Fun, cool show in store for you this Sunday, 8/17 @ 5:00pm (if this isn’t set as a weekly alarm by now on whatever handheld device you own, we’re havin’ a little chat!). Listen online at www.kclafm.com or you can call in to listen at (323) 461-6675.
Youssef Delara is in the house! Youssef is the director of the feature film “ESL”, a beautifully edgy film that pulls you and pulls you and then pulls you some more. This film really got me thinking about so many things.
On a personal note, as I watched one of the lead characters (Bolivar, played by Kuno Becker), what it actually made me think of is what my dad went through when he came to the U.S. from Mexico. Although my dad became a very skilled and popular optician in the area I grew up in, he was one of “those” guys who picked strawberries in the fields to make money when he first came across the border. Whenever we drove past those guys while I was growing up, he would tell us, “Don’t ever laugh at what they’re doing. You have no idea how hard that work is.” Just last week I was chatting with “The Captain” and to be honest, I was complaining about something I had to do and his response was, “You know, there are worse things.” And many times it brings me back to what I learned about my dad growing up, how hard my mom has worked, and how lucky I am.
“ESL” stars: Kuno Becker (as Bolivar De La Cruz), Danielle Camastra (as Lola Sara), John Michael Higgins (as Norman Benjamin), Maria Conchita Alonso (as Consuelo Sara), Efrain Figueroa (Eduardo Sara), and Sal Lopez (Pepe) (Sal is one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever met. I was blessed to be a part of a cool latino project with him in ‘95.)
And in the words of Youssef Delara…
At the time “English as a Second Language” was conceived, I was searching for a concept that would excite me, a film that would be emotionally and dramatically complex while being logistically simple so as to lend itself to production on a very modest budget. My initial idea was to create an ESL classroom with an ensemble of Latino characters and to follow them as they lived, worked, struggled and triumphed. I set out to create nine fully defined and unique characters but after thirty pages of background bios I fell in love with two of them: Bolivar De La Cruz, an illegal just over the border in search of a better life; and Lola Sara, a second generation Latina who was forced to attend the class to work off community service hours and would later would fall in love with the people from which she had always tried to distance herself.
I began writing so much about these two characters that it soon became clear “ESL” would be primarily about them. They are both pieces of me, both lost and searching for each other without really knowing it; two people from very different sides of the same culture, learning from one another, helping each other through life’s cruel jokes and ultimately falling in love. To be true to them we had to make Lola’s world primarily English speaking and Bolivar’s world Spanish speaking. That was the basis for the bi-lingual quality of the film.
As far as the look and style of the film, knowing money and time would be tight, I adopted a jump cutty, free flowing hand held style of photography. Yet even without the budgetary constraints, creatively and emotionally that style just seemed to track perfectly with the story I wanted to tell and the movie I wanted to make. I’ve always enjoyed films that move, that are flying at you, that have a mind of their own, that make you a little dizzy. I worked intensively with our Director of Photography, Ben Kufrin, to create a very specific look and feel. We shot tests and studied films I love like “Amores Perros,” “Laws of Gravity,” “Goodfellas,” “Run Lola Run.” We coined our look “ugly beautiful.” We wanted gritty, hot, clipped, rich blacks, heavy contrast and color. Yes, color. Rich beautiful chroma bursting from the screen, color that was in effect trapped inside the film wanting to get out.
Like any filmmaker, I could fill up ten or twenty more pages detailing every idea, all the blood, sweat and tears that went into this film. Instead I will simply express my sincere desire and hope that you will watch “ESL” and be moved by these characters and their world.
Youssef Delara and his team have not gone without being acknowledged for their amazing work. ESL has won the following awards:
- New York Latino Film Festival - ”Best Feature”
- Newport Beach Film Festival - ”Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking”
- Boston Latino Film Festival - “Best Feature”
- Santa Fe Film Festival - “Best Latino Feature”
- Portland / Pine Film Festival - “Best Feature”
- San Diego Latino Film Festival - “Closing Night Selection”
- Los Angeles Latino Film Festival - “Official Selection”
- San Fernando Valley Film Festival - “Official Selection”
Check out Youssef Delara and more about ESL and his other films at: http://cimaproductions.com
