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Since becoming director of the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival in 2017, Mattie Scariot has dreamed of hosting part of the event at San Juan Bautista’s El Teatro Campesino. Once the theater reopened for public performances in 2023 after the pandemic, she got her chance this year.
On April 15, El Teatro will host a panel discussion on the Mexican American film and art industry as part of the festival’s “Mexico y Tú” block of programming. Panelists will include Teatro founder Luis Valdez and his wife Lupe Valdez, both previous recipients of Poppy Jasper Icon Awards; educator and author Francisco Jiménez; and actor/producer Manuel R. Lozano.
“Growing up in Gilroy,” Scariot said, “Luis Valdez has been an icon to me. I’ve always looked up to him and admired how he takes care of his community, stays in the community and gives back. Holding part of the festival in his theater is a blessing.”
The panel will discuss what Scariot says is a huge deficit in film and television representation of minorities and women and how the “needle can be moved forward” to change the balance.
“We’re going to be very proactive,” she said. “There’s a problem, but how are we going to solve it? How do we set an example? I think having this kind of conversation and hearing from such a diverse group of men and women in the industry is important.”
Jiménez will receive the Poppy Jasper honors this year, along with former San Juan Bautista Mayor and Teatro veteran Cesar Flores. Jiménez’s four-book series, “The Circuit,” is the basis for “The Unbroken Sky,” a film adaptation written and directed by Josh Peterson.
Still from “The Unbroken Sky.” Courtesy of Josh Peterson. 
Still from “The Unbroken Sky.” Courtesy of Josh Peterson. 
Still from “The Unbroken Sky.” Courtesy of Josh Peterson. 
Josh Peterson, Ricardo Gonzalez, Dr. Francisco Jiménez and Edgar de Santiago. Courtesy of Josh Peterson. 
Still from “Isabel’s Garden. Courtesy of Manuel R. Lozano. 
Still from “Isabel’s Garden. Courtesy of Manuel R. Lozano. 
Still from “Isabel’s Garden. Courtesy of Manuel R. Lozano.
“Francisco grew up as an undocumented kid, working in the fields and trying to go to school,” Peterson said. “His family had to move from town to town, always one step ahead of the law with the border patrol coming after them.”
Peterson said the film addresses the negativity and fears surrounding the issue of migration while striving to tell a human but universal story.
“My goal was to try to get as close as possible to the authentic feel of working out in the strawberry field in the late 1950s,” he said. “What could be more vital than to grow food for people? Yet humans across the centuries have had this tendency to demean, exploit and look down on people who put the food on our tables.”
Peterson hopes that the short film will help the production company to mount a possible trilogy of films based on the books, saying he has discovered that Jimenez’s stories resonate with farm laborers worldwide.
“We’re so focused on the issue of migration in the Americas,” he said. “But this is happening in Asia. It’s happening in Europe. A Spanish woman told us about how her grandparents used to cross the border into France illegally during the harvest season to make the circuit from winery to winery.”
Jimenez will be joined on the “Mexico Y Tú” panel by Manuel R. Lozano, an actor/producer whose first feature-length film, “Isabel’s Garden,” written and co-produced by his wife, Kitt Rich, debuts at this year’s festival. Retiring after a career in technology, Lozano opened a music school and, from there, became enmeshed in the film industry, primarily working in episodic television shows like “9-1-1.”
The film is about a TV reporter who reassesses her life after her husband’s death while she raises her 15-year-old stepdaughter alone. Lozano and Rich shopped the film concept around without much success before deciding to make it on their own.
“She said ‘no’ in the beginning,” he said. “After about a night or two of sleep, she said, ‘OK,’ so we ended up making a 175-scene movie in nine locations in 15 days. It was a fantastic experience.”
The film was shot during the pandemic, which presented many complications and unexpected budget increases.
“It was a very scary thing to maneuver through,” he said. “It was like being in another universe, but we just rolled the dice.”
Lozano, who was born in Puerto Rico, used a multigenerational Latino cast and the dialogue is a blend of English and Spanish.
“I don’t believe that films have to be in a single language,” he said. “Why can’t you have a film in Spanish and English? I think people want to see more of that, too. Latin American countries are more accepting of English in their films and being able to do this was important to us.”
The last three days of the Poppy Jasper Festival will include two blocks of LGBTQ+ films and two blocks of closing films, both in Hollister.
“I think holding these films as blocks under the LGBTQ+ title puts them in a safe space,” Scariot said, “which is really important. People know what they’re coming to see. We are giving them an opportunity to have a conversation about changing some of the current narratives.”
The “Mexico Y Tú” line-up also includes “Contemporary Indigenous Voices: Land of Popeloutchom” by local photographer Kirti Bassendine. The film is part of her traveling photography exhibition that was recently displayed at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, sponsored in part by BenitoLink. According to Bassendine, her film is the only one in the festival that relates to local Indigenous history.
April 15: Mexico y Tú events and screenings
11:00 a.m. – Block 1 at The Barn at Mission Farm, San Juan Bautista:
“13 Años, 9 Kilometros,” “Family Reserve,” “Fervor,” “In Wonderland,” “Límite” and “Pajaro Floods.”
1:00 p.m. – Block 2 at The Barn at Mission Farm, San Juan Bautista:
“Fast Food,” “¿Qué es un Niño? / What is a Boy?,” “Expanding Sanctuary,” “The Stairs,” “Lunar Power” and “For the Love of Soccer.”
3:00 p.m. – Block 3 at The Barn at Mission Farm, San Juan Bautista:
“Strawberry Picker” and “Underground Orange.”
5:00 p.m. – Block 4 at the Granada Theater, Hollister:
“Pleasant Valley Community Garden,” “The Unbroken Sky,” “Contemporary Indigenous Voices: Land of Popeloutchom” “The Latina Book Club” and “Dos Mujeres (Two Women).”
7:00 p.m. – Panel Discussion at El Teatro Campesino, San Juan Bautista, moderated by artist Nacho Moya. Panelists include Luis and Lupe Valdez, Francisco Jimenez, Manuel R. Lozano and actor Edgar de Santiago (from “The Unbroken Sky”).
8:00 p.m. – Awards Ceremony at El Teatro Campesino, San Juan Bautista, with honorees Cesar Flores and Francisco Jimenez.
April 16: LGBTQ+ Day Films in Hollister
Block 1 – 2:00 p.m. at the Granada Theater:
“A Tree Fell Today,” “Grandma Bruce,” “Roses,” “Shideh,” “The Reflection of the Cranes,” and “Unnamed.”
Block 2 – 4:00 p.m. at the Granada Theater:
“Amor en Cuarentena: The Series,” “Forever Flowers,” “Monsterdykë,” “The Light” and “The Butch and the Baby Daddy.”
April 17: Closing Day Films in Hollister
Block 2 – 3:00 p.m. at the Granada Theater:
“Demi-Goddesses” and “Firebird: Built to Burn.”
Block 3 – 5:00 p.m. at the Granada Theater:
“Five Thousand Stars,” “Food That Saves You,” and “Susan Feniger: Forked.”
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