PBS Film Series Spotlights Latino Heroes on the Frontlines Against COVID-19

Latino Public Broadcasting, a leader in the development, production, acquisition and distribution of film and digital cultural media that is representative of Latinos, commissioned a series of short digital films in a collection called: Latinos Are Essential. The short films are currently streaming on PBS.

These films tell the stories of Latinos during the Covid-19 pandemic and showcase the work of dedicated “essential workers”—health care providers, teachers, food service workers, retail clerks and others—who have kept our country going while caring for their own families. These films not only profile extraordinary people; they provide an invaluable snapshot of life during an unprecedented year in our nation’s history.

Latinos Are Essential is available for streaming on all PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV and Chromecast. The episodes will also be available on PBS Voices, a YouTube channel from PBS Digital Studios that aims to explore what unites us through short-form documentaries. 

“While this year has been devastating, it has also given us a chance to reflect on all the work that our community does to keep Americans safe, fed and comfortable,” says Sandie Viquez Pedlow, LPB executive director. “We wanted to honor these extraordinary people while also providing emerging Latinx filmmakers with work, empowering them to tell the stories of essential workers in their communities. These short films provide a glimpse into the lives of people often unseen but so deserving of our recognition and gratitude.”

The Latinos Are Essential films:

All Around Us
Filmmaker: Andres Caballero
Location: New York, NY
Maria Hinojosa, host of NPR’s “Latino USA,” discusses her work reporting on the pandemic’s effect on Latino communities and her own bout with the virus.

Astrid
Filmmaker: Claudia Zamora Valencia
Location: New York, NY
Astrid is a construction and domestic worker from Colombia who finds a temporary job cleaning subway cars at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.

Chelsea: An Essential City
Filmmaker: Sabrina Aviles
Location: Chelsea, MA
Two-thirds of the residents of the port city of Chelsea are Latino and four out of five are essential workers. Meet a young city councilwoman and a sanitation worker who are keeping their city running.

El Paso Está Presente
Filmmaker: Ramon Villa-Hernandez
Location: El Paso, TX
Monica Navarro is an associate at the Cielo Vista Walmart, the site of the devastating 2019 shooting that left 23 dead. Despite the tragedy, she takes pride in her work and her role in her family and community.

Growing Up in the Shadows
Filmmaker: Lidieth Arevalo
Location: Kennett Square, PA
Anel Medina is a 28-year-old registered nurse and one of the 200,000 DACA recipients who are classified as essential workers, serving Americans across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Networked Education
Filmmaker: Juan Carlos Davila
Location: Corozal, Puerto Rico
In Puerto Rico, wracked by the aftermath of recent natural disasters and with unreliable electricity and internet access, two married teachers struggle to teach their students virtually while raising their own children.

Night Shift
Filmmaker: Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana
Location: Denver, CO
Twenty-two-year-old Dulce Bueno is a first response EMT who works long nights driving an ambulance for one of Colorado’s busiest trauma centers. Her job takes an enormous emotional toll, especially during the difficult days of the pandemic.

A Pescador in the Town
Filmmaker: Yvan Iturriaga, María José Calderón
Location: Oakland, CA
Meet Pancho Pescador, a self-taught Chilean artist and teacher, who spends his pandemic-era days bringing art and life to the struggling streets of Oakland.

Still Standing
Filmmaker: Rhonda Mitrani
Location: Miami, FL
Melanie is a Cuban-American first-grade teacher who is navigating the new experience of teaching her students online while caring for her three-year-old daughter and coping with sudden single parenthood.

Testing Community
Filmmaker: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Location: San Francisco, CA
Jon Jacobo, a first-generation Salvadoran American policy analyst and community activist from San Francisco’s Mission District, shares the story of the city’s Latino Task Force and its groundbreaking partnership with medical researchers to create large-scale COVID testing for Latinos and essential workers.

Todos Unidos y Yo
Filmmaker: Esau Melendez
Location: Chicago, IL
Alfonzo Seiva is a Mexican immigrant living with his wife and son, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy. After his maintenance business declined due to the pandemic, Alfonzo began a program that brings meals and groceries to people in need.

Featured photo: ‘Essential Workers’ video screenshot

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Los Angeles, CA – Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), a non-profit organization funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, awarded twelve film and digital media projects made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The awardees include nine documentary projects and three digital media shorts; ten of the twelve funded projects are helmed by Latina filmmakers.  The projects explore the breadth of the Latino experience, from Puerto Rico to Mexico to Brazil, as well as stories about Latino Americans from coast to coast.  Highlights include Nina Alvarez’s The Temporary Decades, on the fate of over 200,000 Salvadoran-Americans who will face deportation in 2019 when their Temporary Protection Status expires; Cecilia Aldarondo’s Treasure Island, a look at Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane María; and Christina Fernandez and Andrew Shapter’s Porvenir Texas, that revisits the 1918 massacre of fifteen Mexican men along the Texas border.

