The Perks of being a Wallflower

I haven't written a blog in a long time but I just logged in and realized I started writing something and never finished it, so instead of trying to pick up where I left off I thought I would just publish as is.

I haven't been compelled to write about a film since I saw the Science of Sleep, probably because I identify too much with the characters sometimes and it can be jarring.  I remember while reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower that the angst was relatable, and I thought Sam seemed familiar, but the fact that she was in high school and was so beautiful made her seem like someone that maybe I knew, but not me.  But in the film, Emma Watson's portrayal of Sam made her more real to me in that she wasn't the intimidatingly beautiful long legged blonde model from magazines that Charlie couldn't help but adore, but a short-haired elegantly pretty girl.

The film, and the book for that matter, manage to treat a number of issues at once without seeming like a Glee-tastic attempt at displaying diversity.  Sexual assault, "coming out", alcoholism, suicide, domestic violence, bullying, depression and mental illness are all part of the very experience of Perks.  And besides the easy-to-list issues and identities being portrayed, there is a very visceral, at least for me, experience of being fourteen and seeking acceptance in that party world of music, alcohol, drugs and sex.

One moment that stuck with me in the film was when Charlie was making out with Sam and he kind of freezes for a second because the experience triggered a memory of being sexually assualted by his Aunt Helen.  This was such a validating moment in that even the most wonderful and positive people and moments can trigger traumas in life, and if it happened to Charlie, and its happened to me, then we are not alone.  The simple catharsis of seeing someone suffer in ways I have suffered was semi-triggering but mostly healing.  The way in which the film dealt with the heavy topics and issues was refreshing for some reason.  I guess it was done tastefully.  I know at least one man who watched the film with his partner and came out as a survivor after.  I suspect that seeing other films which dealt with sexual assault in exploitative ways did not serve as the catalyst that Perks did.  Perks felt safe, because  Patrick, Sam, and Charlie created a safe, supportive space.  A space I only wish that I had at that age but try to create in the work I do with teens.

Day Labor Thanksgiving Video 2011

I made this video in 2011 to show at the "Misa Jornalera," an annual event held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Rancho Cucamonga.  The event is a mass which honors the Rancho Cucamonga Day Laborers followed by a Thanksgiving dinner.  The event is organized by the church as well as the Fernando Pedraza Community Coalition, a coalition of students, activists, community members and day laborers.  For 2011 I chose to make two separate videos: one which highlighted the work from the corner this year through photos and video and one which featured the workers speaking about what they are thankful for as well as what they enojoyed about the corner this year.  It is great that the church invites the guys to attend, but they are usually too shy to interact or speak publicly, so these videos have proven to be a great way to give a face and a voice to their struggle and their humanity.

The videos from the Revolutionary Filmmaking Project, Guatemala

The Revolutionary Filmmaking Project, Guatemala was an intense 5 week/6 day project I created in order to teach youth about revolutionary cinema, feminism, and violence prevention with the end goal that they create their own videos based on the ideas they learned.  In addition to creating this project I created a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter in order to purchase 10 Flip video cameras which the students would keep at the end of the project in order to motivate them to keep learning, creating, and provoking.


I blogged about each day of the project in Spanish on a separate blog with photos and videos on this account if you are interested in checking it out.  That blog was more for students in the project and those interested to see what we were learning, discussing and creating on a weekly basis.


Here is what we did in brief:


Day 1: Introduction to Gender, Film Theory, Violence and each other
Day 2: Feminism, Sex, the Body, Body Image, Sexuality, Sexual Health, Sexual Pleasure, Sex, Gender Identity and LGBTQ Ally Training
Day 3: Revolutionary Film Theory, Brainstorming, Group Formation, Introduction to the Cameras,  Storyboarding.
Day 4: Domestic Violence, Filming, Editing
Day 5: Oppressions, Event Planning, Filming, Photos
Day 6:  Filming, Editing and Interviews


In order to get a better idea of what the project was all about check out the following videos:


I made this video for the Kickstarter website in order to fundraise for the cameras.

