The last Sundance Film Festival based in Park City, Utah, has drawn to a close. The future sees the fest relocating to Boulder, Colorado, but for now, Little Village brings dispatches from Sundance to you in Iowa — starting with three documentaries that premiered at the fest. Representing three U.S. regions, these films critique the myth of the American dream, giving a nod to the voices among the crowd who refused to blend in with the status quo.
Iowa was represented in the festival lineup thanks to Jane Elliott Against the World, about the renowned educator who, in 1968, introduced her controversial Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes exercise to her third-graders in Riceville, Iowa. Elliott walks us through her childhood, when she made the turn to activism, and the dissonance between how unpopular she was in her hometown and the attention she was getting in print and broadcast, à la Life magazine and Johnny Carson. Director Judd Ehrlich draws comparisons to modern-day forms of censorship and Christian nationalism plaguing classrooms.
Elliott travels between Iowa and Temecula, California, where her grandchildren live, to support one of the district’s black educators Dianne Cox and the Black Student Union as they protest School Board President Joseph Komrosky. The juxtaposition becomes particularly resonant in one scene as it cuts between Elliott’s address to a crowd and Eric Trump and Kash Patel speaking at an inland empire family PAC in Temecula. This back-and-forth between Elliott’s enduring legacy and the future of her grandchildren and their peers presents a fascinating look at how easy it can be to let history repeat itself.
Elliott’s temperament is a highlight of the film, though it is not always praised. She puts the bite in soundbite when she brands herself “the meanest teacher in the world,” and frequently antagonizes her audience to stir them up and wake them from their complicity. Elliot can definitely take what she dishes out, as she has grown accustomed to decades of targeted cruelty.
It’s clear that Elliott understands that her race, sex and stature allow her to navigate these political arenas with more ease and safety. At the same time, the film also documents the tensions within Elliott’s family, particularly with her daughter Sarah and her late son Brian, who often felt that their mother cared more about her students than her children.
Just like Elliott, the film is blunt in displaying her imperfections as a person, while still valuing her dedication to being not just a teacher, but an educator, leading people out of ignorance. Jane Elliott Against the World is a powerful call to action, pushing you to do more than bear witness, to fight the good fight on a local level, even if your neighbors will hate you for it.
Unlike the Jane Elliott doc, which underscores the isolation she felt in her values, American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez is more rooted in cultural harmony and collaboration. Shadowing the writer and director behind the films Zoot Suit and La Bamba, we learn about Valdez’s involvement in the Chicano-driven United Farm Workers labor union, working alongside the prolific Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.
This documentary is a treat for fans of Zoot Suit, who will recognize the vocal stylings of Edward James Olmos, reprising his role as the Pachuco, our omnipresent narrator who delivers insightful flair to Chicano touchstones. In the vein of docs like Paris is Burning, director David Alvarado offers definitions for key phrases like rasquachi, the funky, DIY spirit that drove Valdez’ Teatro Campesino, a farm worker’s theater he started to co-exist with the labor union.
Even when translating its cultural flavor to an American crowd, the film does so in bold and idiosyncratic ways, honoring Valdez’s investment in an aesthetic that blended art and politics — or as actor Cheech Marin puts it, the “folkloric and [the] sophisticated,” because “we’re capable of both.”
Teatro Campesino was created to address the lack of authentic Chicano representation and media with work that was satirical, funny and relatable. Actress Rose Portillo phrases it beautifully when she says, “Some of us were trained, some of us were not, all of us were making theater. It was heaven.” While the film does little to showcase Valdez’s work in recent history, capping off after the positive reception of his film La Bamba, it does use viscerally charged archival footage to platform the resilient Chicano spirit of the ’60s and ’70s, despite the violence they experienced at the hands of the LAPD.
It is remarkable to witness the stage presence of these young actors doing their best to stay afloat, to harness existential feelings of displacement and liminality and channel them into an art so loyal to its own culture. Valdez is certainly an icon, and it is wonderful to see him cherished for his work, which persists among the most successful in Chicano history.
The last film paints a picture of New York quite different from the one experienced by Luis Valdez, who faced humiliation at the hands of critics who did not understand the Zoot Suit play when it came to Broadway, pushing Valdez back to his home in California.
Public Access traces the cable channel’s origins in New York City and explores how technologically driven art can serve as a vessel for connection among those not represented in the mainstream. Public Access stitches archival footage of significant public access shows played on Manhattan Cable (Steve Gruberg’s The Grube Tube, Lou Maletta’s Gay Cable Network, Paper Tiger, TV PARTY, Rockers TV and Midnight Blue).
Directed by David Shadrack Smith, the film similarly edifies what it’s like to be on the precipice — to be part of a generation that wants to push the envelope, resist traditional and outdated modes of thinking, and use words to do that. The channel’s rich interest in experimentation and advocacy for countercultural outlooks is met with rightwing fear-mongering weaponized against First Amendment rights, allegedly in service of “protecting children.” It’s a reminder to its modern audience not to allow these groups to scramble our visibility, to squash our attempts at educational representation and connection.
Each of these documentaries convey a deep sense of place, encapsulating the contradictory merits and defects of the places we call home, with the goal that viewers walk away with a commitment to making our cities better and more reflective of our needs.
