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Producer: Monika Navarro In the winter of 1999, the filmmaker's uncles, who had immigrated to the United States as children, were deported to Mexico and forced to leave the only country they knew and, as servicemen, had pledged to protect. As the filmmaker struggles to reconcile the internal border between citizen and immigrant, Animas Perdidas explores transnational identity through this very personal journey. |
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Producer: Gabriela Quirós |
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Producer: Abby Ginzberg |
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Producer: Xochitl Dorsey |
 
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Producers: Maria Teresa Rodriguez/Kathryn Pyle |
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Producer: Anayansi Prado By following American retirees who are moving to Panama, Give Us Your Retired, Your Rich, Your Americans explores the effects and the challenges this migration creates for both the retirees and the local Panamanian community. In times when most of the talk about immigration between the US and Latin America is about immigration to the U.S., the viewer learns that this is actually a two way street, as the percentage of American retirees migrating to Latin America is growing as rapidly as the number of Latin American immigrants coming to the United States. |
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Producer: Cristina Ibarra Marthas will be a one-hour documentary that follows the year-long preparations of Mexican American teenagers debuting in the annual Martha Washington Society Ball in Laredo, Texas. The Ball -- a unique 112- year-old colonial-themed celebration of George Washington and exclusive to daughters of Society members, is the stage where privilege and legacy are on display, provoking questions about patriotism, tradition, history, identity and the role of women along the border. |
 
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Producer: WGBH/Elizabeth Dean/Adriana Bosch From Latin Jazz to Salsa to Tejano and Latin Pop, Latino USA tells the story of the rise of new American music forged from powerful Latin roots and explores the influence of Latin music in jazz, hip hop, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. In four, hour-long films, the project focuses on the fresh, new hybrid sounds created by Latinos over the past half-century, musical fusions that have deeply enriched popular music in the U.S. It is an unprecedented and ambitious approach, reaching across time and across musical genres to create a narrative that embraces the breadth of Latino music and lecture in the U.S. over more than five decades. |
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Director/Producer: Jim Mendiola/Faith Radle While a forgotten Hollywood comedy may now only be a footnote in American film history, to San Antonio's then-oppressed Mexican American community, and to a larger extent the Latino population of the United States, Viva Max represents the beginning of the assertion of a cultural and political presence that is clearly evident today. The old guard was challenged. Interpretations of history questioned. Making Viva Max is the story of a big Hollywood movie invading a sleepy Texas town for a few weeks and the permanent and unintended social change that resulted. |
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Producer: Ilana Trachtman Beginning with the humor and beguiling awkwardness of open auditions in the fall, through major competitions in the spring, this vérité-style documentary tells the story of growing up Mexican American by capturing a year in the lives of four teenagers who form part of a competitive high school mariachi band. Using the band as a lens, Mariachi High closely follows the lives of compelling student musicians, from the classroom to their living rooms, behind closed doors and at public performances, through romances and tough decisions, all the while exploring how mariachi music helps Mexican American teenagers reconcile cultural identity with American teenage-hood. Against a backdrop of negative ethnic stereotypes in the media, watching these passionate young people find their own unique voices through an intense connection to the musical traditions of their cultural roots gives this film a heart-warming soul. |
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Producer: David Ruiz Marquez Mexican Pipe Dream is the story of one man's quest to overcome the hardships of his troubled youth in order to follow his dream of becoming one of the world's most respected big wave surfers. At the age of eight, Mexico's most reputable surfer, Carlos "Coco" Nogales, was a runaway sleeping under newspapers and selling gum in the streets of Mexico City. He saved his money and made his way to Puerto Escondido, a small fishing town where kids could ride surfboards on big waves. Since his arrival to Puerto Escondido, Coco has racked up more tube time, and ridden more deadly waves than virtually anyone, anywhere. |
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Producer: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor New Muslim Cool follows a Puerto Rican-American Muslim hip-hop artist and his family facing life in post-9/11 America. This observational documentary's three acts follow Jason "Hamza" Pérez as he works to build a religious community in Pittsburgh, seeks custody of his children after a failed first marriage, and marries Rafiah, a devout young woman from a conservative African American Muslim family. After the FBI raids their mosque, Hamza and Rafiah cope with the fear of losing their new family, and they forge unexpected friendships with Christian and Jewish allies. |
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Producer: Andrea Meller Now en Español follows the lives of five dynamic women who dub Desperate Housewives into Spanish and chronicles the ups and downs of being a Latina actress in Hollywood. Single mothers, divorcees, and recent immigrants struggle to balance Hollywood dreams with the responsibilities of making rent and raising children. Unlike the women they portray, they don't have the right look, they speak with accents, and have to hold down multiple jobs to get by, but none of them are desperate. On Magnolia Boulevard in LA where five unique women come together each Thursday to dub Desperate Housewives into Spanish for millions of obsessed viewers, there's a grittier reality. |
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Producer: Melissa Montero Our Women, Our Struggle chronicles the lives of three Puerto Rican revolutionary women - Isabel Rosado, Lolita Lebron, and Dylcia Pagan - who dedicated their lives to the Puerto Rican independence movement. As a result, the women were subjected to FBI surveillance and each spent many years in prison. The women speak about their involvement in the historical struggle and the persecution they faced. These controversial women were labeled as a threat to society and national security yet were loved by their people, becoming a symbol of the island's patriotism. |
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Producer: Reed Rickert The Third Root follows Mexican guitarist Camilo Nu on a journey to discover the rich cultures embodied in the under-recognized roots of Mexican music. Traveling over three continents through Mexico, Spain and Morocco, Camilo engages with masters of Son Jarocho, Son Huasteca, Flamenco, Gnawa, Sufi, Andalusian, and Berber music, creating captivating new sounds fused by these traditions. Interviews with various roots music masters, important contemporary Mexican and world musicians, along with ethnomusicologists and historians, illuminate the under-appreciated historic cultural transactions that left an immense footprint in Mexico's identity. Camilo and his new friends touch a place deep within the very essence of the human spirit that connects us all – a universal language that communicates beyond words and political borders and bridges the gap between any culture… the language of music. |
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Producer: Sandra Guardado Two Trinities explores the Trinity Foundation and its leader Ole Anthony in their holy quest to bring down televangelists who prey on the poor and the desperate using the lure of the "heavenly lottery." Recognized nationally in the media for its investigations of televangelists, the Trinity foundation has devoted itself for 20 years to expose the self-dealing empires and ultimately empty promises of televangelist preachers, while keeping their own mission of picking up the cross daily and helping others. Once again, the Trinity Foundation has been drawn into the center of controversy - an unprecedented Federal inquiry by a U.S. Senator into the finances of several high-profile televangelists. These unfolding events are stirring national debate on what it means to be a believer and what responsibilities religion has in American Society. |