This video is comprised of footage taken on Day 3 by a student named Michelle.

This video is a glimpse of what we did on Day 4.

This video is a glimpse of what we did on Day 5.

I made this video to show at the Premiere so the students could explain the Project in their own words and discuss how they were affected by it.  An extended version in Spanish can be found here.

The following video, ¿Cómo eliges vivir? (How do you Choose to Live?) was made by students from the University of San Carlos (USAC) and the Normal Central American Institute (INCA), a high school in Guatemala City.  The filmmakers names are Flaviana Morales (USAC), Maria Esther Mendoza (INCA), Nereida Vanegas Reyes (INCA), Mauro Montejo (USAC), Karla Vanessa Coronado (USAC), and Vilma Chiroy Cua (USAC) with the mentorship of Olga Lorenzana and Emmi Samayoa of USAC.  The unsubtitled version can be found here.

The students that created this video had a variety of ideas.  Mauro wanted to discuss domestic violence, Flaviana wanted to talk about child abuse, and Karla wanted to talk about homophobia.  After the students storyboarded on Day 3, they were very excited to film on Day 4 so even though it wasn't in the schedule I wanted to let them film a scene just to get an idea of what goes into making an entire short video.  After much deliberation among the group they had decided to make a video about a family which would address all the themes they wanted to address.  The problem was that they would be filming at the University and their video took place in a living room and a bedroom.  The other problem was that Mauro, the only man in the group, originally refused to be in the video so Karla dressed up as a man.  The students ended up filming their two scenes on Day 4 and scrapping them.  Then on Day 5 they changed their approach in order to account for the University setting and Mauro decided to be in the video.  After Mauro, the director, and I went over the footage that weekend we decided that the last part with the vignettes of PSA-type calls to end the violence  was great but that since the entire group was in the last part and only Mauro and Vilma were in the beginning part, that they would need to film all over again.  Additionally the footage was a little shaky.  Thus, Mauro and I found a way to keep the last part by incorporating all the characters in the end in a small scene in the beginning and connecting everyone.  In this way everyone's ideas were still represented.  Mauro also added the beginning and ending words which provided a frame for the video of provoking action, something encouraged by Revolutionary Film Theory.  

The students chose to show how one can be oppressed meanwhile oppressing or dicriminating someone else in order to hold ourselves accountable.  As Mafer said in the interview video, we are not only trying to stop society from being oppressive and violent - we are also part of society and need to change ourselves as well.

The following video, Mi Mejor Amiga es Una Mujer y Mi Enemiga También (My Best Friend is a Woman and My Enemy) is the second video made by students of the project.  It has yet to be translated into English.  This video was made by Michelle Rojas (USAC), María Fernanda Bracamonte (USAC), Carolina Chacón (INCA), and Guiby Sical (INCA).  


The four young women involved in this video also had varying ideas.  Guiby wanted to talk about gender roles, Mafer wanted to talk about sisterhood, and Michelle wanted to talk about gender role reversal in order to expose gendering.  The ideas were all fantastic and the young women said that they were incorporating everything, but when I got to take a look at the video (which was admittedly difficult as they were not as open to meeting and discussing their progress) the video was all over the place and longer than 15 minutes.  The theme of sisterhood was the only story that was complete so I cut out the other pieces that did not fit and was able to trim it down to under 9 minutes, still 4 minutes longer than the preferred time frame.  However, the video is a great way to show a problem that is rampant in Guatemala and that many men don't realize is happening.  The women said that the idea behind this video was to expose the lack of sisterhood and solidarity among women in Guatemala and that the goal was to provoke introspection and change in women to make us realize that we should see eachother as allies instead of enemies.

So there you have it.  All the videos from this project that I created based on years of experience, work, classes, and research.  I am happy with the results since for me the real results are the videos, the continued communication from the participants as they go forward in their work in feminism, video, and violence prevention, and the knowledge that they have the wisdom and resources to keep going. 

