By Roberto Leal

In his book, “The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography,” legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman described the experience of sitting in a dark theater and watching the images on a huge screen fly by at 24 frames per second as the closest thing we have created replicating the dream state. Cinema, in all its various forms, is the only art form that combines theater, literature, painting, dance, photography, sculpture and music all on one celluloid canvas. From the beginning, movies have been a source of inspiration, propaganda, social awareness, education and much, much entertainment.

The pandemic, the emergence of streaming platforms, giant screen TVs and in-home theaters have modified Bergman’s equations to include sitting in your recliner in the comfort of your living room in PJs in front of your 82” Samsung flat-screen TV. But the power of flickering images on a screen that tap into our collective unconscious where the stories of our shared myths and archetypes reside still holds true.

A FORT KNOX FOR FILMS

The National Film Registry was created in 1988 as a place to preserve, honor and celebrate the cultural, artistic, and social contributions of cinema. Each year 25 films are nominated for the registry. The films can be feature length, short films, documentaries, animated films and even home movies are eligible to be put on the list of nominees.

For years Latinos in all sectors of society, like Captain Renault in Casablanca , were shocked, shocked to find so few Latino films making the final cut for the Registry. Slowly but surely more Latino films are being recognized for their artistic and social significance and finding their just place on the National Film Registry. Here are the three Latino films added to that prestigious list in 2021. Drum roll, please…

CHICANA, (1979), Director: Sylvia Morales

This 30-minute documentary was created by Morales when she was a film student at UCLA. Chicana chronicles the story of Mexican women from pre-Columbian times to the present. It’s a story of the Chicana’s struggles, pain, strength, endurance, contributions and ultimate triumph. Linda Gross of Los Angeles Times called Chicana “a well-researched and spirited documentary made with much love.”

SELENA, (1997), Director: Gregory Nava

This loving music biopic tribute about the tragically short career of the Queen of Tejano music, Selena Quintanilla, was also the breakthrough role for Latina superstar Jennifer Lopez. Mexican American director, Gregory Nava’s film El Norte is also on the registry; Selena is his second film to be added to the list. It won’t be his last. This film is credited with launching Lopez’s career but also the careers of half dozen other Latino actors including Jon Seda (La Brea, Chicago PD), Constance Marie (With Love, George Lopez) and Jacob Vargas (Mr. Iglesias)

REQUIEM 29, (1970), Director: David Garcia

In 1970 the Los Angeles Mexican-American/Chicano community, civic and academia leaders staged the Chicano Moratorium Movement, a massive protest against the Vietnam War. The police response to the protest was violent and deadly, resulting in the murder of noted Mexican writer for the Los Angeles Times, Ruben Salazar by the hands of agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff. This newsreel-like documentary by David Garcia brings those historical events into stark, grainy, black and white reality.

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

Prior to the three new films being added to the National Film Registry, there were 18 Latino themed films or films starring a Latina/o in the lead listed on the Registry. They include:

1. Ben-Hur (Silent), 1925, Director: Fred Nobb

2. Drácula (Spanish), (1931). Director: Alfredo B. Cervana

3. The Revenge of Pancho Villa, 1932, Director: Edmundo Padilla

4. Gilda, 1946, Director: Charles Vidor

5. High Noon, 1952, Director: Fred Zinneman

6. Salt of the Earth, 1954, Director: Herbert J. Biberman

7. West Side Story, 1961, Director: Jerome Robbins

8. Night of the Living Dead, (1968), Director: George Romero

9 Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive, (1976, Director: Efrain Gutierrez

10. Chulas Fronteras, 1976, Director: Les Blank

11. Zoot Suit, 1981, Director: Luis Valdez

12. El Norte, 1983, Director: Gregory Nava

13. Stand and Deliver, 1988, Director: Ramón Menéndez

14.  El Mariachi, 1992, Director: Robert Rodriguez

15. The Devil Never Sleeps, 1994, Director: Lourdes Portillo

16. The Pearl, 2001, Director: Alfredo Zacarías

17. Real Women Have Curves, 2002, Director: Patricia Cardoso

18. Fuentes Family Home Movies, 2017, Collection/Caroline Frick

Mathematically speaking the current National Film Registry list of Latino films is desperately lacking Latino representation. There are 825 films on the National Film Registry. With the addition of this year’s three new films, Latino films now total 21. Latinos make up 17 percent of the US population; seventeen percent of 825 is 140.25. With only 21 films reflecting Latino stories, there is a long way to go to reach parity.

