Original subtitles

Is that better?

How are you doing?

I'm good, how are you?

Look out, Juan.

Wait, did you take a picture?

We're done.

Okay.

Three, two, one.

now we're here okay one two three okay come

on man tell me about your movie tell you about the movie oh my god like just tell

you what the come back here what it's about just tell me what it's about uh no

uh yeah think about on the download only uh this time it's a little bit bigger

budget very we got uh yeah two star cross lovers uh

It takes place on the south side. My south side. I love the tagline, love

knows no borders.

Oh, dude, I don't even know. It was me and Eric that came up with it. Me and

Eric came up with that while we were just editing the entire movie. So it was

something else, man. How do you feel right now after?

I feel great.

A lot of work paid off?

Yes, it did.

Now I've got to sell the movie to get paid.

To get paid, you know.

That's the number one thing right now. But other than that, dude, it's just

surreal. It really, really is. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

I can't believe how calm I am. I'm usually freaking out in front of a

camera. But other than that, dude, it's just great.

It's surreal, and it's great to be back. And I'm glad that this took at least, I

think, 12 years to do.

And in the time that we're in, especially in the political times, and I

really want to stay away from that as much as I can, but it's, hey, how are

you?

But it's sad. It really is sad, but at the same time, you know, raise

awareness, and it's something that includes everybody.

It's not just one specific group of people. It's everyone.

I am Richard DiGiuto, the Futures Programming Director here, and I have to

always look at my sheet, at Reeling, the Chicago International LGBT Plus Film

Festival. This is the 35th edition of the festival. We are the second oldest

queer film festival in the world. We applaud that.

We have a really, really great lineup.

We are so excited. As I said, it's the world premiere!

A lot of us,

I know a lot of you have waited a very long time for this new movie from writer

-director Teo Garcia.

You've all turned off your cell phones and pagers and anything that makes, I

can see that yours is on right there. Yes, you.

I'm just posting about the film to publicize it for everybody. Yeah!

I love you.

I love you.

Shall we wait for you? Go ahead, turn it off.

Do your pose, but do your pose first.

Do you have more than one ticket?

Okay.

Alright, so we've started off, and now just to say a word, and everybody stick

around because we have actors, we have crew, we have cast people afterwards for

a really fun Q&A. Please welcome Tadeo Garcia!

I truly want to say thank you.

I'd like to take a moment right now to send my blessings for the people of

Puerto Rico right now through what they're going through right now, and

Mexico as well, who gave us the opportunity to come out there.

That said, it's great to be back at Reeling once more.

um yeah it's like a 10 year and plus year uh gap between there but that's

normally what it takes for a low budget uh movie but this time at least i got a

little bit more and uh you'll see the production value on the screen um eric

do you want to say something yes i

just want to say uh thank you for this great turnout this is amazing

so A round of applause for everybody.

That being said, I think we're

ready to watch this movie, right?

Here we go. There's going to be a trailer and then there'll be a little

bit of darkness.

So just enjoy that. Get creative.

Okay, so here we go with the movie.

Okay, if you can look at the camera.

On three.

One, two, three.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Unit of the Department of

Homeland Security will target and deport hundreds of families who have ignored

immigration court orders to leave the country.

So what happened? Any update on the case? I mean, any one of us now?

Continued. Again?

I've been trying to find a way around this for years.

I've thought about what I'd do if this day ever came.

Maybe this is what it's meant to be.

Nice to meet you.

My name is Abel.

Abel Rendon.

Nice to meet you again.

I'm Diego Guerrero.

Life is what you make of it.

And I know everything's gonna be okay.

Faith makes everything possible.

Love, love makes it worthwhile and binds them together.

If I go back, I can't come back here.

You're undocumented.

I just don't know what to do.

I'll be with you no matter what.

I know it's all gonna work out.

Dear, I'm scared.

I'll make the phone call para arreglar todo.

Se van temprano de aquí y yo voy a Jalisco.

They'll take a cab to this address.

There'll be others there too.

Se quedan la noche.

En la mañana los llevarán al lugar.

You think love conquers all don't you?

Yeah, I do

We're going to set up some chairs, and we're very, very happy that writer

-director Tadeo Garcia is with us, and he's going to introduce... Should we do

this up here? What do you think? Or way down there?

You guys want us up here?

Yeah, right up here. Let's just do it right up here, if you would. Without

further ado, here he is, the writer-director, Tadeo Garcia!

Thank you so much. I really, really hope

you enjoyed it.

um i just do want to send a shout out to uh the producers of the film um the

producer eric jackson um

in

case

you have any questions at all so ian tranberg

All right, move up here.

Okay, and JD is in the bathroom, so he should be coming out.

Andrew Sands.

And, of course, none of this would have been able to be done without our

cinematographer, Charlie Garcia.

And yeah, we'll just wait for Jesse David to come back.

Take your shirt off!

No, I don't want to scare everybody.

So let's go ahead and open the floor up for questions.

