Addendum To My Confession Of Theft

Jarmusch quotes JLG

“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.” – JLG
In Hip Hop that was known as – “It ain’t where ya from – it’s where ya at.”

i stole from a lot of sources to make my film MACHETERO… Here is a partial list of my thefts…

Pietri and Piñero,
LKJ and Bob Marley
Jarmusch and Godard
Albizu and Che
Oscar Lopez Rivera and Russell Maroon Shoatz
Archbishop Romero and Jesus Christ
Graffiti and garbage in the streets
Light spilling from the windows of a Chinese restaurant
The hallway of a squat in the Lower East Side
Teenagers on the street who improvised their way into the film without asking if they could
Filiberto and Fanon
A Dominican Restaurant in the Lower East Side called Cibao
An abandon house on the shore of Rio Grande in Loiza
Los Macheteros and the FALN
RICANSTRUCTION
The abandon lot behind the Lolita Lebron mural that used to be on 109th & Lex in El Barrio
The Brecht Forum when it was in Chelsea
Dylcia Pagan from the parole board
The extra 2 hours in the prison in the Bronx we didn’t pay the guards or the city for
The basement of a Philadelphia row house
The Amtrak tracks in Washington Heights
My grandparents house in Williamsburg Brooklyn
The house being gut renovated in Corona Queens
The big hill on 102nd Street and Lex in El Barrio
The Puerto Rican flag painted on a wall on 104th btwn Lex & 3rd but closer to 3rd in El Barrio
The nerve to think we could do whatever we wanted
Studio time to do the voice overs
The grave of Adolfina Villanueva in a cemetery in Loiza

This is all that i am willing to confess to right now… In the future i may confess to more… But for right now this is enough to get you started…

MACHETERO plays New York City for only two more days in a limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – WED. JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-17k

Stealing In Plain Sight

Stealing In Plain Sight The Films That Influenced MACHETERO

There were several films that were an inspiration and had a direct impact on MACHETERO. They’re pictured above and listed below. Next to each film i listed the main influence that it had on MACHETERO. Below the list i go into detail on the impact that each film made on MACHETERO.

The Battle Of Algiers – Anti-imperialism

Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai – Warrior Code/Structure

Paradise Now – Anti-imperialism

In Praise Of Love – Structure

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song – Anti-imperialism

The Spook Who Sat By The Door – Anti-imperialism

The Last Temptation Of Christ – Sacrifice

The Limey – Structure

The Battle Of Algiers, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song and The Spook Who Sat By The Door were the films that i went to first as examples of films that were uncompromising in terms of their politics. They all dealt in varying degrees to anti-imperialist struggles. These three films had the heaviest influences on MACHETERO in terms of their being open and unapologetic about their politics.

In The Battle Of Algiers it was clearly an anti-colonial struggle with the underground armed forces of the Algerian FLN (Forces of National Liberation) going up against the French colonizers. The FLN are credited with being among the first organizations to use modern urban guerrilla warfare tactics and “terrorist” actions that brought the French to their knees. It’s a film that’s used to this day by revolutionaries as a lesson in guerrilla warfare. The film is also used by the Pentagon as an insight into those same guerrilla warfare tactics. The Battle Of Algiers is based on real events and real people and when i was creating MACHETERO i wanted all of the events in the film to be rooted in real events. The Pedro Taino character is based on a conglomeration of real revolutionaries who fought for freedom within the US, some of whom are still doing time in US prisons.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song was also an anti-imperialist film although in a less obvious way. The film is about a sex performer (as in staged sex shows) who fights back against the corrupt police within the Black community and becomes a hero to Black folks in the ghetto. This may not fit the definition of imperialism in the strictest sense but Black folks in American have always had more in common with imperialism than America would like to admit. Although Sweetback is credited with jump starting the Blaxploitation era, it was really more of an art film for the masses. i liked that idea and it helped encourage me to believe that you could make an art film that didn’t ostracize an audience and that you could make a political art film for oppressed people.

The Spook Who Sat By The Door took this idea of imperialism of Black people in America to its extreme but logical conclusion. The film is about the organization of an underground resistance to fight for Black peoples freedom in America. All three of those films were decades old were easy to get a hold of with the exception of The Spook Who Sat By The Door which was banned by the FBI and only recently released in the last few years on DVD. The film is very detailed in how a former Black CIA agent turns Black gangs in the ghetto into guerrilla fighters. With MACHETERO i felt it was important to touch on the passing on of information from one generation of Machetero to another and so the development of The Young Rebel by Pedro Taino into a Machetero and The Young Rebel passing on the information and the history of struggle to his girl-friend is where the influence of The Spook WHo Sat By The Door can be felt in MACHETERO.

The most recent film on that list that was also had an anti-imperialist theme was Paradise Now which followed two Palestinian suicide bombers in their last days before their mission. The character arc that Paradise Now portrayed from the daily struggle under imperialism to the violent action against imperialism was also an important feature that i paid close attention to. It informed the character arch for the Pedro Taino character as well as shape the character of The Young Rebel. It was important to humanize the so-called “terrorist” Pedro Taino and it was important to humanize the way in which The Young Rebel becomes the next Machetero.

Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai was a film that i looked at with an eye towards the way in which the Hagakure is used in the film. The Hagakure is a book that details the way of being for a Samurai. It’s essentially a how-to book. Ghost Dog used excerpts from the Hagakure to provide characterization for the lead character. In the process of doing MACHETERO i was looking for a device that would say more about the characters in the film outside of dialogue or adding scenes to the film. This is where the idea for the Anti-manifesto was developed between Not4Prophet and i. If the Samurai were members of a warrior culture then why couldn’t or weren’t Macheteros also considered a warrior culture? We took the idea of Macheteros as a warrior culture and used the Anti-manifesto as a means to portray that. The Anti-manifestoexcerpts defined what it meant to be Machetero and since the film is in part about becoming Machetero the excerpts were another way to help shape and define the characters in much the same way that Ghost Dog did with its lead character and the Hagakure.

In Praise Of Love was another film that i was watching while i was in the beginning process of editing. In Praise Of Love is a complex film that plays with time and uses on-screen titles to do so. This is where the idea for playing with onscreen titles to define time periods to the different characters in the film. In MACHETERO the PAST is represented or personified by Not4Prophet’s character Pedro Taino who is the “terrorist” in prison. The PRESENT is represented or personified by Isaach De Bankolé’s character Jean Dumont who is the journalist interviewing Pedro Taino, or investigating the past in order to understand the present. The FUTURE is represented or personified by Kelvin Fernandez who plays The Young Rebel as he becomes Machetero. The FUTURE title also refers to The Young Rebel’s girl-friend played by Chloe Fernandez once The Young Rebel passes on the Anti-manifesto to her. Assigning temporal titles to various characters in the film helped give shape to the some of the cyclical themes that i was exploring. It was In Praise of Love that jump started all these ideas that dealt with temporal exploration of character and in doing so it really helped drive home the cyclical themes of  imperial violence spawning a response of violence.