In January of last year, the US Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been urging the Registry to consider more Latino films on the annual list of 25 nominations and nominated Selena to one of the films inducted to the National Film Registry.

In December of 2022 there will be a new group of films added to the Registry list. Here are three worthy candidates for the Registry’s consideration in 2022:

Bless Me Ultima, 2012, Director: Carl Franklin

This beautiful film adaptation of Rodolfo Anaya’s classic novel about set in New Mexico during WWII and the relationship between a young man and an elderly medicine woman who helps him contend with the battle between good and evil that rages in his village. Bless Me Ultima which is required reading in any Chicano Literature class should be required viewing by  the selection committee of the National Film Registry

Under the Same Moon, 2007, Director: Patricia Riggen

A young Mexican immigrant mother working in LA keeps in touch with her son back in Mexico. The lonely boy embarks on a dangerous, often funny and eventful journey from Mexico to LA to be with his mother. The film was one of the first bilingual stories, a U.S./Mexico coproduction. It starred Kate Del Castillo and Eugenio Derbez. With a budget of $1.7 million, it received international distribution and to date has made $23,313,049 worldwide.

The Three Burials of Melquiades, 2006, Director: Tommy Lee Jones

A Mexican ranch hand working near the Tex-Mex frontera is killed by a reckless Border Patrol agent. The ranch hand’s sympathetic American boss and friend fights to get justice for the Mexican and for a proper resting place for his burial. It stars Julio Cesar Cedillo as Melquiades and Melissa Leo and Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed.

THE 17 PERCENT SOLUTION

In order for the National Film Registry’s film selections to proportionately reflect the U.S. Latino population’s numbers, 119 Latino films need to be added. It’s a long trek, but with the increasingly growing number of films being produced, now is the time to begin the search for this year’s selection.

Featured Photos: ‘Chicana,’ ‘Selena’ and ‘Requiem 29’ (Photo: Courtesy)

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By Luis Reyes

Oscar nominated Director/Writer Gregory Nava (Selena, My Family, Mi Familia) talks about his 1985 classic landmark film El Norte [The North, Central America immigrants refer to the USA] in an Exclusive edited interview with Latin Heat Entertainment on the occasion of its upcoming 35^th anniversary release on Sunday Sept 15^th at 2:00 P.M.  

El Norte will be re-releasing by Lionsgate thru Fathom Events which is an entertainment content provider that broadcasts entertainment events/screenings in movie theaters throughout the US .  Fathom will be releasing El Norte in 200 select theatres nationwide.  

Nava was inspired to make the film as a young man fresh out of UCLA Film School. “I was born and raised on the border [San Diego] and I saw people crossing all the time, leaving violent oppression and poverty behind, looking for that beacon of freedom, and that is what gave me the idea of making the film… giving voice to the voiceless.”

When Nava and producer/writer Anna Thomas were looking for funding, they consciously did not pursue film studios or television networks because, more than likely, studio executives would demand changes be made in either script, casting, or both. Nava and Thomas believe that much of what makes El Norte special would have been jeopardized if a major studio had been involved in the filmmaking process. Their steadfast believes lead to an Academy Award nomination for Best original screenplay. 

When asked if El Norte is more relevant today than when it was first made?  Nava responded:

“Sadly it is. It was a horrific crisis when we made the film 35 years ago. The impact of the film was very strong in its time [1985]. It contributed to the US government granting protective status to refugees from Central America and saved thousands of lives.  It’s the thing that I am proudest of as a filmmaker.”  

He further said, “It was nominated for an Oscar (for Best Original Screenplay) and yes, but I am proudest that it actually helped save lives.”  He adds, “Now things have regressed yet again, hatred of Immigrants is back, the situation on the southern border is tragic, children are being put in cages, families are being separated. The message of compassion of El Norte is really more important today than when we made the film.”

El Norte is the film story of a young immigrant brother and sister, Enrique and Rosa fleeing poverty and violence in their Guatemalan homeland. Making the difficult trek through Mexico to the US they encounter many hurdles including crawling through a horrendous rat infested sewer tunnel on the Tijuana/ San Diego border and further trials and tribulations upon their arrival in Los Angeles.

 “David Villapando as Enrigue and Zaida Silvia Gutierrez as Rosa, their performances are the heart of El Norte. They made film audiences the world over fall in love with their characters.” says Nava. “We were all very young and on fire and that fire still burns.” 

