Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo sees her mission as "channeling the hopes and dreams of a people." Clearly, political commitment has inspired her choice of subjects. With themes ranging from state repression to AIDS, Portillo's films include: "Despues del Terremoto", the Oscar-nominated "Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo", "La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead", "The Devil Never Sleeps", and "Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena". The first study of Portillo and her films, this collection is collaborative and multifaceted in approach, emphasizing aspects of authorial creativity, audience reception, and production processes typically hidden from view. Rosa Linda Fregoso, the volume editor, has organized the book into three parts: interviews (by Fregoso, Kathleen Newman, and B. Ruby Rich); critical perspectives (essays by Fregoso, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, Sylvie Thouard, Norma Iglesias, and Barbara McBane); and production materials (screenplays, script notes, storyboards, etc.). This innovative collection provides "inside" information on the challenges of making independent films.
By describing the production constraints Portillo has surmounted, Fregoso deepens our appreciation of this gifted filmmaker's life, her struggles, and the evolution of her art. Rosa Linda Fregoso is the author of "The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture". She is Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of California, Davis.