The Limey was a film that i had seen when it first hit theaters and as soon as it was on DVD i picked it up. The thing that makes the Limey really interesting and amazing is that it’s a film that has a kind of structural ambiguity. While watching the Limey you never are quite sure of where you are in the timeline of the film. The film is structured to be temporally ambiguous, past present and future meld and mesh in an interesting and beautiful way and it’s done in a way that doesn’t attract attention to itself. It achieves this in a very subtle way. The Limey was a film that i went back to when i was editing MACHETERO because i saw an opportunity to juggle the story structure around in a way that The Limey did. This structural ambiguity relied very heavily  on sound to make the it work. In MACHETERO i used the sound of the interview between Not4Prophet’s Pedro Taino and Isaach De Bankolés Jean Dumont. This conversation was the spinal cord that keeps everyone from getting lost in the film and allowed me to play with the structural way in which the film unfolded and it was an idea that came from The Limey.

The other film i went to for guidance and inspiration was The Last Temptation Of Christ. An underlying theme in MACHETERO was one of sacrifice and The Last Temptation Of Christ was a film that really exemplified that. The film is an adaption of a novel written by the famous Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis based on the life of Jesus Christ. Both the book and the film were controversial because they looked at Christ as a man who was struggling with being the messiah. When i first saw the film at the Ziegfeld theater in NYC it was being picketed by every Christian group you could possibly imagine because it portrayed Jesus Christ as a man struggling with his divinity and his role as a savior and messiah. The film was a real eye opener and Christ struggle as a man only made his ultimate sacrifice all the more meaningful. The idea of sacrifice weighs heavily in MACHETERO. Dylcia Pagan’s Doña Maria talks about the history of Puerto Rico and the need to fight for Puerto Rico’s independence, Pedro Taino sacrifices his life for the cause of freedom. The Young Rebel chooses a life of sacrifice for freedom. There was also this idea that i wanted to convey in MACHETERO that being Machetero was like a calling that one accepted reluctantly, The Last Temptation Of Christ was a film that opened up ideas on how to deal with some of these ideas of reluctance and sacrifice and i thought about it a lot as i wrote and edited MACHETERO.

It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to sit down and look at a few films before they begin or as they are in a production of their own. For me it’s a necessary part of my creative process to go into my film library and do some research or go online and get some films that i think would help me in whatever project i’m working on. Sometimes you trip over things as you start or as you go through a project that you can use. In reality i’m looking for good ideas to steal. It’s been often said that good poets steal and bad poets imitate. All good art is theft. Jim Jarmusch one of my favorite directors once said that we should celebrate our artistic theft. Jean Luc Godard (another of my favorite directors) once said “It’s not where you take things from, but where you take them to.” Chuck D. (one of my favorite rappers) said “It’s like a forward bounce pass” for those unfamiliar with your sources. If you haven’t checked out any of the films on this list please do… And consider this my celebratory confession of theft on what i took and where i took it and use it as your forward bounce pass…

MACHETERO plays New York City for only three more days in a limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – WED. JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-13d

An Anarchist Panther on MACHETERO

Ashanti Alston The Anarchist Panther on MACHETERO by vagabond ©

“When i saw Machetero i thought, young director from the hood… actors from the hood… shoe-string budget with never enough… and finally a badaassss movie with  the courage to produce a really alive and resurgent revolutionary DIY message from the unconquerable urban jibaro. With an underground spirit this movie is a prescription for doing the impossible. What a breath of fresh Puerto Rican beach air in these stank neo-liberal US imperial times! You can smell the thick sweet scent of insurgent Libertad!  A must see. No really, a MUST see.”
- Ashanti Alston

 Ashanti Alston Omowali is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. He was also a member of the Black Liberation Army, and spent more than a decade in prison after government forces captured him (and the official court system convicted him) of armed robbery.

Ashanti is a former northeast coordinator for Critical Resistance, currently co-chair of the National Jericho Movement (to free U.S. political prisoners), a member of pro-Zapatista people-of-color U.S.-based Estación Libre, and is on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.

For more info on Ashanti Alston check out his website…

http://www.anarchistpanther.net

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-14z

Praise For MACHETERO

MACHETERO @ Clemente Soto Velez in NYC June 12 – 19

“MACHETERO is Riveting.”
Chuck D

“Machetero is a provocative, gritty, suspenseful story examining the power of revolutionary violence through the lens of a man named Pedro and his actions for Puerto Rican independence. Pedro is an imprisoned jesus-like revolutionary. Embracing violence in the cause of freedom, the movie shows Pedro making a pipe bomb to use on the Fourth of July against a US military recruitment center. From there Pedro proceeds to assassinate several congressmen and a Puerto Rican CEO. In this movie, the American Dream is actually a nightmare of bad schools, brutal racist cops, drug dealers, prison cells and tenements – both in the U.S. and in P.R. Supported by an astounding soundtrack by Ricanstruction, Machetero is also intercut with powerful revolutionary poetry. Pedro, who never saw the inside of a library until prison, is questioned by a French journalist about why he uses violence in the cause of freedom. Called a terrorist by many, he sees himself as one in a long line of freedom fighters. If you are not profoundly moved by Machetero, check your pulse.”
- Former Legal Director of the Center For Constitutional Rights Bill Quigley

“A powerful piece of Filmmaking… I dug it. I loved the film”
- Sam Greenlee author & co-screenwriter of The Spook Who Sat By The Door

“Machetero, which Vagabond calls “an allegorical narrative,” is one part cinematic innovation, extended music video, political education class, manifesto (or anti-manifesto, in the words of Pedro Taino) and history lesson. It is a Puerto Punk opera with a cast of mostly non professional people whose realness is both heartfelt and immediate. The filmmaking style is a mix between professional filmmaking and DIY. It sabotaged linear time lines and smudges characters. The anti-manifesto that Pedro wrote scrolls across scenes, burning its political rhetoric into the audiences’ retinas.

Interwoven through the film, the score is a mosaic that combines songs from Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction’s first album Liberation Day and original music created for Machetero. Lyrics flash on the screen like stop signs, forcing the viewer to reckon with songs such as “Jihad Seeds” and “Pedro’s Grave,” with begins with the line, “Pedro’s got a pipebomb/set for the 4th of July.” Vagabond alternates complete silence and then splices in a loud ass punk song that creates a soundtrack as jarring, disturbing and captivating as the film.

