform

The Remarkable Jim Crow Museum: A Macabre, Bracing Meditation on Race, Ethnicity, and Collecting in the Americas

As a collector and curator of real and digital artifacts, I have to give credit where credit is due--I just spent a sleepless hour wandering the virtual corridors of the Jim Crow online museum. Formidable stuff.

For anyone with an interest of the history of race and consumer culture in the U.S., it is a must-see, must-visit archive of horrors. Here's a taste from the curator, David Pilgrim's, essay "The Garbage Man: Why I Collect Racist Objects," about the time he visited a collector of African American tchotchkes:

If I live to be 100 I will never forget the feeling that I had when I saw her collection; it was sadness, a thick, cold sadness. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of objects, side-by-side, on shelves that reached to the ceiling. All four walls were covered with some of the most racist objects imaginable. I owned some of the objects, others I had seen in Black Memorabilia price guides, and others were so rare I have not seen them since. I was stunned. Sadness. It was as if I could hear the pieces talking, yowling. Every conceivable distortion of black people, our people, was on display. It was a chamber of horrors. She did not talk. She stared at me; I stared at the objects. One was a life-sized wooden figure of a black man, grotesquely caricatured. It was a testament to the creative energy that often lurks behind racism. On her walls was a material record of all the hurt and harm done to Africans and their American descendants. I wanted to cry. It was at that moment that I decided to create a museum. source.

For the main site, hit the image here to your right.

Xicanosmosis: Nelly Furtado Style

Gracias, Gracias to Alexandro Gradilla, super-profe for guiding my eye this latest evolution in Furtado's career.