GeneChing
09-10-2013, 08:29 AM
Barrio Brawler (2013) - Official Trailer [HD] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9hRBOmnRls)
'Delusions of Grandeur' a love letter to SF in '90s (http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Delusions-of-Grandeur-a-love-letter-to-SF-in-4789907.php)
Pam Grady
Published 1:09 pm, Thursday, September 5, 2013
The 2013 edition of the Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival opens Friday with "Tlatelolco: Summer of '68," a powerful historical drama that blends romance, class and politics set against the bloody 1968 student protests in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square.
Among the other highlights in this festival celebrating movies from the United States, Central America and South America are "7 Boxes," a darkly comic Paraguayan thriller in which a teenage deliveryman finds himself pursued for his mysterious cargo; "Everything Comes From the Streets," a documentary that focuses on the history of lowrider culture in the border region between San Diego and Tijuana; and the San Francisco-set "Barrio Brawler," a drama about a martial arts teacher who joins an underground fight club to save his school and his family.
"Barrio Brawler" is not the festival's only locally shot film. There is also "Delusions of Grandeur," a lovely homage to a San Francisco that is rapidly vanishing under the onslaught of gentrification. Shot in the Mission, the Tenderloin and other parts of the city, this colorful coming-of-age drama stars Leana Chavez as Lulu, a young woman prone to visions of her long-gone mother. She moves from her father's suburban house to the city, where she makes a family for herself with her transgender roommate Ilusión (Salvador Benavides), cafe co-worker Mario (Ronnie Alvarez) and flower seller Rocio (Rina Fernandez). Set in the 1990s, the film is full of landmarks: the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, the Roxie, the New Mission, Esta Noche and the Stud, among others.
Writer-director Iris Almaraz and writer-guest director Gustavo Ramos both make their homes in Los Angeles, but like Tony Bennett, they clearly left their hearts in San Francisco. The two met here when they were students at San Francisco State University and Ramos took Professor Jim Gold-ner's film directing class. Almaraz was Goldner's teaching assistant. The pair hadn't seen each in a couple of years when they came together to talk about redoing one of Ramos' student projects, a short about a transgender woman, for film festival play. At the same time, Almaraz felt done with shorts. She wanted to move into feature films and already had Lulu's story in mind. Eventually the two stories came together to form "Delusions of Grandeur."
"The story was actually born in Goldner's class, because that was the second short film I did in that class and that's where Iris got to see it, too," Ramos says.
"It felt natural trying to incorporate that into this story of this girl becoming a woman," Almaraz adds.
Filming in Bay Area essential
For a time, Almaraz and Ramos assumed "Delusions of Grandeur" would be a much different movie. Based in Southern California and having very little money, they thought the film would have to be shot in Los Angeles. They even went so far in their initial draft as to make Lulu an aspiring filmmaker, but realizing that they were drawing inspiration from their own lives made filming in the Bay Area essential.
"I think both Iris and I were driven to the city by a sense of wanting to escape and a sense of wanting to discover," says Ramos, who moved to San Francisco from Mexico when he was 16. "This city becomes a collective experience, and (the film) is a love letter to the city. It's a love letter to all the people we met. It is a love letter to all of the people who opened up their hearts and their lives and let us in. It is a love letter to our youth."
Re-creating S.F. in '90s
San Francisco becomes, in fact, another character in the movie. Almaraz and Ramos would come up on weekends to location scout, carefully plotting where each scene would take place. Within their tiny budget, they were able to re-create the city as they remembered it.
"I was really inspired by the way Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' honors Manhattan, the jazz, the black and white, the way it's shot," Almaraz says. "It was clear to me that if we were going to honor the story, the story had to be about seeing San Francisco, which is colorful to me, with the murals and the characters."
"I have such a love of the city, because it's the city that nurtured me as an artist and as a gay man," Ramos says. "I would spend a lot of time at Trannyshack and I would go to Esta Noche a lot, but it was the drama that unfolded offstage that really captivated me. I really wanted to pay tribute to the transgender community, because I have really close ties to a lot of the girls. I wanted to show the human side.
"The city transforms us," he adds. "When we're there, it's nurturing. The city itself is nurturing. Every place you go is beautiful. I think Mario, the character Ronnie Alvarez plays, sums it up: You can be from any place in the world and be a certain way and people expect you to be that way, but when you come to the city, you can be a different person, more truthful. You can be your true self. The city is like a mother in a way, and it's nurturing and it protects you and it helps you excel and be yourself."
Deeply personal project
"Delusions of Grandeur" has been making the rounds of the festival circuit, but Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival is the first opportunity Almaraz and Ramos have had to screen the film in San Francisco. They are excited to be returning to their old stomping grounds to introduce a local audience to a deeply personal project that Almaraz feels captures the spirit of San Francisco.
"We've played Chicago, New York and Austin," she says. "People remember why they love San Francisco so much. They want to go back to visit. But I'm so excited to be going back and showing it to people who inspired and nurtured us."
Ramos adds: "I would like for people to know that although this film is a work of fiction, it comes from a very real place. It captures the essence of what it was like for a straight Latina woman and a gay Mexican immigrant man living in San Francisco in the '90s. And like with any work of art, the most important thing is not what you see, but how it makes you feel." {sbox}
Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival: Friday through Sept. 27. www.sflatinofilmfestival.com.