The film ends with a Puerto Punx Matrix scene: the young revolutionary jacks into the telephone box and places a call to the Office of Homeland Security to deliver his own anti-manifesto, ending with, “This is where your death is our beginning. This is where recompense is redemption.”

Machetero is an incredibly necessary film. For the content it unflinchingly explores, for its interrogation of who exactly is the terrorist in these daze and times, for the innovations in film techniques that blur the line of reality and fiction — because for oppressed people, our fiction is often our reality. Machetero offers no simple answers. It doesn’t even ask simple questions. It does demand both a recognition and a reckoning, and it must be answered with something.”
- Left Turn by Walidah Imarisha

“For the new generation of activists, the inspiration, experiences and lessons of the Puerto Rican liberation struggle  and other empire-shaking movements of the 20th Century are the raw material from which strategies of new revolutionary movements will be forged.  This new film begins to ask a critical question for revolutionaries:  Is there a difference between violence and revolutionary violence, and if so, what is it?  There is a distance between that question and the answer, which may only be answered in the struggle of new generations. This film will kindle that discussion and ferment.”
- Frontlines Of Revolutionary Struggle

“This has to be one of the most politically insightful, impulsive and important pieces ever for me to visualize. MACHETERO is indeed a no bullshitting up-front film! And truth is that’s exactly what I enjoyed MOST. The rugged truthfulness was crisp and passion behind dialog/narration was intriguing. Nowadays filmmakers pussyfoot around with too much of the politically correctness to embrace suits, but in the end, they’re nothing but sell-outs. Vagabond in a sense took this ball and flew with it. He took it to a place where the bar was set extremely high. If anything, I see him as someone who opened up the doors to other independent filmmakers to say “Fuck it!” and go there.”
- CorrienteLatina by “Prinz” Lee Romero

Apart from pulling effective performances from his actors, Vagabond has succeeded in providing for us with a cautionary tale. This is done not by answering our questions but, rather by moving us to ask and answer questions regarding cycles of  violence and so-called terrorism for ourselves. By using the history of U.S. imperialism and its effect on Puerto Rico, Machetero allows us to step back to consider the acts of 9/11; what conditions must be in place for such acts to occur? Is this what happens when a people are pushed far enough? When is violence justified and just how do we define violence?
- Portland Independent Media Center by Marlena Gangi

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-16Z

 

Isaach de Bankolé Critiques MACHETERO

vagabond, Jeff”AK”, Melvin & Isaach De Bankolé on the prison set of MACHETERO

Isaach de Bankolé is the biggest film star in MACHETERO, he’s worked with some of the most creative and adventurous directors of our time, Jim Jarmusch, Claire Denis, Michael Mann, Nicolas Roeg, Lars Von Trier, he’s also the lynch pin in this film. Isaach anchors the narrative of the MACHETERO and that allows the film to experiment with structure and storytelling. When i finished cutting MACHETERO Isaach hadn’t seen it because he was working in Spain with Jim Jarmusch on THE LIMITS OF CONTROL. When Isaach got back i met with him in Harlem to give him a copy of the film. He was excited to see it and said he would get back to me as soon as he saw it to let me know his thoughts.

A few days later Issach called me and told me he loved the film but that he had a suggestion to make and could we meet to talk. The first thing he wanted to tell me was that i had to see THE LIMITS OF CONTROL. He felt LIMITS and MACHETERO shared more than a few similarities. i went to see shortly after we met and could see what he was talking about both in terms of the lone hero doing the impossible and in terms of themes about control and freedom.

Isaach then went on to give me his critique of MACHETERO. He thought the first two-thirds of the film were intense and claustrophobic in a way that won’t allow the audience to catch it’s breathe. He felt that the film doesn’t exhale and draw a second breathe until the first scene in Puerto Rico.

i could understand what he was saying. i had designed the first two-thirds of the film to be pure rage and frustration. i wanted the audience to feel Pedro’s intensity and yearning and imprisonment. i wanted the audience to feel the anger of a dream long fought for and unfulfilled. Of course with Issach’s critique Issach had given me a fresh perspective, a new way of seeing the film, and i have to admit that it was a beautiful way to look at the film.

Isaach had described the film in terms of being an organic living breathing thing. People often talk about bringing a film to life or that a film has a life of it own, and these seem to be poetic ways of speaking about any artistic endeavor. But i had never thought of applying that concept to the structure. What Issach had seen and brought up to me was that the film was literally fighting for it’s life… it didn’t breath or take a breathe for the first two acts.

This analogy of a living breathing structure lead me to think more about what i had initially created. The construction of the first two-thirds of the film in this intense, claustrophobic almost suffocating way was my way of trying to transport the audience into a state of what it’s like to be oppressed and colonized. This inability to take a breath, is like the desire to be free. The frustration and rage of being oppressed won’t allow a breath when one needs it. While you’re struggling to be free, you have to choose your time to take a breath wisely, because those who oppress you have restricted your right to breathe when you want. This is oppression, this is colonialism…

With Issach’s brilliant analysis of the film the first two-thirds of the film may be too constricted by this idea and in a way it may be too much for an audience to handle right away. His suggestion was to introduce some of the scenes of Puerto Rico and let those scenes be the breathe that needs to be had within those first two-thirds. It really was a brilliant analysis and i immediately took those ideas to heart and went back to the edit and try a few things.

When i went back to edit the film the idea of taking a moment to allow the film to breathe in the first two acts brought up another idea that would never have happened if it hadn’t been for Isaach’s critique. i recut the film to include flashbacks to Puerto Rico and to a young boy on the beach swinging a machete and to flashbacks of The Mentor (played by former US held Puerto Rican Political Prisoner of War Dylcia Pagan) looking out into the distance. These images helped relate to the audience what it was that Pedro Taino (played by RICANSTRUCTION lead singer Not4Prophet) was fighting for. i also used an image of the Pedro Taino character standing on a beach in Puerto Rico and looking out into the sea. The shot is from behind his head and make gives a kind of surreal quality to the shot since we don’t see his face and we can’t tell if the shot is a flash forward or a flashback….

