Documentary, 56 min (in post-production)
Laura Varela, Producer/Director
Fernando S. Cano II, Co-Producer, has been involved in the film industry for over sixteen years. Fernando has produced four feature films: Painflower (16mm), EvenHand (35mm), No Pain No Gain (35mm) and Speeder Kills (Mini-DV, directed by Jim Mendiola), and served as Production Supervisor and Production Coordinator on two PBS/ITVS-funded programs: Come & Take It Day (Mini-DV) and the Foto-Novelas II series (16mm, directed by Carlos Avila), respectively. A UT Film School graduate, Fernando co-founded Yerba Buena Productions (YBP), whose main purpose was to produce films by, for, and about Latinos. YBP has had its projects featured in film festivals in both the U.S. and Latin America, winning honors and awards along the way. His production credits include feature films like Syriana, Selena, The Newton Boys, All The Pretty Horses, and Miss Congeniality, as well as shorts, documentaries, music videos, commercials. Currently, Fernando holds a position as Senior Producer for Laszlo Rain, a San Antonio-based commercial production company specializing in ads for national and regional clients.
Anne Lewis, Associate Producer/Editor. Current projects include: Morristown, a working class look at globalization from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and ¡Ya Basta! about Texas labor history, and High Stakes which explores the impact of standardized testing on school children in Texas. She is a Film/Video/Multimedia Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation and a senior lecturer in editing and documentary filmmaking at The University of Texas at Austin, and a proud member of Local 6186 CWA-NABET and the Texas State Employees Union.
Guillermina Zabala, Editor. Born in Argentina, Guillermina Zabala is a San Antonio media artist/photographer. She graduated from Columbia College-Hollywood with a Bachelor’s degree in Cinema. Currently, she is the Media Arts Director at San Antonio’s SAY Sí. In 2006, she was awarded with the NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant for her documentary project Juanito’s Lab. She served as Curator at the 28th Annual CineFestival en San Antonio and as a Curator at the 9th LA Freewaves Festival. She has directed fiction and documentary films, music videos, and video installations. Recently, Guillermina participated in the multimedia installation Exist/Resist: Metamorphosis of Destruction shown at Flight Gallery and in the Media Kunst Symposium in Blue Star Contemporary Arts Center (in both events she worked alongside artists Vaago Weiland and Laura Varela).
Lee Daniel, Director of Photography. Credits include Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2005), Before Sunset (2004), I Remember Me (2001), SubUrbia (1997), Before Sunrise (1995), Rift (1993) and Dazed and Confused (1993), Slacker (1991).
B.V. Olguin, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of English, Classics, Philosophy, and Communication at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, with specialization in U.S. Latina/o and Latin American literature, film, and popular culture. He previously taught in the Department of English at Cornell University, where he offered courses in Chicana/o and Latina/o film. A native of Houston, Texas, Professor Olguin has worked with Carlos Calbillo on several documentary projects, including El Corrido de Joe Campos Torres, featuring Jesus “Chuy” Negrete, and the award-winning Chicano Week ‘87.
George Mariscal, Ph.D., is the author of Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1999). This is the authoritative book on Chicana/o writings about the war. He also has presented widely on the complex relationship between Mexican-Americans and the U.S. military. He is currently Director of the UCSD Chicano/a and Latino/a Arts and Humanities Program.
Norma E. Cantú currently serves as Professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the editor of a book series, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: Borderlands Culture and Tradition, at Texas A&M University Press and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Author of the award-winning Canícula Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, and co-editor of Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change, she has just finished a novel, Cabañuelas and is currently working on another novel tentatively titled: Champú, or Hair Matters, and an ethnography of the Matachines de la Santa Cruz, a religious dance drama from Laredo, Texas.
Rodolfo Rosales, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UTSA, is the author of The Illusion of Inclusion: The Untold Story of San Antonio Politics (U of Texas Press, 2000). This book is an authoritative treatment of Mexican-American political life, and includes a portrait of the dismal economic context from which many San Antonio Mexican-American military recruits are drawn. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Army who served after the Korean War and before the war in Vietnam.
Beverly Sanchez-Padilla, Evaluator and Advisor on Educational Materials. A native New Mexican, she is a multidisciplinary artist in film/video/theater/poetry and has been a reporter/photographer/producer for KOB-TV-NBC, KOAT-TV-ABC and KNME-TV-PBS in Albuquerque as well as San Antonio. Her films/videos include El Corrido de Juan Chacon distributed by Latin American Archives and de mujer a mujer, distributed by Women Make Movies and most recently El Corrido de Emma Tenayuca. She served as artist-in-residence for the San Antonio Independent School District from 1992-99 where she taught media production and creative writing to students from elementary school through high school. She has a BA from the University of New Mexico, a certificate from the Anthropology Film Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a post-graduate fellow from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Presently she is teaching theater and video at Palo Alto College - International Programs in San Antonio.