Closing the Gap : ‘Seeing in Color’ at UCLA Showcases the Works of 5 Minority Filmmakers

As a child, Carlos Avila loved movies. But as a young Latino, growing up in Echo Park, it never occurred to him that he could be part of his hometown industry. “I felt it was out of my realm,” he recalls.

Today, Avila is a talented young filmmaker at UCLA. Monday night, his 29-minute “Distant Water” will premiere as part of a showcase of films by minorities to be screened for industry talent spotters and others (the program will be repeated Friday).

The program, called “Seeing in Color: A Celebration of Cultural Diversity by Five Emerging Filmmakers,” was conceived by Avila and two of his fellow students, Pam Tom, a Chinese-American, and Patricia Cardoso, who is from Colombia.

Tom will show her “Two Lies,” which deals with two young Chinese-American girls whose mother has recently had surgery to make her eyes appear more Caucasian. Cardoso’s film, only 12 minutes long, is about a young girl’s memories of Christmas in her South American homeland.

Avila, 29, was born in Peru to a Peruvian father and a Mexican mother. In his view, there are still far too few minority images on screen. The films of African-American director Spike Lee and other filmmakers of color “are still a drop in the bucket,” he says. “These films are really the exception. The images of people of color are still not there, at least in the mainstream.”

As they explore themes that grow out of their own experiences, Avila and his fellow minority filmmakers are closing that gap.

Avila’s movie, made for $20,000, deals with a Latino boy’s coming of age during the zoot suit riots in Los Angeles in 1943. His protagonist is 10-year-old Frankie Montoya, born in the United States but growing up in the barrio. The film is mostly in Spanish, with English subtitles.

The film’s slender plot deals with the fact that public swimming pools of the period were segregated. Latino children could only use them one day a week and at the end of that day, young Frankie learns to his dismay, the pool is cleaned for the week. As their fathers try to deal manfully with the racial prejudice they encounter in the adult world, Frankie (played by Lennard Camarillo) and his buddies find a way to resist the injustice they, too, must face.

Avila says he has never encountered the blatant discrimination that his young protagonist faces but he has experienced more subtle forms of prejudice. An example, says the Latino filmmaker: “You’re standing in front of a restaurant, and someone pulls up and they assume you’re the valet.”

As to the inspiration for his film, Avila says he doubts he could have made as effective a piece if he had not been exposed to Luis Valdez’s groundbreaking play “Zoot Suit,” which Avila saw “about 20 times” as an usher at the Mark Taper Forum.

As Avila points out, Latinos are still a decided minority in Hollywood despite the enormous Hispanic presence in Los Angeles. He cites a recent study of the ethnicity of television characters, which concluded, Avila says, “that there are more extraterrestrials on TV than there are Latinos.” Avila says he was fortunate in having had generous support from many Latinos who have managed to break into the business, including veteran actor E. J. Castillo, who plays Frankie’s father.

Unlike film students at USC, students at UCLA must get their own financing for their “thesis” films, the movies that are part of their degree requirements. Avila got grants from several sources, including the Paul Robeson Fund, to underwrite his movie.

His biggest challenge, he says, was recreating Latino Los Angeles of 1943 on a budget. Among his cost-cutting maneuvers for setting the scene: using an underwear ad from the period, which the young protagonists furtively pass around behind their pretty teacher’s back. “And I got a lot of mileage out of the one period car I used,” says Avila, who spotted the 40-year-old vehicle in a driveway in Echo Park and was able to rent it for $25. To further stretch his budget, Avila persuaded his grandmother and sisters to cater the shoot.

Avila says one of the greatest pleasures of the project has been to screen it for young Latino audiences, who laugh at the raunchy, juvenile jokes (in Spanish) and tap their feet to the music. They often tell him, he says, that they, too, never realized they could make movies until they saw his film.

Like the other young filmmakers in the program, Avila hopes “Distant Water” will catch the eye of a studio executive or a top agent. Right now, he knows, black filmmakers are hot, as are images of American Indians, thanks to “Dances with Wolves.” Avila calls this phenomenon “the ethnicity of the day.”

“It would be refreshing if ethnic and minority filmmakers wouldn’t have to be struggling for the limited amount of opportunities,” he says.

Avila says “Seeing in Colors” will give audiences “a sense of other cultures” and introduce them to sympathetic characters they may not have encountered before.

The program also includes “Mama Seed Tree,” an animated version of an African fable by African-American Carlo Spivey, and “Mail Order,” a short film about a man who falls in love with the stereotype of the subservient Asian woman by Daniel Tirtawinata. All the films, except Avila’s, which is having its premiere, have been included in film festivals or received other recognition.

“They’re all very unique,” Avila says of the student films. “They’re all very diverse. And they’re all very good. “

The movies will be screened Monday at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. in UCLA’s Melnitz Theater and again Friday night at 7:30 in the Beverly Hills Library Auditorium. The programs are free. To reserve seating, call (213) 215-0878.