In the process of recutting the film i managed to add another thematic layer to the film. Isaach’s critique had opened me up to something. When i started to edit the young boy on the beach swinging a machete in Puerto Rico and edit that image into the narrative to bring a breathe into the film, the rhythm of the young boy swinging the machete and the repetitious frequency way i which i used that image made me think of the young boy as a ghost, an apparition, haunting Pedro Taino. The young boy swinging the machete became on the beach in Puerto Rico became the spirit of the Machetero haunting Pedro Taino, urging him to do more, haunting him with the idea that the responsibility to free Puerto Rico was his…

It really emphasized the idea that Pedro Taino was driven by something deeper… It drove the idea home that a spirit of resistance had come into him and that Pedro had accepted the responsibility of being Machetero… i feel like that image humanized Pedro Taino’s character… It also took off some of the edge of the frustration and anger in the film that wouldn’t allow it to breathe as Isaach so eloquently put it… It was really a beautiful sentiment that would never have been had it not been for Isaach’s critique of MACHETERO…

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-14F

Radical Politics Radical Filmmaking On The Streets Of NY

Isaach de Bankholé as Jean Dumont The Journalist

“Machetero, is a film whose guerrilla production matches both the film’s visual aesthetic and its narrative. It tells two stories concurrently: one in which imprisoned revolutionary Pedro Taino (Not4Prophet) is interviewed by a journalist (Jarmush regular Isaach De Bankolé, pictured), and the other about the political awakening of a young man (Kelvin Fernandez) on the streets of New York. As directed and written by Vagabond, Machetero’s radical politics extend to the film’s non-linear narrative, and its use of on-screen titles, foregrounding the revolutionary literature passed amongst the characters, as well as lyrics from the soundtrack by the NYC-based band Ricanstruction (of which Not4Prophet is the lead singer). Recently, I spoke to Vagabond about the film’s intersections of art and politics.” – Cullen Gallagher

Could you say a little about the word “Machetero,” where it comes from, and why you chose it as your title?
The direct Spanish translation of the word “machetero” is someone who works with a machete. However, there is a cultural definition to the word that is unique to Puerto Rico. The “Macheteros” were sugarcane field workers who fought against Spanish colonial rule, and when the US invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 during the Spanish-American war, they fought against the Americans as well. In the late 1960s, Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios started a clandestine armed organization called “Ejercito Popular Boricua” (“Popular Puerto Rican Army”). Puerto Ricans throughout the Diaspora called them “Macheteros”.

The title of the film comes from a saying the Macheteros had, “¡Todo Boricua Machetero!” (“All Puerto Ricans Are Machetero!”) which connected Puerto Ricans to their revolutionary past. When I thought more about that saying, it seemed to me that what the EPB was trying to do was to create this idea of the Machetero as warrior and protector of the Puerto Rican people in much the same way that the Samurai is in Japan.

How did the revolutionary politics of the film affect your aesthetic approach to the film?
The film had to be radically unconventional in the same way that guerrilla warfare is radically unconventional. The reason revolutionaries use guerrilla tactics is because they don’t have access to fighter jets or tanks, so they make do with what they have. They become resourceful with their tactics in order to achieve their goals. It was the same with making Machetero. The structure of the film was devised in a way to make the shooing of the film easier. The use of voice-over in the film allowed us to shoot most of the film without having to worry or rely too much on shooting sync sound. The voice-over dialogue was recorded first so that we could juxtapose images against it. As a result, we could shift images and timelines around because the voice-over dialogue was the foundation from which the rest of the film was built on. As long as the voice-over dialogue had some sense of continuity, the images that accompany it had a freedom that could not otherwise be afforded to us if we shot the film conventionally. Since the film thematically is about finding a way to achieve freedom, it only enhanced the theme to have a certain freedom in the narrative structure to the film. The on-screen titles were also another way of playing with the narrative structure in the film, since many of them either allude to character and time or thematic issues the film raises. The subject matter of revolution doesn’t allow for conventional filmmaking or conventional storytelling.

How do you see your film fitting into the larger framework of politicized cinema? You mention Solanas and Getino’s essay “Towards a Third Cinema” on your website, but I was also reminded of Paradise Now.
I actually read Solanas and Getino’s “Towards A Third Cinema” toward the end of making Machetero. I came across the essay and immediately thought that this is what Machetero is. For those not familiar with Third Cinema, First Cinema is Hollywood commercial film and Second Cinema is the European art film or the European auteur film. Third Cinema is a response from the third world to create a cinema that would reflect the reality of poor and struggling people and inspire them to extricate themselves from whatever situation oppresses them. When the essay was initially written, it was calling for third world filmmakers to create a cinema that was reflective of their reality. Although I was born in Brooklyn and have lived in the US all my life, and a majority of Machetero was made here in the US, the colonial condition that Puerto Ricans have lived under both on the island and in the US has been one of third world proportions, so I felt comfortable relating Machetero to Third Cinema.

I made Machetero to raise questions about the way in which the labels like “terrorist” and “terrorism” are used and what that means to people who may feel that the only means to free themselves from these oppressive situations is to use violence. That violence is often described and defined by the state and its media apparatus as “terrorism”. One of the ideas that I’m trying to put forward in Machetero is that violence is a language that oppressors choose to use and that those who struggle against it and respond in kind are speaking the same language as their oppressors in an effort to get them to use another means of communication. However this decision to use violence as a means of communication is not a decision that oppressed people come to easily. This may be where you see a parallel to Hany Abu Assad’s film Paradise Now, which was definitely a source of inspiration for Machetero.

In recent years there has been much controversy surrounding rights of filmmakers to shoot on the streets of New York. As an independent filmmaker, what was your experience like?
One of the things I do to make a living is provide location services to production companies, so I know what I can get away with and what I can’t get away with or at least how much of a risk I’m taking if I do decide to work outside “the regulations” or “the law.” I shot everything but one scene in Machetero without permits or permission. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have problems with the police. There were five different encounters with law enforcement that varied from simply hiding from the cops to being arrested. Before I madeMachetero I wrote a manifesto called “Illegalist Cinema: The Cinema of Cine-automatic” that put art before legality in the filmmaking process.

Over the years I’ve seen the tightening restrictions that the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting has put on independent filmmakers. It used to be easier to make a film in this town but lately it’s been getting harder and harder. That being said the Mayor’s Office still needs to make it easy enough for larger productions to come to the city and shoot, and as an independent filmmaker it’s important to exploit some of those incentives to our own benefit.

