MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It's been said cinema has no borders. Earlier this month, organizers of the Nogales International Film Festival put that idea to the test. They put on some of the same films on back-to-back screens, one on the U.S. side, the other in Mexico, with the multibillion-dollar U.S.-Mexico border wall as the backdrop. Reporter Nina Kravinsky from member station KJZZ was there.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAILA ESTA CUMBIA")
SELENA: (Singing in Spanish).
NINA KRAVINSKY, BYLINE: The wall between Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona, is made of steel. It's tall, imposing and the color of rust.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAILA ESTA CUMBIA")
SELENA: (Singing in Spanish).
KRAVINSKY: Tonight, it frames the luminous singing face of the late tejano music icon Selena.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SELENA Y LOS DINOS: A FAMILY'S LEGACY")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
KRAVINSKY: Grainy home video footage of Selena giggling with her sister, of the family goofing around on their tour bus flickers on back-to-back screens on both sides of the border wall.
ISABEL CASTRO: I mean, this has been such an unbelievably moving experience.
KRAVINSKY: Isabel Castro, the creator of this documentary about Selena and her family, titled "Selena Y Los Dinos: A Family's Legacy," spoke to audiences in a Q&A, streamed to both sides of the border, just like her film.
FRANCISCO LANDIN: Our kind of metaphorical goal is to erase the border through the power of film.
KRAVINSKY: Francisco Landin is the managing director of the Nogales International Film Festival. This year, festival organizers are dealing with a new challenge at the wall.
LANDIN: Barbed wire just came up. They've been installing it for the last couple of months, and so it's bigger now. The wall looks bigger.
KRAVINSKY: On the Arizona-Sonora border, government contractors are working on new sections of wall in remote areas like the San Rafael Valley east of Nogales even as migration hits record lows.
LANDIN: People see things and believe things about the border, and to the people that live here in the border, none of that really matters.
KRAVINSKY: Life in Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona - together often called ambos Nogales, or both Nogales - is fluid. People cross the border daily by car and on foot to go shopping, visit family and even work. Nogales, Sonora, filmmaker Areth Montoya was born and raised in this border community. His short film, "Audrey," is one of more than a hundred films that make up the festival, not all of them screened on the wall. Montoya says he's seen the film community in Nogales, Sonora, take root the past few years thanks in part to the festival. Montoya and other local filmmakers are trying to give more visibility to stories apart from the border.
ARETH MONTOYA: (Speaking Spanish).
KRAVINSKY: "Violence and drug trafficking aren't the only subjects of the film community here. There's much more," Montoya says. Other filmmakers came from far away to participate in the festival and have their films screened on the wall.
DAVID ALVARADO: I don't know. There's just something very weird about standing here and looking at the thing.
KRAVINSKY: David Alvarado is the director of "American Pachuco: The Legend Of Luis Valdez," a documentary about the Chicano movement pioneer and screenwriter, known for the play "Zoot Suit" and movie "La Bamba."
ALVARADO: It's not a very welcoming image, but the fact that there is a film being projected on that is, I mean, a very powerful, striking, counterbalance.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SELENA Y LOS DINOS: A FAMILY'S LEGACY")
SELENA: (Singing in Spanish).
KRAVINSKY: Back at the showing of "Selena Y Los Dinos," a young Selena sings in a home video as the credits roll.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
KRAVINSKY: The two audiences, each on a separate side of the wall, clap together.
(APPLAUSE)
KRAVINSKY: For NPR News, I'm Nina Kravinsky in Nogales, Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SELENA Y LOS DINOS: A FAMILY'S LEGACY")
SELENA: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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