Selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as an Oscar-qualified film, The Kill Floor is an emotional story full of tension, grief, and injustice. Yet, like our collective time in lockdown during the COVID-19 epidemic, the audience is left with the comfort of the most enduring of all human emotions: love. Love for a son, a career, a community, and eventually, self love. 

The film was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on the meatpacking industry and its workers, particularly in the Latino community. Through the character of Gill, Avila focused on the different stories of the workers. He interviewed meatpacking workers, union representatives, activists, and journalists who covered the stories in real time and created a fictionalized version of events capturing the worker experience while exploring important themes of community and father-son relationships.

“In the meatpacking plant workers I spoke with, I recognized people like my family and friends and their dedication to work. I felt that this story of Latino essential workers was important and necessary to tell. Often, these stories are forgotten. I wanted to call attention to what happened.” – Carlos Avila

Latin Heat was able to catch up with director Carlos Avila to talk about his process in writing/producing and directing his short film and why he felt he needed to tell this story.

Latin Heat: Tell us about some of the stories and experiences of the workers in the meatpacking plants. 

Carlos Avila: Although The Kill Floor is a fictional story, it uses as its backdrop the very real crisis in the meatpacking industry during the early days of the pandemic. COVID-19 spread like wildfire through numerous meatpacking plants. It impacted many workers because that industry was either unprepared to deal with the crisis or uninterested in mitigating the risks posed by the virus if it was to slow down production. We were committed to telling this story with humor, emotion, and vivid characterizations. 

LH: Why focus on the Latino community?

Because Latinos are such a big part of the workforce in these plants, the Latino community was heavily impacted by COVID-19. In the research that I did prior to writing, I interviewed meatpacking plant workers and read many accounts of their experiences. The workers that I interviewed in Vernon, California told me about a worker at the plant who went to extremes to hide his symptoms from his co-workers because he was desperate to work so that he could continue to provide for his family. That gentleman eventually died because by the time he got medical attention he couldn’t be saved. Another story I read was about Saul Sanchez, a meatpacking plant worker in Greeley, Colorado. Mr. Sanchez was in his 70s, and he had worked at a plant there for over 30 years. He was one of the first workers to get COVID-19 at the plant. He was admitted to the ICU and put on a ventilator, and eventually he died. A few days before he passed, he told his family to tell the plant management not to be concerned because he would soon be back to work. There’s some of Mr. Sanchez in the The Kill Floor character, Agustin. Working in the meatpacking industry is challenging on any given day, but during COVID-19, it was particularly perilous. 

LH: What was the writing process like for this film?

CA: As I was writing The Kill Floor, it was very clear to me that there was a tremendous responsibility in telling a story like this. I wanted to dramatize and not sensationalize. I steeped myself heavily in the world of the meatpacking plants through interviews, firsthand observation, and research prior to writing the script. I’m a good listener, and I got so much out of the conversations I had with the meatpacking plant workers and union representatives in Vernon, California, the activists in Crete, Nebraska, and the journalists on both the East and West Coasts who covered the story. I integrated details, events, and perspectives with my storytelling instincts to develop a narrative that reflects a true version of what occurred.

LH: Why did you choose to tell the story through both present day scenes and flashbacks? 

CA:The Kill Floor uses flashbacks in order to provide an emotional dimension to our characters. Because [the film] has a short running time of 27 minutes, I knew I had to be economical in providing a context for the relationships.

The flashbacks made sense in terms of storytelling and being able to convey some understanding of the Gil/Agustin relationship. I wanted the flashbacks to resonate when we finally got to the present-day Gil/Agustin scenes.

Some of the settings for the present-day scenes are the same as in the flashbacks, and yet so much has changed in the characters’ lives and in terms of their relationship. I was less interested in using flashbacks for exposition but more in providing emotional depth. 

LH: What did you learn about the Latino spirit and work ethic throughout the making of this film?

CA: One of the stories that impacted me as I read the newspapers and watched the news was the crisis that was unfolding in the meatpacking plants. Given the nature of meat processing industry — people standing in close proximity to each other — COVID-19 spread quickly through those facilities. I knew that many Latinos were working in the poultry plants in the American South, but as I read and researched more, I was impressed to see how many Latinos worked in meatpacking plants throughout the United States. I was moved by these stories that I was reading. 

It seemed like there was a clash between big business and the dedicated Latino work ethic. These corporations wanted to keep operating regardless of the human cost. They even successfully lobbied the former President and his administration to pass an Executive Order so that they would be declared ‘essential businesses.’ This gave these corporations liability protections if workers got sick. In the plant workers I spoke with, I recognized people like my family and friends and their dedication to work. I felt that this story of Latino essential workers was important and necessary to tell. Often, these stories are forgotten. I wanted to call attention to what happened. My goal was to make a film that would resonate with audiences. I also wanted the film to be a ‘witness’ to what happened. 

LH: Where did this story come from?

CA: In the early days of the pandemic, as with so many other people, I was glued to the news. I was wondering whether we were facing the apocalypse or whether the world would make it through the crisis. I started reading about the COVID-19 crisis happening in the meatpacking plants. When I found out how many Latinos worked in these plants and how Latino communities were so heavily impacted, I knew that I needed to tell this story. Now and then, as a filmmaker, you encounter a story that needs to be told. For me, The Kill Floor was one of those stories.

LH: Why is being Oscar Qualifying important for this and other short films? 

CA: Qualifying for the Academy Awards tells me that our film is of significant merit and worthy of playing alongside the other short films that have also qualified this year. It is a wonderful achievement to be in a category that includes important films from all over the world. The hope, of course, is that this additional visibility for The Kill Floor gives much-needed attention to the subject matter of our film and the role of Latino essential workers during the pandemic. 