This interview was first published in L Magazine here…

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-16z

Civil Rights Lawyer Bill Quigley on MACHETERO

Bill Quigley on MACHETERO

“Machetero is a provocative, gritty, suspenseful story examining the power of revolutionary violence through the lens of a man named Pedro and his actions for Puerto Rican independence. Pedro is an imprisoned jesus-like revolutionary. Embracing violence in the cause of freedom, the movie shows Pedro making a pipe bomb to use on the Fourth of July against a US military recruitment center. From there Pedro proceeds to assassinate several congressmen and a Puerto Rican CEO. In this movie, the American Dream is actually a nightmare of bad schools, brutal racist cops, drug dealers, prison cells and tenements – both in the U.S. and in P.R. Supported by an astounding soundtrack by Ricanstruction, Machetero is also intercut with powerful revolutionary poetry. Pedro, who never saw the inside of a library until prison, is questioned by a French journalist about why he uses violence in the cause of freedom. Called a terrorist by many, he sees himself as one in a long line of freedom fighters. If you are not profoundly moved by Machetero, check your pulse.” - Bill Quigley

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

The following was taken from Bill Quigley’s wordpress site...
Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice  and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill has been an active public interest lawyer since 1977. Bill has served as counsel with a wide range of public interest organizations on issues including human rights, Katrina social justice issues, public housing, voting rights, death penalty, living wage, civil liberties, educational reform, constitutional rights and civil disobedience. Bill served as the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights for two years and has litigated numerous cases with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the Advancement Project, and with the ACLU of Louisiana, for which he served as General Counsel for 15 years.

Bill teaches in the clinic and also teaches courses in Law and Poverty, Social Justice Lawyering, Community Lawyering, and Catholic Social Teaching and Law. His research and writing has focused on living wage, the right to a job, legal services, community organizing as part of effective lawyering, civil disobedience, high stakes testing, international human rights, revolutionary lawyering and a continuing history of how the laws have regulated the poor since colonial times. He has served as an advisor on human and civil rights to Human Rights Watch USA, Amnesty International USA, and served as the Chair of the Louisiana Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been an active volunteer lawyer with School of the Americas Watch and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

Bill is the author of Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job At A Living Wage (Temple University Press, 2003) and Storms Still Raging: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice (2008). In 2003, he was named the Pope Paul VI National Teacher of Peace by Pax Christi USA. He is the recipient of the 2004 SALT Teaching Award presented by the Society of American Law Teachers; the 2006 Camille Gravel Civil Pro Bono Award from the Federal Bar Association New Orleans; the 2006 Stanford Law School National Public Service Award; the 2006 National Lawyers Guild Ernie Goodman award; the 2007 University of California School of Law, Boalt Hall, Social Justice Scholar in Residence; the 2009 Northeastern University School of Law Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow; the 2011 Activist-Scholar Award of the Urban Affairs Association; and the 2011 Fordham University School of Law Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Award.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-16w

Illegalist Cinema

ILLEGALIST CINEMA by vagabond ©

We have art in order not to die of the truth. - Fredrick Nietzsche

“Every artist should be crazy and ambitious” – Glauber Rocha

“How close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe…” – Ernesto “Che” Guevara

“Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.” -  Albert Camus

“Art will not disappear into nothingness; it will disappear into everything.” – Julio Garcia Espinosa

There’s a lot of self-doubt that can creep up into you when you decide you want to make a film. That self-doubt was something that especially got to me when i was making my film MACHETERO and that self-doubt only got worse when the film took an unconventional narrative structure. Some of that self-doubt is good, if it’s the self-imposed kind that you use to test your ideas, it can be used to push you to formulate your own ideas in a more succinct way. But some of that self-doubt is imposed by mainstream Hollywood bullshit propaganda that dictates that only the wealthy, the privileged, and the straight white males among us can make films. Some of that self-doubt is imposed by pseudo independent wannabe Hollywood bullshit pressure. No matter where it’s coming from it’s not good. Not good for making films, not good for filmmakers and not good for the audience that’s hungry for something authentic, hungry for something that hasn’t been spoon fed from either Hollywood or it’s pseudo independent counterpart.

In order to combat some of that negative energy i’ve created a filmmakers anti-manifesto called Illegalist Cinema: The Cinema of Cine-automatic. It’s helped me to make many of my films but it came about out of my production experiences with MACHETERO. It was something that i could turn to as a source of inspiration that curbed the self-doubt when it was greater than it should have been. It made gave me the strength to step into the unknown and find the possibilities that would have otherwise remained hidden.

Illegalist Cinema is an inspirational anti-manifesto designed to encourage those filmmakers who are not wealthy, privileged, white, male or straight to smash the fears and constraints of what a film should be to create an alternative to the wealthy privileged straight white male dominated system of filmmaking. The goal is to create a more inclusive perspective of history, of storytelling, of culture, of mythology, of politic and of cinema. Illegalist Cinema The Cinema Of Cine-Automatic is cultural warfare, a call to cinematic arms. It grew out of An Aesthetic Of Hunger, it continues to find another way in the tradition of Third Cinema and it’s searching of the perfection of an Imperfect Cinema. Illegalist Cinema is about taring down the walls of self-doubt and authoritarian imposed limitations and stepping out into the exploration of multiple possibilities…

There are only 5 simple and short “guidelines” that define Illegalist Cinema…
ILLEGALIST CINEMA is…

1 – A CINEMA OF REBELLION
The film has to be rebellious in both a political and artistic sense. It must seek to upset and overturn the status quo.

2 – A CINEMA OF ILLEGALITY AND IMMUNITY
Art is the creation of beauty. Beauty is defined as the search for understanding. The “laws” of creation trump the “laws” of the state. The creation of art is above the law. The legality of the state is designed to protect the status quo of elitism and inequality and only by defying or refusing to recognize that power can these limitations be destroyed. Without these limitations  what was once thought to be impossible becomes possible.

3 – A CINEMA OF POVERTY
The film has to be an independent no-budget guerrilla film production. Independence is defined on two fronts. The first definition concerns art, the film must be independent of mainstream filmmaking and mainstream thought and especially independent of so-called “independent film”. The second definition being the financing of the film, self-financing and cooperative financing are encouraged. Theft is always highly encouraged. The film’s primary goal MUST NOT BE to create a financial profit. Cinema is an art and financial profit as a primary goal will only cause regression to the status quo. Corporate financing is possible if it allows for radical art, ideas and politics to be the primary priority and function of a film and places the concerns of financial profit behind that of art and communication.

4 – A CINEMA OF ACQUISITION
The film has the right to acquire whatever it needs for production through any means available. No permits and no permission whenever and wherever possible. Theft, lying and cheating in the face of power, authority and wealth are all fair game in the pursuit of art. Better to ask forgiveness (if need be) than to ask permission.