I know that if I had tried this project in my neighborhood it would have been ten times easier since I would have had a car, people would have working cell phones, internet, no fear of being outside at night and all the other conveniences that make communication and travel easier in the United States.  But I chose to do this in Guatemala and considering all the obstacles (especially the flake-out of a bilingual mentor) I am filled with pride in the students and in myself.  As I told the students the entire time, this project is only the beginning and during the project and afterward they should rely on eachother and keep up the community they built.  From what I can tell so far, its working!  For me, for them to have inconspicuous cameras that wont put them in danger was important, but not as important as leaving them with a feminist community.  That is priceless.

Interview with Sandinista Youth

Fu, a member of the Sandinista Youth in Esteli, Nicaragua answers questions about Sandinismo.  

The Sandinista Youth (we worked with at least thirty) were full of life, energy, ideas, passion, activism, and just bursting with excitement to hang out with my brother and I when we were translating at a hospital in Esteli, Nicaragua for a "medical mission" with the organization IMAHelps.  I was also bursting with questions and when I finally began asking them, Fu was overjoyed that I asked about women and the LGBTQ community in Sandinismo.  Here he answers the questions: What is Sandinismo for you? What is woman's role in Sandinismo? What is the role of the LGBTQ community within Sandinismo?


His answers in brief since I still need to translate this video are:


1. Sandinismo for me is whatever Sandinismo is for our grandparents
2. Women are key to Sandinismo or we never would have won the revolution.  However, they do not get their due credit and we still need more woman leaders.
3. LGBTQ people deserve human rights but there is still a lack of social consciousness of this.  

War and Sandinismo: Voices from Estelí, Nicaragua

This August 2011 I went to Esteli, Nicaragua for two weeks as a medical translator for an organization called IMAHelps that my Granny has been volunteering with for over ten years.  This was my second time translating with this particular group in Nicaragua.  Last year when we went to Somoto I was the only gynecological translator at the hospital and we were pretty isolated in our hotel in the evenings so I was unable to connect with locals about history and politics of the Nicaraguan revolution.  However, this year the organization had the great pleasure of working with local volunteers from the Sandinista Youth and the Lions Club of Esteli.  We even had a few gynecological translators from the Peace Corps who were able to give me a few breaks halfway through the “medical mission” so I could conduct my interviews.  I suppose this is just a long way of explaining why I was in Nicaragua to begin with and how I managed to connect with some cool people that were willing to be interviewed about their views and experiences of the Nicaraguan revolution/Sandinista Revolution/Contra War.  
One of the first things I did to prepare to interview people was to do a little research about the Revolution and Contra War.

What follows is a historical cheat-sheet I made myself:
Like a lot of Latin America, the Cuban Revolution which took power in 1959 inspired hope in Nicaragua that a revolution could overthrow the Somoza dynasty.  (The first Somoza ruled Nicaragua starting in 1937 and the dynasty ruled for over 40 years.)  The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was formed in 1961 by Marxist college students and after years of training and organizing the FSLN, more commonly known as the Sandinistas, finally overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.  The FSLN was named in homage of the Nicaraguan radical and guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino who fought U.S. occupation in Nicaragua in the 1920s and 30s.  The FSLN, originally the organization which led the revolution, later evolved into a political party which led the country from 1979 until 1990.  The FSLN was led by President Daniel Ortega from 1985-1990 and both Ortega and the party have been back in power since 2007.  The Contra War was the anti-Sandinista counter-insurgency of militias funded by the US CIA  which fought from 1981 until 1988.  