I'm pretty sure everybody wants to interview or ask Andrew and Ian and

Charlie. Can I ask a question first? Yeah, of course.

You mentioned just briefly, how many of you have seen On the Down Low?

Today was the first film.

What? What?

You got to see his first film, which we loved in 2004?

Yeah. Okay, so can you just briefly before, just real quick overview

about... Getting this film ready to go

It's a 10-year a little bit over

10 years ago and this was in the myspace Era so I

saw a I Guess an affidavit it was

from Julio Perez who is here also

And he told me, he's like, oh, read it, read it.

You know, I was like, all right, cool, I will, I will.

And he asked me if I read it, if I read it. And finally I did. And it's just

like, um, did you show this to anyone?

No.

Can I make it into a movie?

And he's like, yeah, totally, go ahead. I mean, I didn't think the process would

be that long, especially with the amount of money, trying to figure out a place

to shoot it in Mexico.

So, you know, I put the damper on it for a little bit.

But you know finally raising up money and got some money from other people got

their talents also and Here we are Yeah, so this is based on something that

happened to you Wow I'm gonna step over here. So

I'm not blocking anybody's vision Go ahead questions answers for today

Don't be scared now.

Right here.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

From pre-production to shooting, I would say it's something about... Oh, the

question was how long it took to shoot from pre-production.

How long it took to shoot from pre-production.

How long it took to shoot from pre-production to where it is now.

I think, that's what you meant, right?

It took like about a year to do it once we started.

Anyone else?

Talk about the shoot schedule.

So you shot some in Chicago, some in Mexico. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty

complicated, I know as a filmmaker myself, to do anything even just

locally. Yeah. To take a company down to New Mexico. Oh, yeah. Can you guys talk

about that a little bit? Yeah. One of the things that we had,

We had everything in our control.

Rosalia had done a film before that she had everybody out in the desert.

And it was like full, full control, okay?

And it was the same thing with Mexico.

The actors that were there, just like we had them at our beck and call.

That's not mean.

But it was just like, you know, you were there and we did.

everything that we needed to set up a meeting with the mayor of Jalpa,

Zacatecas. And before you know it... Can you say that again?

The mayor of the town of Jalpa, Zacatecas, which is actually my dad's

town out in Mexico.

And he gave us carte blanche to, you know, once we had a dinner with him that

was set up, we had a...

He just gave us full access.

I was going to say, your position, that was a good move. Yeah, so it helped

a whole lot.

And this was the outcome of what happened.

Was that your plan from the beginning?

Did you know originally that you were going to go to Mexico? I did.

somebody named Noel Pineda and we were supposed to shoot it in Guadalajara but

like it just seemed too big of a city and I wanted something smaller and

finally it was just like oh my god my dad's town you know from where he's at

it's a small town and when we shoot it it'll happen to be during the time of

the big feria or the fair that they have over there in December and you know like

we had everything there everything just like worked out great.

Andrew? To answer the original question about scheduling, so when Mexico A was

just, we had a whole eight days there where we were able to just focus on

shooting and it was beautiful.

The town welcomed us. We were able to get a lot of actual press coverage there

and wherever we went, people would recognize us and they would be very

excited to see us.

Once we got to Chicago, I remember very specifically, we were eating lunch in

Mexico and Papi was like, guys, we're having such a great time in Mexico. It's

going to be even easier once we get to Chicago to shoot.

And it was quite the opposite.

It was quite the opposite. Every single person, Ian, me, it was Nelson, we all

had varying schedules because we had our vibes. We had our own.

all or sort of different jobs so all throughout a march of 2016 right april

we were like shooting sporadically and then we kind of wrapped most of things

up in in june of 2017 june of 2016 where we decided to take two weeks and just

kind of do the same thing that we did in mexico and just shoot straight and that

ended up being a really good idea um it was fantastic for all of us that um yeah

it was um

The beginning of the film was actually shot in Mexico and personally I went out

there before anybody else did and kind of set things up for us. The beauty

about it was that we're shooting in a very small town where movies are hardly

ever shot. So the locals are just so happy that there was a production taking

place in their town.

They were just at our beck and call. They were like, hey, you guys need

transportation?

do we need to take you around and then yeah and then she talked to the mayor

and the mayor's like oh i want to take you guys out to dinner and say what do

you guys want what do you guys want to shoot um so we were very lucky in that

sense um to kind of have everything we wanted and it really sucked to have come

back here we can't get any permits for anything

yeah just a little yeah talk about your county like where these

guys come from okay well There were some people that I wanted to work with for a

long time.

Chayrin Alvarez being one of them.

Jesse David being another one of them.

And when the auditioning process came out, I think it like took

four different auditions.

And then, how many callbacks, Andrew?

How many callbacks?

I think it was two.

