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Evelina Fernandez and Sal Lopez star in alumnus Alberto Barboza’s “Premeditation,R

Photo

Evelina Fernandez and Sal Lopez star in alumnus Alberto Barboza’s “Premeditation,R

For directors Joel Juarez Sanchez and Alberto Barboza, both UCLA alumni, box-office success is the last thing on their minds.

Their films received numerous awards this summer, including a shared award for Best Short at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Sanchez’s “Pelea de Gallos” received a Director’s Guild of America award and won Best Short in the San Diego International Film Festival, and Barboza received a UCLA Director’s Spotlight award for his “Premeditation.”

But while going mainstream might not have been these two award winners’ first priority, Sanchez and Barboza were recently presented with an opportunity to widen their range of exposure more than they could ever imagine.

Their two films, Sanchez’s “Pelea de Gallos,” and Barboza’s “Premeditation,” aired on premium cable for the first time Wednesday night on Showtime and will continue to run throughout the month of October as part of a special Latino Filmmakers Showcase series.

“We’re definitely in a transition, a change of becoming more present and more aware,” said Sanchez.

Sanchez and Barboza have collaborated since they began the graduate division of the Master’s in Fine Arts program in 1997, and continue to support each other’s work. While they may have different approaches, both seek to represent the Latino culture in the most faithful way without selling out to the box office.

“Pelea de Gallos,” set in Acapulco, Mexico, is about a man who is in conflict with his true self and the “macho” world of cock-fighting. This film is actually a metaphorical reflection of his own choices as a director facing the stigma of Hollywood, says Sanchez.

“I was in a fork when I shot this film,” said Sanchez. “Did I want to enter the commercial Hollywood world or continue my trajectory and cover themes and issues important to me that wouldn’t become a box office success? It was that difference between entering this big world, what I saw as the ‘macho’ world, and being true to myself.”

With American box-office hits having infiltrated Mexico and the rest of the world, it had proven difficult for any regional films to garner attention. Sanchez and Barboza seek to modify this reality through positive cultural exchange.

“Film has become a way to colonize other cultures, to suffocate them,” said Sanchez. “In Mexico, 95 percent of the movies playing at any time are U.S. films. I’m not making films only for Latinos, but also to start pushing back from this choking effect by other films to say, ‘Hey world, here we are!’ I’m trying to share Mexican and Latino culture, the faces of our people, with the rest of the world.”

Seeking to maintain an honest code of representation, the directors consider the specificities of their culture as essential to depicting the true nature of Latinos. “Premeditation,” based on a one-act play by Evelina Fernandez, consists of a conversation between a married woman and the hit man she hires to kill her husband, wherein tempers flare and the two redefine their contract. Barboza recreates the cultural nuances of middle-aged Chicanos while telling this romantic tale.

“I want to share this story with the public in general,” said Barboza. “But I’m hoping that I’m honest and true to our experience as Chicanos in this country, and that the Chicanos will appreciate the particularities within my film. I wanted to allow actors to be who they are, to speak with the regional accents that they have, not to hide them.”

Professors, many who have served as mentors to the students in the department, agree with their efforts to depict their culture as faithfully as possible.

“What’s so wonderful about (Sanchez’s) films is that he creates a tone first, and he’s very consistent,” said A.P. Gonzalez, head of production and vice chair of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media. “The films are being shot in Mexico, where he was born, and where he still goes back as often as he can. He gives us something original about his culture that we hardly get to see. He’s in the place where he can put together American financing and Mexican talent. He will be one of the people that will bridge the two cultures.”

Sanchez, having worked closely with Gonzalez, agrees that the sharing of Latino culture is vital to the growth of diverse modes of cinema.

“Alberto and I will be one of the ones to say that Latino culture in the United States needs to start being shared with the entire world, and that we are doing it already through our films.”