I also decided to do a little research to check out what Nicaraguan Revolutionary Cinema was all about, especially since I had never heard of it.  What I found was that, as Jonathan Buchsbaum points out in his book Cinema and the Sandinistas: Filmmaking in Revolutionary Nicaragua, while film was the largest source of mass culture during the Cuban revolution, by the time that the Sandinista’s came to power it had become television.  Regardless, Cuban revolutionary advisors in Nicaragua began INCINE, the Nicaraguan Institute of Cinema, which began by making newsreels under the advice of the Cubans.  However, though the Sandinistas looked to Cuba for inspiration, support and comradship, when it came to revolutionary cinema they tried to break with the models created by Cuba et al. They neglected the newsreel model and aimed to be less propagandistic and dogmatic as they began making short documentaries which portrayed real people, did not fear being critical of the revolution, and finally made their last films (before folding due to lack of funds) fictional stories of devastation caused by the Contra war. 


I decided to make a short video of interviews about Sandinismo and the war with real people to get a glimpse of the complex affects of war, even if it is for a socialist state.  In fact, my first mistake was to ask about “the war,” believing I would hear about the Contra war of the 80s but really people identified the term with the revolution in the 70s as well as the war.  However, the variety of responses reflects the later INCINE documentary model which does not simply portray the revolutionary process as positive but allows for critiques.  I was happy to speak to both supporters and one strong critic, though she chose to be anonymous, something that begs the question of how tolerant current Sandinismo is to criticism. She mentions in the video that she was pregnant during wartime and has nothing but bad memories.  This particular experience is something that the man who speaks about the love and brother/sisterhood* he found in the ranks couldn’t have experienced.  Celvin Quintero comes from a family of Sandinistas and speaks about the war proudly, yet only learned of the war from history books.  His mother was also pregnant during the war but because she doesn’t talk about it he grew up without the personal experience that the woman interviewee had to inform her dislike.  While the stories vary, I was surprised to find that though each person I spoke to did mention that there was a lot of death, the things they seemed to remember most was the economical effects.  Lack of food, milk, and work were factors that forced adults and children, guerrillas and civilians to make great sacrifices such as leaving their homes and entering war zones. 

The reason I spoke to the people I spoke to, that is people over the age of thirty, was because when I spoke to the Sandinista Youth they had incredibly different experiences of Sandinismo than did their parents and grandparents.  I chose to speak to one of the Youth in a separate interview (which I will be posting) about Sandinismo rather than the revolution.

I hope this video gives a small glimpse of the very recent Revolution and War in Nicaragua and, in classic Revolutionary Cinema style, provokes the viewer to learn more in the hopes they will be inspired to take action.

*The reason I am not translating hermanidad to brotherhood is because the Sandinistas encouraged women to fight as well and there was a large portion of women who did so.

"A Checkpoint in Claremont:" a Collaborative Video

 

      I decided to work with the Day Laborers again, or as I call them, "the guys," to keep up the exploratory concept (for me) of collaborative film.  What I think I ended up with looks a little more like Teatro Callejero or Teatro Campesino except on video, which I am still OK with.  I have been catching up on Revolutionary Film History in Latin America and in reading have realized that when women filmmakers joined the scene so to speak, that they made mostly video rather than "film" and that they used it to interrogate gender and gender roles rather than (public) politics.  In working with the guys, we discuss gender from time to time, such as when someone stereotypes based on gender, makes a gendered remark or insult, or refers to women as anything other than women.  However, because the issues they face on the day to day are less about gender than about race, color and nationality, we made a video that was more pressing to them.  I did become interested in A Man, When He is a Man, a 1982 film by Chilean filmmaker Valeria Sarmiento while reading up on women in the male-centered Revolutionary Film movement in Latin America.  The film is a documentary on "macho" culture in Costa Rica though it is meant to be read as referring to Latin America in general.  The idea of interviewing men and capturing the machismo intrigued me, but when I thought about the guys, I just couldn't imagine making a film about them that would expose their biases.  It made me realize that I: 1.) Idealize the guys for being such hard workers and 2.) can't imagine truly collaborating on a video centering on a subject that is foreign to most of them.  I realize that in a post about a film not about gender I have spoken a lot about it, but I think it is because I am already brainstorming for my next project which will have gendered aspects.  And since I will be working with a new group in a gender context (a gender and video project) then the subject can easily be collaborative.