The Oscar nominee, like other directors, uses many of the same actors, a sort of stock company, in his films, especially the late Lupe Ontiveros. who plays Nacha in this film, the woman who befriends Rosa upon her arrival in Los Angeles. He remarks, “I used Lupe Ontiveros three times, she’s such a great actress. She could have been a great star. Nacha in El Norte and Yolanda Saldivar in Selena, these are both amazing performances and completely different. We have such great talent and I love using great wonderful actors,” comments the director.

The film also features performances by Ernesto Gomez Cruz, Enrique Castillo, Mike Gomez, Tony Plana and the late Trinidad Silva.  

The independent film was shot in the indigenous communities of Chiapas and Michoacan, Mexico doubling for the Guatemalan Mayan highlands, since the country was in the midst of a Civil war, making filming prohibitive. Additional filming took place along the border in San Diego and in Los Angeles.

The Academy of Motion Pictures recently restored the film from its original negative with modern digital technology and to see it on the big screen, El Norte looks brand new, as if it had been made today, not thirty-five years ago.

When the film originally release in 1983 Variety called it the “first United American independent epic”, the first American independent film to be so honored

Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, signaled out the two leads as “straight, unactorly quality of the performances, especially by Zaide Silvia Gutierrez as Rosa and David Villalpando as Enrique, two splendid Mexican actors.”

In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Asked a final question on what the significance of this 35^th anniversary Fathom Event release of El Norte means to him?  Nava said.

“If all the theatres are full on September 15th, showing all across the country, we hope it sends a message to Hollywood that we want movies that are beautiful and compassionate and tell the truth about our community, not about Narcos, and also send a message to our president that we want compassion not cruelty.”

Nava and Fanthom Events have announced that profits earned by El Norte from the September 15^th screening of El Norte will be donated to the Fundacion Communitarian Paso Del Norte to help the El Paso mass shooting victims.

The post Gregory Nava’s “El Norte” 35 Year Theater Re-Release Proves Its Relevancy and Cinematic Excellence first appeared on .

El Norte, the epic, a widely acclaimed masterpiece about the dreams of immigrants and the promise of America, will return to movie theaters in select markets this September in a special one-day-only 35th-anniversary presentation from Fathom Events and Lionsgate.

Directed by Gregory Nava from a screenplay co-written by Anna Thomas, El Norte will play on Sunday, September 15, in more than 200 movie theaters nationwide. This special one-day-only presentation will include an exclusive introduction by Nava, whose films include the beloved hit, Selena. The Fathom Events presentation will also include a brand-new featurette that explores the making of the film and features the film’s stars, Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, and David Villalpando.

Tickets for “El Norte 35^th Anniversary” are available at www.FathomEvents.com and at participating movie theater box offices. All event attendees will also receive a free, two-week trial offer to Pantaya, where they can find the best movies and TV series in Spanish, all in one place.

The Fathom Events presentation of El Norte is the film’s first theatrical release since it debuted in U.S. theaters in early 1984, and will be shown in a newly restored version of the film that Nava produced with the help of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Following this special event, Lionsgate will release El Norte on digital formats on September 17.

“Nava’s groundbreaking and the achingly humanistic narrative is the quintessential film about immigration,” noted film critic Claudia Puig (USA Today/NPR) wrote. “Today, 35 years after its debut, El Norte is the film of our time.”

Nominated for an Oscar® for its emotional and compassionate screenplay, written by Nava and Anna Thomas, El Norte was named to the U.S. National Film Registry in 1995. The film follows the struggle of two siblings, Rosa (Gutierréz) and Enrique (Villalpando) as they flee military violence and terror in their small rural home in Guatemala. They have heard stories of the promise of el Norte, or “the North,” and when their home is massacred by the military, they decide to make the dangerous trek through Mexico and into the United States. Once there, Rosa and Enrique discover that their arduous journey is far from over and that the dangers they face as immigrants are different, but no less life-threatening, than the dangers they thought they left behind.

El Norte features a cast filled with noted Latino performers, led by Gutiérrez and Villalpando and also including Lupe Ontiveros, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Enrique Castillo, and Tony Plana. 

“El Norte is a special, magical film, a cinematic epic we are proud to showcase, particularly as issues of immigrants and their hopes and dreams fill the headlines,” said Tom Lucas, Fathom Events Vice President of Studio Relations. “Gregory Nava has created a modern American epic, one that resonates as strongly today as it did 35 years ago.”

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