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Jennifer Lopez in her best role in years as Ramona, the hard-edged Bronx single mother and top strip club dancer in the hit film Hustlers, might just clinch an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress come award season.

In a year where there was a dearth of Latino talent represented in major theatrical feature films, (the exception being Dora The Explorer and Alita: Battle Angel) only Antonio Banderas is being talked about as a potential Oscar nominee in the Best Actor category for his performance in Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory. Banderas has already won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival this past May.

A strong Oscar campaign on Lopez’s behalf by the film’s producers and distributors should ensure at least a nomination for the veteran Latina actress who at age 50 is a true superstar and internationally recognized as one of the most beautiful and talented women in the world. 

Hustlers is Lopez’s biggest-grossing live-action film of her career, with a domestic box-office total gross to date of $104 million according to Box Office Mojo with an additional $32 million in worldwide earnings. 

Produced by Benny Medina (under Lopez’s own Neuyorican productions) and directed by Lorene Scarfia, from her own script, Hustlers was made on a $20 million dollar budget and is already profitable.

Based on a true-life incident featured in a 2015 New York Magazine article, Hustlers is about a group of New York City strippers, led by Lopez’s Ramona, who orchestrate a plan to scam their wealthy Wall Street clients after the 2008 recession.  

Beyond its box office success, Hustlers is also one of those rare movies starring diverse women of color which also inclueds Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians), Cardi B., Lizzo, Kiki Palmer, Julia Stiles and Lili Reinhart.  Wu as the neophyte Dorothy plays well against Lopez’s hardened but sympathetic Ramona and they give each other ample support under the sensitive and stylish direction of Scarfia, one of the few women in Hollywood to helm a major feature film.  Sixty-seven percent of the film’s audience has been made up of women, 36% Caucasian, 27% Hispanic, 26% African-American, and 11% Asian/other. 

Lopez is currently at work in New York City starring in a new romantic comedy Marry Me, a Universal feature film starring in the role of Kat Valdes opposite Owen Wilson with Sarah Silverman and featuring Columbian pop star Maluma.

Hustlers is distributed by STX.

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Hustlers, is based on a true story of a group of women strip club dancers who turn the tide on their exploitative Wall St. patrons is a raw, in your face drama centered around the relationship between two women from different backgrounds. It’s a fast-paced female-driven story about working-class women and their struggles to make ends meet and the revealing reasons why. No Magic Mike sexist fantasy bullsh%t here, this is an in your face no-nonsense real deal. It also functions as an expose of a seedy, glitzy “Flesh and Flash” world, where business transactions involve lap dances and champagne rooms for high-end clients with lots of disposable cash and $100,000 credit card limits. 

As alluded to in the film by one of the characters, it’s nothing but the American way, no different from Wall Street business commodity transactions and the satisfaction derived from monetary gains.

Jennifer Lopez is Ramona Vega, a single mother from the Bronx who has scored the key to success in the high-end strip club in New York City.  develops a friendship with Destiny, a neophyte girl at the club, superbly played by Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians). 

 Destiny was abandoned at an early age and lives alone with the aging and ailing grandmother who raised her. Ramona mentors and then partners up with Destiny in order to further expand and exploit their clientele with a Latina/Asian Duo.  

Life is good until the financial crisis of 2008 hits and the bottom falls out of the business The extravagant lifestyles they have attained is no longer. They are forced to return to their working-class lifestyle.  Soon after Ramona devises a plan to fleece their former and new strip club patrons as a recovery looms.   

Lopez gives a startling portrayal as the self-assured but vulnerable Ramona whose presence is central to every scene she’s in. With a hard edge New York take-charge Bronx attitude and brilliant makeup, hairstyles and outfits she creates a rarely seen Latina lead character.

At 50 years of age, Lopez is an amazing testament to physically fit womanhood when she struts her stuff in a pole dancing sequence and instructs Destiny on the finer points of dance.  

The role of Ramona also gives Lopez the opportunity to reveal what drives this mature experienced single mom who has gone through some hard knocks and uses her smarts and physical assets to make her way in life and raise her daughter. She seems to have brought something of her own life experience to her portrayal, which had film critics at the Toronto Film Festival, where it premiered, talking about an Oscar nomination for  Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. The film is told from Destiny point of view as she lets herself be taken under Ramona’s wing as if guiding a younger version of herself.

The audience gets revealing glimpses into the other women’s lives saddled with deadbeat husbands, incarcerated boyfriends, dead-end jobs, jealous lovers and family estrangements.

In that sense, they should both receive Oscar nominations because they both work off each other’s strong and very different portrayals. 

Lopez’s Ramona is one of the few leading multi-layered complex American characters of Latin descent to be seen on American screens in a long time in contemporary feature films.

Hustlers features a multi-ethnic diverse cast of women including Cardi B., Lili Reinhart, Lizzo, Keke Palmer, Madeline Brewer Dawson, and Trace Lysette. Writer-director Linda Scarfaria understands, and has a firm directorial grasp on the material and brings female insight and vision to the film in which women literally take center stage. Men are central to the story but they are on the periphery. 

Lopez is one of the producers of the film along with her longtime manager/producer Benny Medina and Will Ferrell. 

Hustlers hustled in $33.2 million dollars in box-office receipts during this past weekends’ opening making it a hit and the best live-action film opening of Lopez’s career to date.  

According to the Hollywood Reporter. the audience was overwhelmingly 67 % female of which 27% were Hispanic ticket buyers. Hustlers is sure to be a most talked-about film for quite some time.

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