I Am Joaquin. 1969. Mexico/USA. Directed by Luis Valdez. From a poem by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales. DCP courtesy Academy Film Archive. In English, Spanish. 19 min.
Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive! 1976. USA. Directed by Efraín Gutierrez. Screenplay by Sabino Garza. With Gutiérrez. DCP. In Spanish, English; English subtitles. 81 min.
Considered the first Chicano film, Efraín Gutierrez’s Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive! was an independent effort, made on a shoestring budget—with the director also playing the main role—produced as a protest against the increasing number of Latino men returning from Vietnam in coffins. Though Gutierrez’s anger at the Chicano community’s pariah status in South Texas is channeled through a grief-stricken central character who is pushed into a life of crime, the film also offers a rare look at Chicano culture, theater, and music. In I Am Joaquin, Luis Valdez transforms Hispanic activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales’s titular poem into a stirring visual ode to Chicano culture and Mexican history.