It all began with Cine Estudiantil. Five years ago David Riker’s Student Academy Award winning short, La Ciudad, was screened at the festival that is now the San Diego Latino Film Festival. Unfortunately I missed it, but I remember reading about it. In fact, that year’s festival catalog cover was an image from the film. (Which is now the homeless puppeteer segment of the feature anthology.)

I finally saw David’s film a year ago when Ethan van Thillo (this years co-director and founder of the festival) projected the film on to the wall of his house. I was blown away. It is an amazingly poetic film about a traveling puppeteer’s relationship with his daughter. It is a metaphor of the migrant experience captured in the other segments of La Ciudad.

It was through an act of fate that David and I ended up teaching film making at the same school in Los Angeles over the summer. Within minutes of meeting we were talking about two of our greatest passions: film and tacos. Finally I had met someone that challenged the preconceived notions of what it is to be a filmmaker today. A true revolutionary in a world of false consumer revolutions.

As a young filmmaker it is sometimes hard to find a mentor that you can really look up to. Someone that can help you see the world of film in a different light while at the same time provide you with practical strategies for survival.

But in reality we were just kindred souls in search of the perfect taco.

It was through these various quests for a great taco that I got to know David Riker. As we sat in the cool summer air we shared tacos, personal histories, horchata, and philosophies.

“El Gran Burrito” – Santa Monica at Vermont, Los Angeles. Very friendly. Colorful, full of life, and open ’til 2 a.m. Reasonable prices. Flavorful. Juke box with a good selection of music. The first thing we see as we walk in is Miguel chopping a mountain of onions.

Before we go any further you should read a synopsis of La Ciudad. Kay Armatage of the Toronto Film Festival has written a good one:

“La Ciudad is a narrative snapshot of a side of New York that is rarely seen: the city of illegal immigrants, the homeless, seasonal workers, sweatshops, and laborers from Manhattan’s Latin American neighborhoods. An intensive collaboration with the immigrant community over a five-year period has resulted in a complex four-part narrative in which the subjects of the film are its principal actors."

Set in the present day, the film follows four separate stories of immigrant life. A young laborer, scavenging for bricks, is killed when a wall collapses; two teenagers from the same village fall in love, then lose each other in a housing project; a homeless father tries to enroll his daughter in school; a young garment worker seeks justice in the sweatshops.”

It takes immense courage to make a film such as this one. These are the experiences of millions of people that have torn the roots of their experience in order to create personal histories in a new world. It is also a documentation of the immense struggle that workers face every day. It is a beautifully honest film that gives voice to those that are forced into silence.

But how does one end up making such a film? I can think through it logically, but in the end it’s all a guess.

As a child David never established roots in any one place. His father was involved in international business and the family was constantly moving around the world. As an adult he continued to jump around as a photojournalist.

This continued exploration of the world led him to new realizations. How can you photograph the misery and beauty of shared cultures and not be changed? How long can you place suffering on silver halide and not be moved to change the conditions which you photograph?

Photography led him to the moving image. Armed with a video camera he drove to a logging town in Maine on the US - Canadian border. He was there to document the struggle of striking papermakers united in their fight against exploitation. A year later he had put together a powerful statement on the strength of solidarity.

Ironically, it was the documentary form that pushed him into narrative. His ideals had not changed. The forms he had been using began to stifle the expression of the stories he wanted to tell. What if you could shape and control the presentation of the experiences you wanted to expose?

While enrolled in the NYU graduate film making program he began to harness the true power of narrative to expose and transform. In New York he also connected with a group of people that shared the disrooted experience of his life: the predominately Latino migrant workers who shared the neighborhood he lived in.

The multi-layered experiences of these new immigrants were distilled into the four short stories of La Ciudad.

“Taqueria” (taco shop) one block away from “El Cinco y Diez” (Five and Ten) in Tijuana. The street is full of life. I just bought some Chinese soap at an open air swapmeet with multicolored nets casting a beautiful light over the vendors. We walk by and stop at quiet taco shop. The tacos are the best this side of Gordos. All we want to do is sit in the shade, eat, and read the histories written on the faces of beautiful people that pass by.

David has an incredible spirit. He is an intense, passionate, fun loving person. But what really sets him apart is his ability to capture the beauty of an experience while at the same time documenting the struggle inherent in that experience. This is a very honest and humane way of looking at life.

His outlook on life dictates the method in which he works. David might be a filmmaker by trade, but he is an activist at heart. What if by helping shape the narratives of those without a voice you can create a film that shifts the consciousness of an audience? Maybe in documenting struggles you can help create social change.

In many regards La Ciudad is the grand child of Neo-Realism and a first cousin of Salt of the Earth. In these films the fiction creates a stronger sense of reality.

In addition, the making of each of these films is as amazing as the films themselves.

David began by talking to the people of his neighborhood and gaining their trust over time. Sincerity and a true interest in the people he talked with helped in this regard. He then collected the various stories of those he interviewed and wrote a screenplay. The screenplay was taken back to the various communities and critiqued. They would point out inconsistencies or jumps in reality. Once the screenplay was approved he begun the casting process. This was basically the process of choosing from the various faces and personalities that he had encountered throughout pre-production. He also had to take into account who would be willing to take time out of their full work schedules to act in a film. Since most of the cast consisted of non-actors they would meet in the basement of a local church two, maybe three nights a week for several months.

On top of all this David had to work long hours to pay his bills while struggling to raise the money needed to produce such a non-commercial film.

In the end, you can not watch La Ciudad without developing a sense of the love and respect David has for the people that populate the film. There is a certain admiration for the beauty and strength in the faces of the neighborhood portrait studio.

This attitude is a part of his everyday life. At every taco shop we visit there is a feeling of comradery. David is there not only to eat a taco but to share in the mutual experience of humanity.

In the face of every taco shop worker he sees a narrative. It is usually a bitter sweet story of both beauty and struggle. Sometimes it’s the beauty in struggle. Someday a narrative film will be made about the lives of those that make gourmet creations with tortillas, salsa, y carne.

Carne is turned. Sweat comes down. Blades hit meat. Stories are told. Tortillas are flipped. Change is made.

Dos más de asada. Con todo.

(Two more steak tacos. With everything.)

Omar Ezequiel Gonzalez is a young, up and coming filmmaker. In addition to working on his own projects, he is currently an assistant to a director for a major Latino motion picture. He can be reached at omar@calocine.com or at (800) 786-0747.