PIFF/LA’s Panafest 2019 Opening Night Features Encore Screening of Raul Julia Documentary: The World’s A Stage
For Actor-Director Carlos Carrasco, founder of The Panamanian International Film Festival in Los Angeles (PIFF/LA), working with Raul Julia has always been a career highlight.
“I was a Shakespearean trained actor,” said Carrasco, “and, as a Latino, classically trained role models were few and far between.”
The two actors were in New York City at the same time, but it wasn’t until Carrasco moved to Los Angeles that he got to work with Julia in the HBO film The Burning Season, directed by the legendary John Frankenheimer of Manchurian Candidate fame. The film also brought Edward James Olmos and Julia together for the first and only time in a memorable East Coast meets West Coast moment celebrating the pairing of two iconic stars of Puerto Rican and Mexican-American descent.
Carlos Carrasco’s clip of the classic film, The Burning Season, check the Latino actors: CLICK HERE
Latin Heat got to speak to Carrasco about his memories of Raul Julia, the mission of PIFF/LA, and the legacy of Latino actors, filmmakers, and storytellers in today’s turbulent times.
Remembering Raul: 25 Years Later
LH: Why did you choose Ben DeJesus’ The World’s A Stage for Panafest’s Opening Night?
CC: First, I got to see the documentary premiere at LALIFF and it was sensational on so many levels. I would be remiss if I didn’t congratulate Edward James Olmos on an exceptional slate of films, youth participation, and an inspiring vision that was palpable at LALIFF. I was incredibly moved by Ben DeJesus’ commitment to telling Raul’s story in a way that honored the man, his family, and all those he touched in life and beyond. From the veteran Latino actors whose voices are woven into the documentary to the awareness that today’s generation of young Latino actors needs to know the Latino stage and screen journey.
It wasn’t until later that I realized three uncanny coincidences: 1) our Festival was scheduled within a week of Raul’s passing 25 years ago; 2) The Downtown Independent, our theater, is just block from where Hispanicize is taking place on the same date. This major event is produced by NGLC [NGL Collective], who also produced the documentary. And 3) both my wife and I worked on The Burning Season as she was handling Latinx PR outreach for HBO at the time. The Burning Season was about the 1988 murder of Chico Mendes and his impact on environmental consciousness in Brazil. Fast forward and the Amazon is burning. We need to remember.
LH: What’s a favorite Raul Julia story?
CC: I knew Raul years ago in New York as we were connected by a mutual relationship with the dynamic Miriam Colón, founder and director of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, my theatre home in NY. Miriam ran a playwright’s unit which held readings of works in progress. I participated in many of those, and on one occasion Raul joined us.
Imagine our surprise when we learned that what we were reading was an interminable opus in iambic pentameter about Eskimos lamenting the dwindling whale population and the subsequent shortage of blubber. Why a Puerto Rican playwright felt compelled to write about Eskimos shall remain a mystery. The thing was so long that as the reading progressed more and more actors began to peel off to ‘previous commitments,’ but Raul staunchly plodded on. In the end, it was just me and him with the director reading in the rest of the cast of thousands of Eskimos and we eventually made it to the end. I have always admired him for doing that.
LH: Rumor has it the Raul Julia documentary is almost sold-out. What else is happening at Panafest 2019?
CC: So much good stuff. This is our 5th year and we have expanded to three days. The films, panels, and other programming are so exciting. First, there’s a significant number of Panamanian and US Panamanian films represented in all genres – docs, features, animation, shorts – even the first horror film feature from Panama, Diablo Rojo. Day 1 kicks off with a documentary by an LA-born Panamanian from USC, Angelique Molina, whose documentary about gentrification in LA’s View Park area is fascinating. As is a revealing family DNA search shared in a documentary by Panamanian Anayansi Prado. My Associate Director Maia de Zan Hatch has done an amazing job of forming alliances with an exceptional community of independent film festivals and creators in Panama. There’s even a short music film that speaks to immigration from Grammy Award winners Las Rakas, a Panamanian duo from Oakland.
Saturday is packed with innovation. Everything from The Poetry Gallery Pop-Up in the Lobby created by PenClique to a live spoken word and dance performance created for the Festival by SP!T’s Alex Alpharaoh, whose solo-show WET and his DACA journey is the subject of a documentary that evening. And speaking of innovation, Sergio Garza Fox has directed a feature, Intolerance No More, that knocked my socks off. I don’t want to give too much away, but this film is shot with the most non-traditional use of technology – from cell phones to Go Pros to Security cameras. You just have to see it. And it’s about profiling and social media. Very visionary.
Sunday Fun Day is our nickname for a block of films that are just laugh-out-loud funny or twisted in a dark comedy kind of way. This includes Danny Hasting’s US Premiere of his feature film Venus De Macho. Danny founded the Original Latino Film Festival in Coachella and he’s Mexican-Panamanian and he’s the best kind of crazy. Sunday closes with Fanny Grande’s award-winning documentary Quinceañera.
40% of the Festival’s content is by female directors. There’s also a lot of Afro-Latinx storytelling, LGBTQ narratives, and a spectrum of storytelling that defies stereotypes.” — Carlos Carrasco
LH: We heard there’s also going to be an altar at the Festival?
CC: Yes, we are grateful to award-winning and deeply respected artist and Day of the Dead scholar Consuelo Flores for bringing her talents into our Festival and creating an altar to celebrate the Latinx talent who we lost too soon. The week of the Festival, for example, is very close to the 5th Anniversary of Elizabeth Peña’s passing. I knew Elizabeth since she was a kid in NYC and worked with her on several occasions. It will be in the lobby and free to the public to come to see it. We hope they’ll honor us by staying for a film as well. There’s something for everyone.
PIFF/LA’s Panafest 2019 runs October 18-20
Full Schedule and Tickets at Eventbrite: 5Panafest.Eventbrite.com