'Delusions of Grandeur' a love letter to SF in '90s (http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Delusions-of-Grandeur-a-love-letter-to-SF-in-4789907.php)
Pam Grady
Published 1:09 pm, Thursday, September 5, 2013
The 2013 edition of the Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival opens Friday with "Tlatelolco: Summer of '68," a powerful historical drama that blends romance, class and politics set against the bloody 1968 student protests in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square.
Among the other highlights in this festival celebrating movies from the United States, Central America and South America are "7 Boxes," a darkly comic Paraguayan thriller in which a teenage deliveryman finds himself pursued for his mysterious cargo; "Everything Comes From the Streets," a documentary that focuses on the history of lowrider culture in the border region between San Diego and Tijuana; and the San Francisco-set "Barrio Brawler," a drama about a martial arts teacher who joins an underground fight club to save his school and his family.
"Barrio Brawler" is not the festival's only locally shot film. There is also "Delusions of Grandeur," a lovely homage to a San Francisco that is rapidly vanishing under the onslaught of gentrification. Shot in the Mission, the Tenderloin and other parts of the city, this colorful coming-of-age drama stars Leana Chavez as Lulu, a young woman prone to visions of her long-gone mother. She moves from her father's suburban house to the city, where she makes a family for herself with her transgender roommate Ilusión (Salvador Benavides), cafe co-worker Mario (Ronnie Alvarez) and flower seller Rocio (Rina Fernandez). Set in the 1990s, the film is full of landmarks: the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, the Roxie, the New Mission, Esta Noche and the Stud, among others.
Writer-director Iris Almaraz and writer-guest director Gustavo Ramos both make their homes in Los Angeles, but like Tony Bennett, they clearly left their hearts in San Francisco. The two met here when they were students at San Francisco State University and Ramos took Professor Jim Gold-ner's film directing class. Almaraz was Goldner's teaching assistant. The pair hadn't seen each in a couple of years when they came together to talk about redoing one of Ramos' student projects, a short about a transgender woman, for film festival play. At the same time, Almaraz felt done with shorts. She wanted to move into feature films and already had Lulu's story in mind. Eventually the two stories came together to form "Delusions of Grandeur."
"The story was actually born in Goldner's class, because that was the second short film I did in that class and that's where Iris got to see it, too," Ramos says.
"It felt natural trying to incorporate that into this story of this girl becoming a woman," Almaraz adds.
Filming in Bay Area essential
For a time, Almaraz and Ramos assumed "Delusions of Grandeur" would be a much different movie. Based in Southern California and having very little money, they thought the film would have to be shot in Los Angeles. They even went so far in their initial draft as to make Lulu an aspiring filmmaker, but realizing that they were drawing inspiration from their own lives made filming in the Bay Area essential.
"I think both Iris and I were driven to the city by a sense of wanting to escape and a sense of wanting to discover," says Ramos, who moved to San Francisco from Mexico when he was 16. "This city becomes a collective experience, and (the film) is a love letter to the city. It's a love letter to all the people we met. It is a love letter to all of the people who opened up their hearts and their lives and let us in. It is a love letter to our youth."
Re-creating S.F. in '90s
San Francisco becomes, in fact, another character in the movie. Almaraz and Ramos would come up on weekends to location scout, carefully plotting where each scene would take place. Within their tiny budget, they were able to re-create the city as they remembered it.
"I was really inspired by the way Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' honors Manhattan, the jazz, the black and white, the way it's shot," Almaraz says. "It was clear to me that if we were going to honor the story, the story had to be about seeing San Francisco, which is colorful to me, with the murals and the characters."
"I have such a love of the city, because it's the city that nurtured me as an artist and as a gay man," Ramos says. "I would spend a lot of time at Trannyshack and I would go to Esta Noche a lot, but it was the drama that unfolded offstage that really captivated me. I really wanted to pay tribute to the transgender community, because I have really close ties to a lot of the girls. I wanted to show the human side.
"The city transforms us," he adds. "When we're there, it's nurturing. The city itself is nurturing. Every place you go is beautiful. I think Mario, the character Ronnie Alvarez plays, sums it up: You can be from any place in the world and be a certain way and people expect you to be that way, but when you come to the city, you can be a different person, more truthful. You can be your true self. The city is like a mother in a way, and it's nurturing and it protects you and it helps you excel and be yourself."
Deeply personal project
"Delusions of Grandeur" has been making the rounds of the festival circuit, but Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival is the first opportunity Almaraz and Ramos have had to screen the film in San Francisco. They are excited to be returning to their old stomping grounds to introduce a local audience to a deeply personal project that Almaraz feels captures the spirit of San Francisco.
"We've played Chicago, New York and Austin," she says. "People remember why they love San Francisco so much. They want to go back to visit. But I'm so excited to be going back and showing it to people who inspired and nurtured us."
Ramos adds: "I would like for people to know that although this film is a work of fiction, it comes from a very real place. It captures the essence of what it was like for a straight Latina woman and a gay Mexican immigrant man living in San Francisco in the '90s. And like with any work of art, the most important thing is not what you see, but how it makes you feel." {sbox}
Cine+Mas San Francisco Latino Film Festival: Friday through Sept. 27. www.sflatinofilmfestival.com.