5 – A CINEMA OF SUBVERSION AND MISAPPROPRIATION
The film must take every opportunity to subvert and misappropriate the means of production (ie: props, locations, equipment, wardrobe) to instill a new sensibility that opens the mind to new possibilities. The idea is that everything is a stage upon which we act out our lives and our art. The lines between art and life will become blurred when a gun is a prop and a street is a set and a shopping cart is a dolly and a police officer’s uniform is costume and the reflection off a window is a source of light. The possibilities of all that we see, can somehow be transformed into a vehicle that moves the production closer to realization. It’s a means of seeing new possibilities in the world around us and trains our eye and our mind to find new ways to see and use everything around us. This exercise in seeing the possibilities is not something that will only serve the purposes of making cinema but train us in seeing the potential possibilities in everything.

These “guidelines” are not to be mistaken for rules. Illegalist Cinema like all art is rooted in anarchy and anarchy is not in the habit of dictating rules. Filmmakers who adopt these guidelines adopt them voluntarily. Illegalist Cinema is not a means of control but a means of liberation. It’s a means of dislodging the self-doubt imposed by Hollywood and it’s elitism. It’s a means of escaping the mentality that a film must be made in a certain way. It’s a declaration that cinema is not a business to be pimped for a price and a profit but an art given as a gift without expectation of gratitude. It’s a steady rain of creativity eroding the aesthetics of imperialism.

Illegalist Cinema is not forever… It’s a means to an end… A blueprint for thought… A tool to be used to reshape the world…  The true goal of Illegalist Cinema is to make itself useless… Once we’ve freed ourselves this will all cease to matter…

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-7d

Guerrilla Camera: Sam Greenlee On MACHETERO

Sam Greenlee author & co-screenwriter of The Spook Who Sat By The Door and vagabond writer & director of MACHETERO ©

“I dug it. I loved the film.”
- Sam Greenlee on MACHETERO

Sam Greenlee is the author of the controversial fictional novel The Spook Who Sat By The Door. He is also one of the producers and co-screenwriter of the film adaption of the novel directed by Ivan Dixon. Sam explored the theme of a long overdue Black revolution in America in Spook. It was a bold and dangerous work. The film was released in 1973 and was a top box office earner for a number of weeks until the FBI went on a campaign to ban the film out of fear that the film would incite race riots. With the help of United Artists the distributor of The Spook Who Sat By The Door, it was pulled out of theaters and the prints disappeared. Director Ivan Dixon managed to save one good copy of the film and kept it stored in a vault. The film wouldn’t be found until his death. The film would later became a cult classic of the Blaxploitation era even though The Spook Who Sat By The Door was anything but an exploitation film.

If you haven’t seen the film check out the trailer…

The book and the film were a huge influence on my film MACHETERO (machetero-movie.com). i first came in contact with Sam Greenlee when i called him in Chicago to send him a copy of MACHETERO before he came to NYC on a tour he was doing with Spook. When he came to NYC i went to four of the five screenings he held. We hung out and got to know each other. He had seen MACHETERO and really liked it. It was a huge compliment for me.

Sam came back to the Northeast to do another tour with Spook and to promote his new book Baghdad Blues. i asked if Sam would do an interview about his work and he graciously agreed. At the end of the interview i asked him about my film MACHETERO and this is what Sam had to say. Naturally i was humbled and ecstatic by his insights into the film.

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-11d

Chuck D Interviews vagabond

“MACHETERO is Riveting”
-Chuck D

A few years ago i was interviewed by Chuck D on his Air America radio show On The Real… This was right after i had screened the film at the NY international Latino Film Festival in 2010. The interview still has some relevance and i got good feedback on it when it first aired so i’m sharing it here now, seeing as how i’m self-releasing MACHETERO in NYC June 12th – 19th…

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10 
http://machetero.bpt.me

SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

For more info www.machetero-movie.com

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-16c

DIY And A Press Release

i’m six days out from having the opening of my debut feature film MACHETERO… As you know i am self-releasing the film in NYC… i take my DIY very seriously… However DIY exacts a heavy price and i’m paying it now… It’s physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually draining… I’m not complaining… Just being brutally honest because i really wouldn’t have done this any other way…

That being said, i could use some help… i’ve never thought about having a career or pursuing one i always thought of myself as an artist who created and wanted to continue to create… However we live in a world that demands that we think of such things as jobs and careers… i have worked in the film industry for almost 25 years now but never thought of that as my career, i thought of it as job…

i think of my creative endeavors (painting, graphics, writing, filmmaking) as work, but in the best sense, as in creating a piece of work… With my work as a filmmaker it’s come to the point where i want to do my ambitious work and because of that i’m now faced with thinking of filmmaking as a career… As a result of that i need to somehow make some kind of impression on this so-called “film industry” in order to be able to do more ambitious films… So i’m asking for help… If you know anyone in the media, press or blogosphere who might be interested in MACHETERO, or the work that i do, i’d greatly appreciate it if you passed this Press Release on to them… i don’t know of any other way to start this “career” thing other than to use what i have to get what i want and all that i have is here…

much thanx,
vagabond

AWARD WINNING FILM MACHETERO GOES DIY IN NYC

MACHETERO is the debut feature film of infamous artist, agitpropagandist, and filmmaker Vagabond. The film stars Isaach de Bankolé, Not4Prophet, Dylcia Pagan and Kelvin Fernandez. Staying true to his DIY (Do It Yourself) Punk roots vagabond is self-releasing MACHETERO at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in the Kabayito’s Theater in New York City’s, Lower East Side. The film opens June 12th and runs through June 19th.

The island nation of Puerto Rico has been a victim of imperialism for over 500 years. It was a colony of Spain for 400 years and has been a colony of the United States since 1898. Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world. The fact that it’s a colony of the US, a nation that prides itself on being a champion of freedom and democracy around the world, should not go unnoticed. There has always been a resistance movement in Puerto Rico to US colonialism that has often times been violent. Vagabond’s award winning debut feature film MACHETERO uses the colonial condition of Puerto Rico to explore issues of terrorism and the cyclical nature of the violence that it brings. The film poses questions about what terrorism is in an anti-colonial struggle. It challenges us to ask who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter and how are those terms defined, and by whom…

MACHETERO
Written, produced and directed by Vagabond
Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Not4Prophet, Kelvin Fernandez and Dylcia Pagan
Running Time 98 minutes

NYC THEATRICAL RELEASE
June 12th – 19th
Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center
Kabayito’s Theater
107 Suffolk Street
NY NY 10038

“If you are not profoundly moved by Machetero, check your pulse.”
- Bill Quigley, Former Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights

“MACHETERO was riveting…”
- Chuck D

• www.machetero-movie.com • imdb • www.facebook.com/MACHETERO.MOVIE •

SYNOPSIS
In the tradition of Gillo Pontecorvo’s BATTLE OF ALGIERS, Melvin Van Peebles SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG and Sam Greenlee’s THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR, Vagabond’s MACHETERO is a meditation on violence as a means toward liberation. French journalist Jean Dumont, played by Isaach de Bankolé (GHOST DOG, 24, CASINO ROYALE, LIMITS OF CONTROL) interviews Pedro Taino a so-called “Puerto Rican Terrorist” played by Not4Prophet (lead singer of the Puerto Punk band RICANSTRUCTION) in a New York prison. Pedro is a self-described Machetero fighting to free Puerto Rico from the yoke of US colonialism. Obsessed with freedom, Jean questions Pedro about his decision to use violence as a means to achieve that freedom.

