A Take-off On The Original Indie Film A Day Without a Mexican Directed by Sergio Arau and Starring and Written by Yareli Arizmendi
By Elia Esparza
It was recently announced that filmmaker and artist Sergio Arau and writer-actress Yareli Arizmendi, one of my favorite husband and wife team, have partnered with Javier Chapa and Simon Wise of Mucho Mas Media (Mucho Mas) to start production on Another Day Without a Mexican: This Time It’s Personal.
Mucho Mas successfully optioned the rights and have partnered as producers of the Arau-Arizmendi indie film described as a comedy and a “sort of sequel” to the original 2004 A Day Without A Mexican (ADWAM), that was more satire-drama, grossed over $13MM worldwide at the box-office.
For those who do not know about the original ADWAM, it is an imagined life without a significant part of California’s population, and what the days and nights without them would be like. It uses the socio-political climate as a backdrop to the storyline’s deep and sardonic humor. The new film will examine the ever-serious topic of immigration and reform in a paradoxical and comedic vein.
: This Time It’s Personal will be directed by Arau, with Arizmendi writing the script. Arizmendi also wrote and starred in the 2004 film. The award-nominated and winning Joshua Maurer (The Hoax, Papillion) and Witlin (Georgia O’Keeffe, Howard’s End) will also produce under their City Entertainment banner, alongside Mucho Mas.
After reading this exciting film news, we had to track down Arau and get him to give us more details! And, lucky for us, he was accepted our interview invite.
LATIN HEAT: What was the storyline motivator for your original A Day Without a Mexican indie film?
SA: What sparked the original idea for ADWAM, was Pete Wilson’s reelection campaign in 1992-94. His scapegoating of undocumented workers – whom he called illegal Mexicans — as the people to blame for California’s social problems. The irony being, that California’s status as the sixth strongest economy in the world was due to its incredible labor force. His unfair accusations created a toxic environment as Proposition 187 gathered strength. Today, we are living a nationwide dystopia – if not worldwide – a kind of a 187 on steroids.
We were living in San Diego at the time and as a reaction, Yareli said, ‘What California needs, is just one day without a Mexican, see what happens.’ And we did it! A short film, called A Day Without A Mexican,to show America what all Latinos – not just Mexicans – are worth and how much we contribute to American society.
When we first made the feature-length film of ADWAM— 15 years ago this year– we could have never predicted reality would surpass everything that was in the film. It has.
Sergio Arau
LH: Sergio, at what point during the past three years, did your original film turn personal for you?
Sergio Arau: Yareli [Arizmendi] and I were working on an idea to make another film, but not necessarily a sequel to ADWAM. The idea was more along the lines of why and how immigration policy had developed in the country and of course, how desperately it needed to be reformed… issues more broad in general. Then Trump became the GOP candidate – insulting Latinos left and right to play to his base, and then he became president… And that is when this became personal. On a daily basis some ridiculous or horrific injustice against Latinos, (Muslims, Blacks, LGBTQ, women, refugees, workers), would undoubtedly make the headlines and impact lives. That was fast becoming the norm. That’s what moved us to start thinking about a sequel to ADWAM.
Well, not exactly a continuation or a sequel, but rather a way to talk about the madness developing.
LH: With so many injustices and attacks against Latinos, why a comedy?
SA: Comedy is an incredible tool, our weapon of choice. It allows people to listen, let their guard down and hear the facts and the message. While the reality created by the facts is painful and hard, the surprise of bringing up the pain wrapped in laughs is disarming. The objective was to get people to a place of dialogue and I do believe we did that. What we imagined 15 years ago is now a reality – Ghost towns and rotting fields included. We again intend to use the absurdity of the current climate to offer a deeper insight into the consequences and further the premise of the original film.
LH: Will any of the original cast revive their roles in the new film? Any New Characters?
SA: We are working on the script and exploring the best way to come at the story. We believe there are hundreds of ways into the rabbit hole. Too early to tell if one of the characters and/or storylines will reprise.
LH: How different will it be making this new film from the original ADWAM?
SA: Very different. Back in 2004, we didn’t have a national distributor for the film. It was all more grassroots– community to community. From 1998 when we made the short film to 2004 when we made the feature film, we worried the immigration issues would be resolved before we released the film. Obviously, we were wrong. Today’s political climate has surpassed our imagination, thus the urgency to finish the film before the 2020 elections.
The hate is not about immigration per se… it is about not being white, and as a result, we are the enemy. The immigration issue is an excuse.”
Sergio Arau
LH: Yes, we’ve been in California and entire Southwest region and beyond, from day one.
SA: Like or not, that is the geographical reality. This has always been our territory, our land, and when [they] took it over, they also took over the people already here. We were already here, came with the land. And, now that we’re in presidential reelection mode, Latinos are again the favorite scapegoat. The racism is undeniable, hate is floating everywhere.
LH: Can you elaborate a bit on the racism.
SA: We, Latinos know it’s not about immigration reform. It is about racism that is born out of anyone who is not white like Trump is, and said people of color are persona non grata. Trump and his followers have no interest in Latinos other than to exploit and cheat them for free labor. Other than that, Mexicans, Latinos are useless to them. And as a group of people vulnerable to these politicians… they scapegoat us to get them votes. We’re the most convenient scapegoats for them. And, it is time we end this misconception and mistreatment!
