A Q&A with the Director will follow this screening.
Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020 6:00-8:00pm Celebration Cinema
For directions, please click HERE.
Genre: Documentary,Human Rights,Music,Political
ABOUT THE FILM
Paul Espinosa/USA/2018/87 min
English, Spanish with English subtitles
How did a young Mexican American kid from a small rural town in the middle of nowhere learn about the power of music and imagination in the fight for social justice? Singing Our Way To Freedom chronicles the life and music of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez from his humble beginnings as a farmworker in Blythe, California to the dramatic moment when he received one of his nation’s highest musical honors at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. As a young man in the 1970s, Chunky joined the picket lines in California and became Cesar Chavez’s favorite musician. His journey is a remarkable lens on a time when young Mexican Americans became Chicanos. Chunky learned how to employ humor, honesty and music to inspire folks to stand up and speak truth to power. His arc of transformation from marginalized farm kid to charismatic social activist shows how one person can mobilize people to change the world, reminding us that the battle for freedom has to be fought anew by every generation.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Paul Espinosa is an award-winning Filmmaker and Producer, is the President/CEO of Espinosa Productions, a film and video company specializing in documentary and dramatic films focused on the U.S.-Mexico border region. He has been involved with producing films for over 35 years and is Professor Emeritus in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. Espinosa received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Anthropology where he specialized in the cultural analysis of television communication and his B.A. degree from Brown University, also in Anthropology. He has worked with the public television stations in San Diego and Dallas as a Senior Producer and Executive Producer. Specializing in Latino and U.S.-Mexico border topics, Espinosa has produced, directed, written and hosted numerous programs for PBS.
Espinosa has shared his expertise, experience and social activism at many universities and community centers across the Americas. He has been honored with Paul Espinosa Film Festivals in Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, and San Diego. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists inducted him into the NAHJ Hall of Fame and the California Chicano News Media Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He received the Outstanding Latino Cultural Award in Performing Arts from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education; the Domingo Ulloa Cultural Worker Award from California Rural Legal Assistance in recognition of his contributions to public understanding of the experiences of Mexican origin peoples in the United States; and he was honored with the Hispanic Heritage Month Resolution presented on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC.
Espinosa is a Board Member of the Media Arts Center of San Diego and is an active member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. He previously served on the Boards of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) National Board, the Arizona Latino Arts & Culture Consortium, the Media Arts Center of San Diego (as President and Founding Board Member), the California Council for the Humanities, the Arizona Humanities Council and the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers National Board (as Treasurer).
MSU Latinx Film Festival 