As Jean and Pedro speak, a Ghetto Youth played by Kelvin Fernandez (in his first starring role) struggles to survive the colonial condition. A revolutionary spirit instilled in him from childhood by a mentor played by former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner of War, Dylcia Pagán (who did 20 years in US prisons) is reawakened after reading a pamphlet authored by Pedro called the Anti-manifesto. The Ghetto Youth then goes on a journey to transform himself into the next Machetero.

MACHETERO is structured around songs from the album, “Liberation Day” by RICANSTRUCTION. The songs are incorporated as a modern day Punk Rock Greek chorus. RICANSTRUCTION also improvised a score for the film that moves from hardcore be-bop punk to layered Afro-Rican rhythms.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Vagabond, writer, producer, director and editor
Vagabond was born in Brooklyn to a Puerto Rican mother and Jamaican father. He attended the School Of Visual Arts for film and video but dropped out to work on Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING. He’s continued  to work in the film industry doing production. He’s produced and directed television for Galavison and SiTV. vagabond is also the co-founder of the RICANSTRUCTION Netwerk an artist collective in the vein of the Situationist International. He’s organized political protests, designed agitprop murals, posters, pamphlets and zines and produced and directed documentaries, music videos and web series. MACHETERO is his debut feature film. It’s won awards in South Africa, Wales, England, Thailand, Ireland and New York.

CREDITS
vagabond • Writer, Producer, Director and Editor
Not4Prophet • Writer of the Anti-Manifesto
Resister Fernandez• Co-Producer
Jeff “AK” Akers • Cinematographer
RICANSTRUCTION • Songs and Score (featuring songs from the album Liberation Day)
Jo Cunningham • Sound Design

CAST
Isaach De Bankolé • Jean Dumont
Not4Prophet • Pedro Taino
Kelvin Fernandez • The Young Rebel
Dylcia Pagán • The Mentor

AWARDS
International Film Festival South Africa – October 2008
BEST FIRST FILM

Swansea Bay Film Festival (Wales UK) – June 2009
BEST FIRST FILM

Heart Of England International Film Festival – June 2009
BEST FIRST FILM – USA

Thai International Film Festival – August 2009
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

International Film Festival Ireland – September – 2009
BEST FILM – North America

New York Independent International Film & Video Festival – October -2010
BEST DIRECTORIAL DEBUT

CONTACT
vagabond Beaumont 347-512-0917 mobile
machetero.movie@gmail.com
www.machetero-movie.com

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-162

MACHETERO History Lesson

Dylcia Pagan on the set of MACHETERO

Today being International Women’s Day i’d like to share this story that came from my film MACHETERO about a very strong woman, Dylcia Pagan. The role that women play in the ongoing revolution to make the a world better place than when we came into it is something that i think is completely exemplified here by Dylcia. This is the story of how Dylcia Pagan, a former US held Puerto Rican political prisoner of war who served 20 years in US prisons for fighting to free Puerto Rico from US colonialism came to be in my film and in the process gave the film a much need dose of feminine power that brought into focus what it was that MACHETERO was really all about.

MACHETERO started out as a short film but as i worked on it, it began to take on it’s own life and i needed to respect that and allow it to take me where it needed to go. As an artist i believe that the ego is a dangerous thing and the more you get in the way of the ideas that are flowing the greater the chance there is for polluting what needs to be said. i think the artistic process is really a process of creative meditation and that as the ideas flow through you they take on your own unique shape. The danger is in the ego wanting to take those ideas as they flow through you, claim them for their own purposes and shape them for their own selfish desires. The hard part is being able to recognize the natural shape that the ideas will take as they flow through you, from the ideas that the ego wants to distort. This is the artistic and creative battle i feel every artist faces.

While in the midst of my artistic struggle with MACHETERO i found myself in the Brooklyn studio of the great Puerto Rican painter Juan Sanchez talking to him about this particular creative journey that I was on. He had seen the short version of the film and was going on and on about how much he liked it and how bold and courageous a work MACHETERO was, not just in terms of its political stance but also in terms of it’s artistic aesthetic value. Although I was flattered because Juan’s opinion is something that I greatly respect and appreciate it made me think how I had better stay on track and not let things get out of hand.

While talking to Juan he suggested that i call one of the Puerto Rican political prisoners that President Clinton released at the end of his second term in 1999 for the role of the mentor. This was a really amazing idea and we started to talk about who we thought would be a good natural fit for the role. We came to the conclusion that Dylcia would be perfect.

Dylcia Pagan was born in the Bronx and raised in East Harlem to Puerto Rican parents. She was a child actor on a show called The Children’s Hour on NBC in the 1960’s. As an adult she continued to work in television as a producer working for ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. As a member of the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional – Armed Forces for National Liberation) she fought for the independence of Puerto Rico. While pregnant with her first and only child, the father of that child, William Morales was arrested for seditious conspiracy to bring down the US government after an accidental explosion in garage in Queens. While recovering from his injuries in a hospital bed, William escaped custody.

Shortly after that Dylcia gave birth to her son Guillermo. The FBI began was not pleased with William Morales escape and suspected Dylcia of also being involved in the FALN. They were looking to arrest her for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government as well. Dylcia felt that the FBI was closing in on her and she was forced to give her son to sympathetic supporters of the Puerto Rican independence movement in Mexico and go underground. That Mexican family raised Dylcia’s son as their own. A short while later Dylcia was arrested and convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 55 years. She served 20 years until her pardon by President Clinton in 1999. There was a documentary produced for PBS about the hardships that she and her son Guillermo endured called The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez. It’s an interesting film that people should definitely check out.

i needed to get in touch with Dylcia to talk to her about the project. Not4Prophet (who plays the lead character Pedro Taino in the film) got Dylcia’s phone number from Jesus Papoleto Melendez one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets movement and a life long friend of Dylcia. At the time my main concern was that Dylcia was still on parole and i was worried that her being involved in a project that dealt with the question of political violence as a means of liberation could get her put back in jail. i don’t mean to over inflate MACHETERO’s importance but the US Federal Parole Board needs very few excuses to bounce you back into the joint and i didn’t want in any way to supply them with that excuse.