   What the video is centered on is the issue of DUI/Sobriety/Drivers License checkpoints.  Checkpoints are a relatively new police practice.  Since the 1979 case of Delaware v. Prouse that decided that police cannot stop random vehicles for the sole reason of checking their licenses “there has been a proliferation in the use of sobriety checkpoints by state law enforcement authorities.”  (Francis)  The intended purpose of sobriety checkpoints is to “ reduce the number of drunk drivers on our highways and diminish the amount of pain, suffering and death that result from drunk driving.” (CHP)   The bulk of the arguments regarding checkpoints have been legally based, as some groups find them to be necessary to prevent drunk driving and are therefore are willing to infringe on the civil liberties of drivers.  Others however find them to be too invasive and unconstitutional.  The major issue that most people make regarding the legality of checkpoints is the fact that so many vehicles are impounded.  This relates to the 4th amendment’s “unreasonable searches and seizures” clause which states that the people have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. But because this amendment originally applied only to the federal government, the post Civil War 14th amendment of 1868 is also important because it made it applicable to the states.  The probable cause and warrant requirements for the 4th amendment have been subject to several exceptions carved out by the courts for the benefit of law enforcement.  The latest exception is the checkpoints based on the states interest in public safety.  (The border checkpoints exception was based on national security.)

   Checkpoints are one of the main issues that we organize around in the Inland Empire as in many other places.  We send text messages, facebook statuses and make phone calls when we know of a checkpoint location.  We hold vigils, go to city council meetings, hold and post signs warning drivers of checkpoints coming up.  But as much as I have researched checkpoints and try to spread the word, there are just never enough "Know Your Rights" trainings.  The corner might have some of the same guys for decades, but at the same time there are new guys coming in and out every day, man of which have no idea what to do in situations like checkpoints or any kind of police run-in.  Though I am not a lawyer, I know that we have the right not to incriminate ourselves, which is why I emphasize that in the film through the fictional phone advocate in the beginning (played by the famous Undocumented, Unafraid, Queer and Unashamed DREAMer Julio Salgado) and in the end with the inter-title that yells at the audience.  The video, though made with jornaleros in mind, is hopefully just a beginning.  The guys have already been talking about the next videos and what we should do when I get back from Central America and I am excited to make a film based on some of their experiences.

    I originally planned to make this project for my independent study with Jose, the super brilliant jornalero from Una Mirada a Los Invisibles and Machete Discussion, but after making plans, sharing revolutionary film manifestos and films with him and brainstorming together, his phone got turned off and I was on my own again.  It was a great reminder that this video/my independent study class is by no means the priority of a worker nor an easy luxury to be a part of.  So I ended up going a little backwards because my idea was to have horizontal decision making and idea creating, but I ended up where I was before with “Una Mirada” (not that that is bad!).  This meant recruiting guys who were interested, explaining everything, and making decisions together during the filming.  The guys, Pancho in particular, had a lot of ideas that I used.  For example, Pancho wanted to be a drunk driver which worked out as I could show that he could pick his car up the next morning while unlicensed drivers had to wait 30 days.  Pancho also had the idea of the actors faces being shown at the end with their “names.”  We all ad-libbed the whole time, though there were many times that one of us had an idea for a line and we would re-take the encounter.  For example, my brother jumped in to be an additional police officer midway through the filming and I think it worked out very well that way since though it was funny having JuanLoco be the officer, we needed someone less likeable.  Though we ad-libbed, I knew I wanted to use inter-titles a’la La Hora de Los Hornos.  I wanted to try the completely anti-neutral, pro-action route, though I couldn’t bring myself to go as far as using cut up B roll footage with voiceover. 

