thedrifter
04-30-07, 05:52 AM
Short film based on Southeast grad unspools at festival
By Rita Florez
Dalton Daily Citizen
Enrique Lopez begged his brother not to join the military, fearing he would be killed.
More than a year after joining the Marines, Juan Lopez, a 2001 Southeast Whitfield High School graduate, died in an ambush in Ramadi, a town west of Baghdad on June 21, 2004.
Despite the tragic loss, Juan Lopez’s story of seeking U.S. citizenship for him and his family lives on in a short film, “Una Causa Noble” (“A Noble Cause”), which premiered Wednesday night at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema in the Atlanta Film Festival.
“I think that (Americans) are already realizing what’s happening over there, and the numbers don’t lie about the deaths,” Enrique Lopez said. “You just have to hear the names and last names of the people who are dying to make people realize just how many Hispanics have died in this war.”
Enrique Lopez and his sister Araceli Rangel, along with her husband Agustin Rangel and their two sons Juan, 6, and Agustin, 4, sat together waiting for the movie inspired by their brother to start. This was Enrique Lopez’s second viewing of the movie. The first time he saw it, he was sitting at the Dalton Regional Library last October.
“It gave me so much pleasure to have been invited to this film festival,” Enrique Lopez said. “They had already shown it at another festival in Guanajuato (Mexico), but I’m so happy they can show it here.”
Despite being based on Juan Lopez’s life, the movie, Enrique Lopez said, is not his brother’s life story. Juan Lopez, a legal Mexican immigrant, enlisted in the Marines with the hope of getting citizenship for himself and his wife. Completing his military service would have resulted in U.S. citizenship for he and his immediate family.
“(The movie) is not about what my brother (experienced), but that (the movie’s director and producer) were inspired by everything that happened counts so much for us,” Enrique Lopez said.
“Una Causa Noble” is the story of a young Mexican man, Ignacio Fernandez, who joins the U.S. military with the hope of finding a better life for his family, told by the women in his life.
Latinos comprise 9.4 percent of the armed forces, but they make up 17.7 percent of combat troops and 11 percent of military deaths in Iraq, according to a January 2007 Pew Hispanic Center study. That makes Mexico the country to have suffered the fourth most casualties in the war behind the United States, England and Iraq.
Miles Merritt, the director, and his wife Gail Kempler, editor and producer, got the idea for the 26-minute movie after reading an article about Juan Lopez.
“This movie is absolutely a political statement,” Kempler said. “We’re trying to show another side of the war the people don’t generally see.”
Because the movie was in the festival’s “World of War Shorts” category, Merritt saw his chance to make a different kind of statement.
“A lot of the films in our category showed the physical violence associated with war,” he said. “We wanted to show the emotional violence instead.”
Merritt, whose professional background started in magazine writing, said it took about a year to complete the movie with the duo making minor changes until four months ago.
All in all, the movie cost Merritt and Kempler about $20,000, but Merritt insists the production would have been much more expensive had they filmed in the U.S. rather than in central Mexico.
“In America, the movie would have cost us somewhere in the territory of $200,000,” he said. “But in Mexico we had access to a boom, a crane and location costs were minimal. A lot of times, people are just thrilled to have you there.”
It also didn’t hurt having Marta Aura, a famous Mexican “telenovela” (a soap opera) actress, as part of the cast.
“Our first film festival took place in Mexico, and we were trying to drive there and the border guard would not give us a visa to get into the country,” Merritt said. “Of course we had a car full of DVDs, so we showed him one of the DVDs with Marta Aura’s picture. His face lit up, and all of the sudden he was our best friend, and he gave us our visas.”
“Una Causa Noble” was one of five movies in the “World at War Shorts” movie series at the film festival. The five movies selected for the series, no longer than 30 minutes each, dealt with World War II, Vietnam and the war in Iraq. At the end of the festival, judges will decide on Monday which short film was the best, and that film will become eligible for submission to the Oscars.
The Atlanta Film Festival has open admissions year-round, and this year had 1,300 submissions. For more information visit, www.atlantafilmfestival.com.
For information on “Una Causa Noble” (“A Noble Cause”), a short film based on Southeast Whitfield High School graduate Juan Lopez, visit www.unacausanoble.com.