When i called Dylcia and re-introduced myself (we met briefly when she first got out in ’99 and came back to El Barrio, NYC) i told her about MACHETERO and what it was that i was trying to do. i let her know that i knew she was still on parole and that i didn’t want this project to in any way jeopardize her hard-won freedom, she’d done enough time as it was already. She then laughed and told me that the phone call she had received just minutes before i called. It was a call from her lawyer telling her that she was no longer on parole and that she was legally, (Dylcia has always been spiritually free) completely and without restriction a free woman. i was totally relieved to hear it and she said that she couldn’t refuse the role because it was too much of a coincidence. A few months later we flew down to Puerto Rico and shot this scene on the beach in Loiza a short walk from where Dylcia lives today.

In this scene the Young Rebel is dreaming of Puerto Rico and he dreams that he is at the grave of someone he loves. It’s not clear who the person is but as the dream goes on he dreams of his mentor (played by Dylcia) and the idea is that it’s her grave that he’s visiting. The grave is actually in the cemetery of Loiza and is the grave of a famous Puerto Rican mother and grandmother Doña Adolfina Villanueva who was killed as she stood outside of her home with a machete in her hand to defend against an eviction that police were sent to enforce. The killing of Doña Adolfina Villanueva was meant to send a message to other poor landowners in the area who were also being evicted.

His dream then moves onto a memory of himself as a child (played by Francisco Sanchez Rivera, Dylcia next door neighbor’s son) bringing a coconut to Dylcia. The “FUTURE” title that comes up on the screen as we see the Young Rebel as a boy is not so much a chronological representation but one of character. In the film Pedro Taino “the terrorist” is the “PAST” and Jean Dumont the journalist is the “PRESENT” while the Young Rebel represents the “FUTURE”. So when these titles appear on the screen throughout the film they are not chronological representations but characteristic representations. As the young boy comes running through the tress with his machete and his coconut Dylcia is sitting on the beach smoking a cigar (as older Puerto Rican women will) and proceeds to tell him the history of Puerto Rico’s 500-year struggle for autonomy. She tells him that he must one day continue to carry on that tradition of struggle when he grows up.

i never wrote any dialogue for this scene. i spoke to Dylcia about what it was that i was looking for and what it was that the story needed in terms of tone and intent. She took it from there and improvised all the dialogue compressing 500-years of history into a 3-minute story. It was amazing to watch.

The role that Dylcia Pagan played in the film although small (she’s only in two scenes) was crucial. Her specific role was as a mentor but her specific relationship to the Young Rebel and to Pedro Taino however was intentionally left open to interpretation. In Puerto Rico as in the African tradition a village raises a child and so i wanted Dylcia to be mother, grandmother, aunt and neighbor. Her role also helped solidify two concurrent ideas in terms of the relationship that the Young Rebel and Pedro Taino share with Dylcia.

One interpretation that could be drawn from these scenes was that both characters are sharing flashback scenes that incorporated the same grave and memories of this mentor that Dylcia played because she influenced them both as two separate characters. Another interpretation that is inferred is that the Young Rebel and Not4Prophet are the same character living in the same time. This is physically impossible in real life but completely possible in cinema and makes for an interesting idea that only served to further illustrate the cyclical themes of violence presented in the film.

This scene takes place pretty late in the film and it’s the scene that really illustrates what it is that’s at stake in terms of revealing the natural beauty of Puerto Rico. Up until this point the film has been full of rage and anger and although that rage and anger may be completely warranted and justified i wanted to switch gears with this scene and have the emotional core of the scene be one of sadness. i wanted that sadness to be the seed for all the rage and anger that is felt throughout the rest of the film. It was difficult to pull off, the scene had to be played with a certain subtlety and without an air of nostalgia. The way to do this was to have this dream scene be a scene in which the Young Rebel remembers who he is and what he must do going forward. This took the nostalgic edge off the scene and gave the scene a relevance to his future.

None of this would have been possible had it not been for the creative generosity of Dylcia Pagan. MACHETERO would not be what it is, had it not been for Dylcia bringing a strong, rebellious, nurturing feminine energy into the film. Although her scenes take place late in the film, those scenes set the stage for everything we have seen that comes before them and after them. They become the lynch pin by which everything else hangs. It was a true honor to have Dylcia be a part of this film. Looking back now MACHETERO would not have the power that it has without her participation and i wanted to take this moment out to honor her on this International Women’s Day.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-Yr

An Ongoing Cost To Be Free (Part 8)

Maroon by vagabond ©

Russell Maroon Shoatz is a US held Black Unity Council and Black Liberation Army political prisoner. He has been in prison for over 40 years. This short film is part eight of a weekly web series of Russell Shoatz III the son of Russell Maroon Shoatz, telling the story of his father.

PRODIGAL DAUGHTER
In this weeks episode Russell Shoatz III speaks about the return of his kidnapped sister and how it affected not only his father in prison but his mother as well. For almost 30 years Russell Maroon Shoatz lived in prison with the idea that his daughter was gone to him. When she finally returns to his it’s with mixed feelings of happiness, loss and many, many questions not just for Russell Maroon Shoatz and the rest of the Shoatz family but for the prodigal daughter as well.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-Y7

Because (For My Mother)

Me & Mom May 1973 Upstate New York Catskill Mountains

Because i’m difficult
Because i’m not fooled easily
Because i’m of my own mind
Because i’m quick witted
Because i’m smart
Because i’m a smart ass
Because i’m fiercely independent
and always want to remain so

Because it wasn’t always this way
Because i wasn’t always this way

Because i wasn’t confident
Because i wasn’t sure
Because i was foolish
Because i didn’t listen
Because i failed again
Because i tried again
Because i never gave up
and don’t intend to

Because it wasn’t always this way
Because i wasn’t always this way

Because i’m an artist
Because i’m a writer
Because i’m a filmmaker
Because i’m creative
Because i’m imaginative
Because i saw differently
Because i thought differently
and will continue to do so

Because it wasn’t always this way
Because i wasn’t always this way

Because i’m you in a different time
Because i’m you under different circumstances
Because i’m you under different conditions
Because i’m you the second time around
Because i’m your long hours
Because i’m mostly your sweat and tears
Because i’m the sum of your sacrifices
connected by blood muscle and bone

Because it wasn’t always this way
Because i wasn’t always this way

- vagabond

Mother’s Day 2011

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-7