    I also knew I wanted the video to obviously be a video.  This was with Hungry Cinema  and Imperfect Cinema in mind in terms of cost and accessibility.  The video looked low budget because it was.  Also, I think that the video came off as fun because we had a lot of fun, but also serious for those who are affected by laws like 287g and vulnerable to expensive court hearings and impounds, jail time, and deportation.  The video is already getting some play with the anti-checkpoint crowd and has raised demand for a more activist oriented video that is less for what unlicensed drivers should do and more about how allies can organize and protest checkpoint policies.  This will be a whole new kind of video as it will have a different audience, but it is equally as important.  I showed the video to the guys twice already while doing our weekly computer classes and it sparked some conversation along with a lot of laughs at each other.  They seemed to enjoy watching the video and seeing that most of the cast was themselves or their compas from the “cachetero” and made they guys who weren’t in that video ask about the next one.  So though I am incredibly excited about this video and so happy with the way it came out, I am equally excited about what is going to come next.

    One thing that I need to work on which revolutionary (or New Latin American Cinema) filmmakers discussed, is the aspect of distribution.  Of course things have greatly changed because of the ease of using Youtube to distribute digitally, but if I were to truly be involved in distribution then I would organize screenings for more than just my internet network and the guys.  That is one project I need to work on.  I think that when I get back to the US then it would be great to show a few of the films back-to-back since they are short.  For now, I am thinking about how to lean as much as possible on Jorge Sanjines’s ideas about collaborative film while keeping in mind that revolutionary cinema is a male-centric genre for my next video project in Guatemala City.

Works Cited

“Sobriety Check Points.” California Highway Patrol. 11 Nov. 2008.  17 Dec. 2008 <http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/dui-en.html>.

Francis, Eustace T. “Legal Development: Combating the Drunk Driver Menace: Conditioning the use of Public Highways on consent to Sobriety Checkpoint Seizures - the Constitutionality of a Model Consent Seizure Statute.” Albany Law Review 59.599 (1995).

About the Revolutionary Filmmaking Project, Guatemala

Impetus: I decided to head up a project on media literacy, or learning how to be a critical consumer and an educated producer of media, is one major aspect of prevention education.  I believe that by giving young people tools to create films about gender and violence we are educating more than just the twenty mentees and mentors in the program, we are sharing that knowledge on a broader scale. 

Scope: This project is meant to reach a number of groups.  First and foremost it will directly affect the ten students who will be participating in the project, two high school students, eight college students. Secondly we aim to effect the ten mentors who will be train to mentor the student participants.  Thirdly we aim to effect the audience at the premiere of the films the students will make.  This audience will be comprised of faculty, staff, students, the families of the student filmmakers, the friends and neighbors from the communities of the student filmmakers, and other locals interested in the films.  Also included in the audience will be those who will watch the film online as we will be hosting it there as well.  This include people internationally, especially those in the United States and Guatemala, the location of MIA's offices.  Lastly, the student participants and mentors are encouraged to teach others and spread the words about feminism and film making once the project ends.

Project: The Revolutionary Film making Project, Guatemala is a five-week series of workshops and hands-on classes designed to introduce students to the art and craft of film making.  These workshops are an excellent exploration into the language of feminist and film theory and the tools of digital film making.  Workshop students will form groups and write, produce, direct and edit their own short film with the support of mentors.

The Objective: To inspire and teach young activists how to use film as a tool for social change. 

The Goals: To complete two 3-5 minute films on topics relating to MIA’s Mission Statement or the project themes of feminism, feminicide, men and feminism, gender equity/justice, and women in Guatemala. Once completed, the films will be shown at the Universidad de San Carlos  de Guatemala and the students will graduate from the program.

Timeline:  All workshops mandatory; attendance is required.  All workshops for will take place at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, room TBA. 

Week 1:   Saturday, Aug 20 (10am-6pm)
Week 2:   Sat & Sun Aug 27 & 28 (10am Sat-6pm Sun)
Week 3:   Saturday, Sept 3 (10am-6pm)
Week 4:   Saturday, Sept 10 (10am-6pm)
Week 5:   Saturday, Sept 17 (10am-6pm)
Premiere: The week of Sept 26-30 (6pm-9pm)