“We’re very excited about this year’s funded projects – they’re particularly timely and explore issues that our country is grappling with, from immigration to criminal justice to economic inequality,” says Sandie Viquez Pedlow, Executive Director of Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB).  “We’re proud to support these talented filmmakers and bring their unique perspectives to a national audience on PBS.”

Every year LPB invites independent filmmakers to submit proposals for production, post-production and digital support. All proposals are reviewed by a group of public media professionals, including journalists, independent filmmakers, academics, and executives from national funding organizations.

The 2018 awarded projects are as follows:

Current Issues Fund (CIF)

The Temporary Decades

Producer/Director: Nina Alvarez

Category: Post production; 1 Episode/60 Minutes

On September 9, 2019, over 200,000 Salvadorans who have legally lived and worked in the U.S. over the past 17-35 years will be declared illegal. They will either be deported or forced to live in the shadows when their Temporary Protection Status expires.  Three families fight one more battle against U.S. Government policies to reclaim their right to remain in the country they call home.

The Age of Water

Producer/Director: Isabel Alcántara

Co-Producer/Co-Director: Alfredo Alcántara

Category: Post-production; 1 Episode/90 Minutes

The Age of Water follows the story of a young mother who, while trying to find out why her town’s children are dying of leukemia, inadvertently uncovers the Mexican government’s dark business of water.

American Exile

Producer/Director: John Valadez

Category: Post Production; 1 Episode/60 Minutes

Fifty years after they fought in Vietnam, two Mexican American brothers face deportation, and discover thousands of veterans who now struggle with the same fate.

The Esparza Project (W.T)

Producer/Director: Maria Agui Carter

Category: Research & Development; 1 Episode/90 Minutes

An exploration of the case of Patricia Esparza who has spent the last six years in prison for a crime committed 20 years ago – the killing of her rapist by her then-boyfriend. Her story encapsulates the contentious and complex system of crime and punishment in America and shows how Patricia’s story unfolds from her not initially reporting the assault to the police, and how many victims are shamed into keeping sexual assault a secret.

Public Media Content Fund (PMCF)

Dear Homeland

Producer/Director: Claudia Escobar, KQED

Executive Producer: Kelly Whalen, KQED

Category: Post-production; 1 Episode/60 Minutes

Dear Homeland is the story of Mexican singer/songwriter Diana Gameros and her 20-year journey as an undocumented immigrant from Cuidad Juárez, Mexico to Grand Rapids, Michigan and San Francisco as she waits to resolve her immigration status.  This is an intimate look at coming of age in a foreign country and finding one’s voice as a performer, told in large part through her hauntingly beautiful folk music.

Porvenir Texas

Producer/Director: Christina Fernandez

Co-Producer/Co-Director: Andrew Shapter

Executive Producer: Hector Galan

Category: Production; 1 Episode/90 Minutes

In the early morning hours of January 28th, 1918, a group of fifteen fathers, uncles, brothers and sons were taken from their homes and executed. The town of Porvenir, Texas was burned to the ground, and the remaining women and children fled. Who were the killers? And why were they never brought to justice?

Skin of Glass

Producer/Director: Denise Zmekhol

Category: Production; 1 Episode/60 Minutes

When filmmaker Denise Zmekhol discovers that her late father’s most celebrated work as an architect is now São Paulo’s largest high-rise slum, she returns to Brazil to explore her father’s legacy and confront the harsh reality of inequality destroying the city he loved.

Through the Night

Producer/Director: Loira Limbal

Category: Production; 1 Episode/60 Minutes

Through the Night explores the personal cost of our modern economy for two working mothers and a childcare provider at a 24-hour daycare center.

Treasure Island

Producer/Director: Cecilia Aldarondo

Category: Production; 1 Episode/90 Minutes

A kaleidoscopic portrait of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane María, Treasure Islandinvestigates a storm of a much greater magnitude: the economic crisis that crippled the island long before María arrived, and the disaster capitalism now reshaping it.

Digital Media – Shorts

The Daily War

Producer/Director: Karla Legaspy

Category: Digital Media; 1 Episode/10 Minutes

A struggling single mother who is a veteran takes on a new job only to discover that the work environment triggers her PTSD.

Joyride

Producer/Director: Edwin Gomez

Category: Digital Media; 1 Episode/9 Minutes

Teenage Latina twin sisters break their grandmother out of her assisted living facility for one last joyride.

Luciela

Producer/Director: Erin Ploss-Campoamor

Category: Digital Media; 1 Episode/10 Minutes

Luciela is a fiercely independent Mexican American girl with a tight-knit family that loves celebrating the 4th of July. Everything changes, however, when her beloved father is deported to Mexico.

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