Friday, January 16, 2015

Domino and relevance - plus some important thanks

You might wonder why a drama about someone in Spain suffering through the economic crisis there would be relevant to an American audience.

Well, wonder no more.

It has been estimated that.....

On the topic of hard times, our own San Francisco Bay Area has a major homeless population - in Silicon Valley, no less. There are some 7,500 homeless in that area, alone, many of them with full-time jobs. The working poor.



This is  largely because housing prices in Silicon Valley have skyrocketed. According to an article in EFE (a Spanish news service), rentals have gone up from $1,700 a month last year, to some $2,600 today. This has literally left many people out in the cold.

The City of San José recently broke up a huge homeless settlement, and metropolitan Los Angeles has between 38,000 and 45,000 homeless, depending upon which government statistics you trust most, those of the federal government or those of the City of Los Angeles.



New York City had 48,000 homeless in 2013.  San Francisco has about 10,000 while in Washintgon, D.C. there are about 7,000.  In all, it is estimated that there are over 3 million homeless people in the United States, many of them children.

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Some important thanks are due for their support of our American premiere of Domino: Caught in the Crisis (Dominó:  agarrado por la crisis). The release is being officially presented by the City of El Cerrito through its Arts and Culture Commission. Thank you El Cerrito. 



Another sponsor is the City of Richmond, through its Arts and Culture Commission. They are helping with publicity. Thanks to them, as well.

And of course thanks in advance to Rialto Cinemas Cerrito. We certainly couldn't do it without you!

Even more thanks to our fiscal sponsor, From the Heart Productions, and to César's Restaurant in Berkeley, who is the first donor of a prize for the raffle we'll hold at the screening - a $100 gift certificate for food and drink in their restaurant!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

My Peru trip - day 15 (all about he BIG SHOOT)

Peru diary (Dec. 19, 2014)

Well, yesterday was the BIG SHOOT, the reason that I scheduled my trip when I did, so that I could get all three great percussionists together:  Lalo Izquierdo, Juan Medrano Cotito, and Huevito Lobatón.

We filmed the conversation part in "my apartment."  l to r:  Cotito, Huevito Lobatón and Lalo Izquierdo.

And they were, well, great!

We started off by filming a conversation between the three of them, in which I presented three topics and asked them simply to talk about them.  The first topic was...how did they learn Afro-Peruvian rhythms.  Of course, I knew they had all learned as kids in their homes, watching parents, family, and friends but I wanted them to talk about this in front of the camera.

They did, indeed, talk.  After an hour on the topic, I had to raise my hand and ask them to stop since I was running out of film.  (I still shoot with videotape, although the other two camera people had video cards.)

Me with Huevito Lobatón.  We filmed the interviews in a park in Barranco (another district of Lima).

What they said as they talked was really fun and interesting.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Because of the time factor, we had to skip topic two, and I had them move briefly through topic three (what they think is the future of Afro-Peruvian music, rhythms and dance).

Next, we filmed short interviews in which I asked each of them separately a very few questions.

Lalo Izquierdo and Juan Medrano Cotito in the park.

Finally, the big thing:  the performance part.  We filmed this in a cultural organization which has a stage and puts on performances.  It's called Casa Shenan.

They did four numbers:  one with just the three of them playing cajón and singing;  one with Lalo Izquierdo and Huevito Lobatón performing zapateo footwork (with a guitar accompanying them) and two with a guitar, a singer, and the three of them playing percussion - cajón and some quijada de burro.

In Casa Shenan, setting up for the performance part.

It was really great.  In fact, I've decided I'll use this material (supplemented by other things I shot in Peru) to make a documentary called Masters of Percussion...because they really are, and all three are fascinating people.

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(For more photos, go to the Facebook page of Palomino Productions, A Zest for Life Afro-Peruvian, and Eve A. Ma.)

I am in Peru for reasons related to our documentary, A Zest for Life, and other work about Afro-Peruvians.