ArivacaFilmFestival.com
Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition
DOCUMENTARY FILM PROGRAM
Saturday March 4th / 12:00 Noon - 5:30pm
Arivaca Community Center
“Pilgrimage to Magdalena” is an informative and engaging
cultural film documenting the centuries-old, cross-border
pilgrimage of hundreds of people each October to Magdalena,
Sonora, site of the Saint Maria Magdalena Church. The church
holds both the remains of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino and a
life-sized reclining statue of St. Francis Xavier, the informal
patron of the Pimería Alta. St. Francis is honored in October each
year with the largest religious pilgrimage and fiesta in Sonora.
Border Community Alliance is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to bridging the border
and creating community through education, cultural exchange and social investment.
For more information see the BCA website via the link here:
https://bordercommunityalliance.org/pilgrimage-to-magdalena
Sunrise in the Santa Rita Mountains of Southern Arizona. Tohono O'odham runner Marlinda
Francisco receives a blessing from Austin Nuñez, Chairman of the San Xavier District of the
Tohono O'odham Nation. As Marlinda begins her run to protest the threat of an open-pit copper
mine here, we learn about the Tohono O'odham ancestral connection to this land. Along the way,
we meet Gayle Hartmann, a non-profit leader who has resisted the mining operation for years.
Independent Documentary Director Leslie Ann Epperson began creating natural history
and cultural documentaries at WILL-TV, an Illinois PBS station. Her PBS career continued
at AZPM in Tucson, AZ, where she created the Emmy Award-winning Divine Mission San
Xavier del Bac.
In the heyday of the silent era of film, Metro Pictures Corporation came to Arivaca,
Arizona and made a feature-length movie. It was released in May of 1918, then
disappeared. One hundred years later, the last surviving degrading nitrate copy was
discovered in a film archive in Amsterdam.
To be shown here at the Arivaca Film Exhibition, will be a 9-minute scene digitally
restored from the original Nitrate film, to exhibit a ‘work-in-progress’ of what will
eventually be a complete feature-length studio film from that era.
RESTORED 9-MIN SCENE FROM
“THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY”
Bart Santello is an Arivaca, Arizona based experimental
filmmaker & photographer.
“ What could be more exciting than to find a lost film, but then
add to that discovery was that it was made in a town where you
live. For the community, the state and film history, it’s both an
honor and an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime.”
- Bart Santello
Writer/Director: JEFFERSON STEIN
Produced by: LIZ CARDENAS
Producers: RUSSELL SHEAFFER, JEFFERSON STEIN,
DOUGLAS RIGGS
Executive Producers: EVA LONGORIA, SANDRA
CONDITO, LARRY 'BEAR' WILSON, CAMILLUS LOPEZ
Cast: AMAYA JUAN, ZUEMMY CARRILLO, VIRGINIA
PATRICIO, RUPERT LOPEZ
Cinematographer: COLE GRAHAM
Composer: AMANDA JONES
Editor: R. BRETT THOMAS
Co-Producers: COREY HOWARD, R. BRETT THOMAS
WEBSITE: https://www.burrosthefilm.com/
Blog for the restoration: http://trailtoyesterday.blogspot.com
In southern Arizona, twenty miles from the
Mexico border, a young Indigenous girl
discovers a Latina migrant her age who
has been separated from her father while
traveling through the Tohono O’odham
Nation into the United States.
How do indigenous communities cope with the burden of knowing their resources may be on the
brink of extinction? How does it feel to realize that one might be the last to know a given
subsistence skill, or to practice a way of life? These questions are always present in Almost an
Island, but they are not foregrounded in the film. No one can think about this all the time. Life
goes on: children are born, there are feasts of caribou and salmon, there are snow machine rides
on glorious winter days. Even in the midst of uncertainty, there is so much to celebrate
A film by Jonathan VanBallenberghe and Open Lens Productions
WEBSITE FOR THE FILM: https://www.almostanislandmovie.com/about
POT-LUCK DINNER - 5:30pm
The pot luck dinner is our yearly tradition
here at the Arivaca Filmmakers Exhibition,
Where our film-going community makes it happen!
A time to relax, socialize and recharge
before everyone head’s-out.
PS: No obligation to bring food; especially if you’re
traveling long distance or attending at the last minute.
Note that the Community Center where this event is held
has a commerical kitchen for cooking, heating food
and refrigeration.
Please consider making a donation via PayPal in support of the
Aivaca Film Exhibtion to help cover costs associated with the event
including: facility rental, website, signage, food & drink, equipment
rental, administrative and the band! See link at right. Psychotropic
Films llc & Bart Santello of Arivaca are the organizing sponsors.
JOSH KASSELMAN (Phoenix) is an
NYU film school graduate who
alternates between narrative,
documentary and commercial work,
directing, and shooting multiple
narrative projects in development.
His film company is
Limitrophe Films
On the US/Mexico border, an undocumented mother’s quest to
save her son relies on a troubled American Veteran, building a wall
out of junk, whose duty is to keep her out.
The drive to protect our borders and preserve our national identity by keeping out the “other”
has brought to bear essential questions about the soul of our nation. DUSTWUN is a fictional
story based on real people and real stories told in the simplest way possible to elevate what
binds us together as human beings, irrespective of metaphorical, or actual, borders. The film
came from my experience living in Southern Arizona for four years, having a brother in border
patrol, and volunteering with the Samaritans and Casa Alitas, both advocacy groups for
migrants and asylum seekers. The film was shot over 10 days on an active migrant crossing
site in Green Valley, AZ, just 30 miles from the US/Mexico border during monsoon season.
Genevieve Anderson is a writer, director, producer, artist, and
academic. Her short films have played at over 100 festivals
worldwide, winning awards in Berlin, Seattle, Chicago, Rhode
Island, Palm Springs, among many others, and have been
broadcast on ARTE and IFC. DUSTWUN, her first feature, came
from her experience living 30 miles from the US/Mexican
border and has international distribution with House of Film.
Gathering at the LaGitana Bar
(Downtown Arivaca) after the pot-
luck - 7pm Saturday night !
KITTY
a short work by
Josh Kasselman & Stephanie Lucas
Tensions rise on a young couple's sightseeing tour as they discuss the cat sitter
they've hired for the weekend. Yoshiko and Fukuo Ogawa star in this patient,
offbeat Japanese-language short drama elegantly set in the American Southwest.
Stephanie Lucas earned her BA in English Literature from
University of Arizona before going on to receive her MA in
Interdisciplinary Studies from New York University in
Documentary Film, Art, and Social Change. In addition to narrative
shorts, she has created numerous experimental shorts