Ellie
By Rita Florez
Dalton Daily Citizen
Enrique Lopez begged his brother not to join the military, fearing he would be killed.
More than a year after joining the Marines, Juan Lopez, a 2001 Southeast Whitfield High School graduate, died in an ambush in Ramadi, a town west of Baghdad on June 21, 2004.
Despite the tragic loss, Juan Lopez’s story of seeking U.S. citizenship for him and his family lives on in a short film, “Una Causa Noble” (“A Noble Cause”), which premiered Wednesday night at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema in the Atlanta Film Festival.
“I think that (Americans) are already realizing what’s happening over there, and the numbers don’t lie about the deaths,” Enrique Lopez said. “You just have to hear the names and last names of the people who are dying to make people realize just how many Hispanics have died in this war.”
Enrique Lopez and his sister Araceli Rangel, along with her husband Agustin Rangel and their two sons Juan, 6, and Agustin, 4, sat together waiting for the movie inspired by their brother to start. This was Enrique Lopez’s second viewing of the movie. The first time he saw it, he was sitting at the Dalton Regional Library last October.
“It gave me so much pleasure to have been invited to this film festival,” Enrique Lopez said. “They had already shown it at another festival in Guanajuato (Mexico), but I’m so happy they can show it here.”
Despite being based on Juan Lopez’s life, the movie, Enrique Lopez said, is not his brother’s life story. Juan Lopez, a legal Mexican immigrant, enlisted in the Marines with the hope of getting citizenship for himself and his wife. Completing his military service would have resulted in U.S. citizenship for he and his immediate family.
“(The movie) is not about what my brother (experienced), but that (the movie’s director and producer) were inspired by everything that happened counts so much for us,” Enrique Lopez said.
“Una Causa Noble” is the story of a young Mexican man, Ignacio Fernandez, who joins the U.S. military with the hope of finding a better life for his family, told by the women in his life.
Latinos comprise 9.4 percent of the armed forces, but they make up 17.7 percent of combat troops and 11 percent of military deaths in Iraq, according to a January 2007 Pew Hispanic Center study. That makes Mexico the country to have suffered the fourth most casualties in the war behind the United States, England and Iraq.
Miles Merritt, the director, and his wife Gail Kempler, editor and producer, got the idea for the 26-minute movie after reading an article about Juan Lopez.
“This movie is absolutely a political statement,” Kempler said. “We’re trying to show another side of the war the people don’t generally see.”
Because the movie was in the festival’s “World of War Shorts” category, Merritt saw his chance to make a different kind of statement.
“A lot of the films in our category showed the physical violence associated with war,” he said. “We wanted to show the emotional violence instead.”
Merritt, whose professional background started in magazine writing, said it took about a year to complete the movie with the duo making minor changes until four months ago.
All in all, the movie cost Merritt and Kempler about $20,000, but Merritt insists the production would have been much more expensive had they filmed in the U.S. rather than in central Mexico.
“In America, the movie would have cost us somewhere in the territory of $200,000,” he said. “But in Mexico we had access to a boom, a crane and location costs were minimal. A lot of times, people are just thrilled to have you there.”
It also didn’t hurt having Marta Aura, a famous Mexican “telenovela” (a soap opera) actress, as part of the cast.
“Our first film festival took place in Mexico, and we were trying to drive there and the border guard would not give us a visa to get into the country,” Merritt said. “Of course we had a car full of DVDs, so we showed him one of the DVDs with Marta Aura’s picture. His face lit up, and all of the sudden he was our best friend, and he gave us our visas.”
“Una Causa Noble” was one of five movies in the “World at War Shorts” movie series at the film festival. The five movies selected for the series, no longer than 30 minutes each, dealt with World War II, Vietnam and the war in Iraq. At the end of the festival, judges will decide on Monday which short film was the best, and that film will become eligible for submission to the Oscars.
The Atlanta Film Festival has open admissions year-round, and this year had 1,300 submissions. For more information visit, www.atlantafilmfestival.com.
For information on “Una Causa Noble” (“A Noble Cause”), a short film based on Southeast Whitfield High School graduate Juan Lopez, visit www.unacausanoble.com.
Ellie