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EXCLUSIVE: American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, nan award-winning documentary astir nan acclaimed playwright and filmmaker, will statesman its theatrical tally July 17 astatine Film Forum successful New York City.
The movie directed by David Alvarado will grow nan pursuing week to Los Angeles (at Laemmle, AMC, Maya Cinemas, Alamo Drafthouse and more), and connected July 31 successful San Francisco and different locations successful nan Bay Area (Roxie Theater, Smith Rafael successful San Rafael, Rialto Elmwood Theater successful Berkeley, plus Alamo Mountain View and Valley Fair successful nan South Bay/San Jose Area). mTuckman media (No Other Land, Steal This Story Please!) is handling nan theatrical release, which will spot American Pachuco play successful much than 20 cities total, including Dallas, Austin, Houston, Chicago, and Tucson. Along pinch with nan LA area and Bay Area, American Pachuco will unfastened theatrically successful galore California locations, among them San Diego, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Salinas, and Fresno.
The documentary, which won some nan Festival Favorite Award and nan Audience Award for U.S. Documentary astatine Sundance, “chronicles really writer/playwright/director Luis Valdez illuminated nan Mexican American acquisition connected shape and surface and transformed nan American taste landscape,” according to a release. “Born successful Delano, California successful 1940, Valdez wrote his first plays successful grammar school, had his first play produced erstwhile he was a student astatine San Jose State University, and created El Teatro Campesino alongside nan United Farm Workers, helping to animate a broader Chicano theatre movement.”
In 1979, Valdez became nan first Chicano head to person a play mounted connected Broadway pinch his activity Zoot Suit, which was later adapted into a characteristic movie starring Edward James Olmos and Tyne Daly. In 1987, Valdez wrote and directed La Bamba, starring Lou Diamond Phillips arsenic vocalist Ritchie Valens, a movie that became a taste sensation.
American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez won nan prestigious Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film earlier this year. We person your first look astatine nan documentary successful nan trailer above.
“I was 21 erstwhile I heard Luis Valdez speak, and it rearranged what I thought was imaginable for my life,” commented head David Alvarado. “Twenty years later, putting his communicative connected nan large surface is nan champion measurement I cognize to salary that forward. This movie is astir who gets to beryllium American, and a movie theatre is 1 of nan past rooms successful this state wherever strangers still beryllium together successful a room and acquisition thing caller and thing wonderful. Everybody successful that room belongs.”
Alvarado (Bill Nye: Science Guy, The Immortalists) added, “Luis Valdez built El Teatro Campesino connected nan backmost of a flatbed truck, performing for farmworkers successful nan towns wherever this movie will now play. Booking theaters successful Salinas, Fresno, and Bakersfield mattered to america arsenic overmuch arsenic booking nan Film Forum successful New York City. Luis has spent 60 years proving that Chicanos aren’t connected nan margins of nan American story. We are nan American story.”
American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez is simply a co-production of Insignia Films, ITVS, Latino Public Broadcasting and Firelight Media successful relation pinch American Masters, PBS, and Ford Foundation Just Films. Funding was besides provided by nan Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pinch further support from nan National Endowment for nan Humanities, California Humanities, The Better Angels Society, and PBS Distribution.
The documentary is written, directed, and produced by David Alvarado, and produced by Lauren DeFilippo, Everett Katigbak and Amanda Pollak. Executive producers see Stephen Ives, Michael Kantor, Loira Limbal, Carrie Lozano, Stanley Nelson, Marcia Smith, and Sandie Viquez Pedlow. The movie is edited by Daniel Chávez-Ontiveros, pinch cinematography by Zachary Fink and original people by Eduardo Arenas.
Along pinch Valdez, nan movie features Edward James Olmos, Dolores Huerta, Cheech Marin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Taylor Hackford, and Linda Ronstadt, among others. It is narrated by Olmos successful characteristic arsenic El Pachuco (the characteristic he primitively portrayed successful Zoot Suit).
Watch nan trailer for American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez above.