That’s what we hope our new film will contribute as a pushback that will feature a funny view of how ridiculous these bigots are and how wrong they are in the persecution of a group of American demographic that is equal to being the 6th largest most powerful economy of the world!
Sergio Arau
LH: So many topics to cover, for sure there are a series of films you could make for your ADWAM franchise.
SA: We were actually looking at developing ADWAM the series when the chance to get the film developed and made came about. Yes, so many topics and injustices and choosing the most important and relevant have been hard but our team is on it!
LH: In your life as a filmmaker… an artist, did you ever think that your film ADWAM would be more relevant than ever in 2019?
SA: Frankly, no. We naively thought this issue would be over, we would be on to others, but this would be done. Well, today, our original film is part of pop culture. A reference. It was born off such a personal thought, I never thought that our little film would become part of the national conversation and withstand the test of time on such a level. Not that I am complaining; it’s an artist’s dream.
LH: Can you discuss how it came that you and Mucho Mas partnered on this new film?
SA: Javier [Chapa] looked for me maybe five years ago and told me they were interested in ADAWM. Like it happens to many ideas and possibilities in our industry, it just fell off our radar, Years later, we reconnected and this time the ‘It’s personal’ factor made it happen.
LH: Makes sense this theme would be at the core of the story.
SA: Yes, especially what is happening with the explosion of this anti-immigrant sentiment spewing here in the USA! It is to the levels of absurdity that we could not have imagined back in 2004, and it affects us all in on a very personal level.
Yareli and I found ourselves constantly talking about the daily anti-immigrant sentiments goings-on, so naturally, we dug deeper into it, investigated a lot of what is being reported in the media. The issue of privatizing prisons – public money for private profit – and worse yet, privatized and lawless deportations centers left us speechless. Brown and Black are fueling these privatized economies which require public servants, politicians, creating laws to benefit incarceration and indefinite deportation proceedings.
What drives us nuts, is to know that economically, Latinos are a priceless commodity, driving and growing the American economy, yet we continue to be abused and neglected.”
Sergio Arau
The recent report that NALIP [National Association of Latino Independent Producers] put out with USC, “Latinos in the Media”, confirmed that we continue to be invisible, but no one really notices anymore because we’ve become accustomed to it. The fact, that Latinos are invisible in films or TV and in media generally and appear only when portrayed in a negative light kills us. And yeah, we’ve all kind of grown immune to it, including Latinos who should push back loudly.
It doesn’t help that Trump and his administration embolden their followers to verbally and physically attack Latinos. We Latinos need to up our game, grow an attitude, get extra loud in our demands, find allies, nurture and support alliances. These growing vicious and violent attacks against anyone who doesn’t fit the Trump accepted profile – Norwegians? – is exactly what motivates Yareli and me to proceed with this new version of ADWAM: This Time It’s Personal!
LH: And, comedy is best way to get your message across–
SA: Yes, definitely. We decided it had to be a comedy because as serious as the issues are against Latinos and immigrants of color, we have always felt that humor is the best tool or weapon to use to get our message across to a larger cross-section of the population in our country. By highlighting the shallow, absurd and ridiculous nature of the anti-immigrant perpetrators and offering more thorough, thought out and fun illustrations of what is really going happening behind the curtain sort of speak, we believe we will offer a renewed perspective of this hot button issue
LH: Most films about immigration or immigrants tend to be dramatic and tragic stories.
SA: Think of this film as a political cartoon. It has the power to infiltrate, cut through a number of social realities, and get a reaction. A strong storyline, sent into battle with humor and comedy as its drivers, has a much better chance of getting the film’s message to stick.
LH: Can you discuss the film’s budget and distribution?
SA: No, this discussion comes later once the script is created. We can’t yet because we’re still developing the story. Once upon a time, a studio might have paid us to develop a script they were interested in making into a film with a budget of xyz. Nowadays, everything in movie-making has changed.
There is very little money to actually develop the script with a producing partner, get to the right story and find the right budget. Studios would rather you pay yourself to write the script, produce it, finish it and then maybe, they’ll pick it up for distribution. This is one of the main reasons we were thrilled to wait and find partners like Mucho Mas [Chapa/Wise] who believe in the creative process as a collaboration. It has definitely been worth the wait!
LH: Anything else you’d like to add?
SA: The most important thing is for us Latinos to recognize how invisible we have allowed society to make us. Do we understand how much we participate and do for the well being of our country? It is time we demand our proper place and stop the absurdity of racism.
It’s shocking that in Los Angeles, a city with 51% Latinos, we continue to be invisible. Our objective with Another Day Without A Mexican: This Time It’s Personal, on a national level is to show what it would be like should Trump and his haters succeed in pushing us out of our country. What would happen to a country once so rich and powerful, how it would collapse, not only domestically but as a leader on the world stage.
Remember Trump’s latest outrage against China? And, when Trump asked American businesses to remove their companies from China? And then asked all of us — yes, he said it, ‘stop eating Chinese food’, What, no more take out boxes?!
Imagine making eating Mexican food illegal in America? I want to be there to watch! Latino culture is embedded in the USA… it is American culture… we are the mainstream!”
Sergio Arau
Yet, this is the Trump mentality. And, the movie will spell it all out and give you some great laughs at the absurdity of it all!
Thank you, Sergio!
Arau and Arizmendi are both represented by DePaz Management.