Yeah, two callbacks? Yeah. So I had them play Abel and Diego and then get like,

each one of them like try to see which one would work out better and yeah they

landed the part you know and then everybody else like michael santa would

bring out like the uh the supporting cast as well um and one of the things

that uh that also was really great about the movie is that with any other movie

that takes place uh or that is set uh against the backgrounds of any type of

immigration reform

we always have that uh that stereotypical uh accent

really dark skinned uh who doesn't like um

groundskeeper type person when in reality it isn't um one thing with

diego's character um and it was really good he speaks great english you know so

in spanish is piffy we really worked hard at it um but I mean, it just worked

great because, I mean, there's people that are brought here.

And, I mean, English is impeccable. It's so good that the Spanish isn't there,

you know. So that was one of the great things that I was looking at. I wanted

to stay away from that stereotype and move into that even more, and especially

with the truck when they are coming back.

If you notice, there's, like, a different facade.

of characters you know it's again it's not that stereotype that we see in

movies it's everything you know like light skinned dark skinned um redheads

i mean it's i just wanted to go like all across with that if we were uh if i

was lucky to cast uh chinese that would be great because in my mom's town of uh

san francisco the vincon um there is a very large uh chinese japanese uh

population there. So, I mean, we have everything in Mexico.

So, you know, I really, I mean, looking back, I should have done that a little

bit more, but hopefully for you future filmmakers, you'll catch on and,

you know, try to stay away from the whole stereotypical aspect of

what being Mexican

Not only Mexican, but people from El Salvador.

I mean, again, the immigration issue is not just from Mexico.

It's even more down south.

Also, just to piggyback... I'm in the theater, bro.

Isn't he awesome? I'm telling you.

Just to piggyback on casting and whatnot, we come from a Chicago theater

community. And that's how we all kind of met each other and I met Andrew through

the theater community and I met Thaddeo through the community as well as Nelson.

Nelson and I did a show a while back ago.

And I'm also an artistic associate with Teatro Vista. What you should all do is

put that down on your phones and check out some productions from them because

they're absolutely phenomenal. Can you do that hand thing again?

Put it down on your phones and check out Teatro Vista. Their productions are

absolutely phenomenal.

Chicago Theatre is a phenomenal community.

And that's what this is. It's a Chicago Theatre community.

And as well as just...

One more thing, just to piggyback on Andrew's character.

He is someone, a dreamer, like DACA, like DACA. And it's a

big problem that's going on right now.

And it pisses me off what's going on. Seriously, we're all dreamers. I'm a

first generation Latino, and the fact that people look at me like I can be

trash can piss me off.

Because I am I'm more than than what?

Dude on the voiceovers thinks we are you know I'm not I'm not I'm not a rapist.

I'm not a drug dealer You know I'm a theater. I'm a theater actor, and I love

pets You

mentioned

When you started this, Obama was president, and then there was this

regime change to 45, so how, because that's when you were shooting, right?

Did you start shooting when Obama was president? Yes.

We were shooting while Obama was president, and we weren't expecting,

like, Eric was the editor, and we weren't expecting anything like this to

happen. First the Cubs won the World Series, we were all happy then.

I love both teams, okay? So there we go.

But then the following week, it was like a damper. I mean, we couldn't believe

that Trump won. I'm not taking sides. If you voted for Trump, that's on you.

But when that happened, I mean, like the movie was already edited and it's just

like, holy shit, we've got to, we have to go and recut this, you know, because.

of just like the political uh the political aspect that was going on so

did you just recut or did you actually do some pickup days and reshoot we did

reshoot yeah we did reshoot for one day yeah so you know it was because it works

it feels really timely right unfortunately it does you know i mean

it's i mean there was only one reshooting day one reshooting day yeah

it was all i mean all that content was already there that the real story was

already there the only thing that we really

The only thing we really reshot, not even reshot, just added was the

scene before Diego goes to the DMV.

And that's just for clarification purposes, really.

Other than that, that was already in the script.

All of that was there. Everything was completely, completely recut after this

one. So it was just like, man.

What happens going forward?

What the?

Yeah, answer that question because then we've got to wrap it up, unfortunately,

because we've got to get ready for the next screening.

What was the question? What's the future of the film? What's the future of the

film?

Going into various film festivals, getting possible

distribution, and they'll be able to take care of all the other film

festivals as well.

It's great. We've got great talent in Chicago.

The way I was raised I didn't see it I'm starting to see a little by little but

for me I want to include every single person, you know, it doesn't matter

what background, what religious background, what race, it just doesn't

matter. I just want you to be able to do the work. And that's it.

Well,

I just want to say thank you on behalf of Weeley.

Before you all leave, the boys will hold hands and tell us about Stephanie, your

first lady.

Yes! Where is she?

Because she was so amazing. Where is she?

She cracked the whip, okay?

She cracked the whip so much that at one point she scared me, and I'm like,

Stephanie, could you just go a little bit easier on me? Because I don't know

how much I can take this.

Oh, and also, poor seizure, I think it was a poor seizure, and I have hospital

stays during making this movie, and it was worth it.

My husband, I don't think he likes that idea, but, you know.

So, Stephanie, I want you to get everybody to go on this step and repeat

and take pictures and continue this along.

Really, we were so happy to present you. We'll keep you up. We'll show the film

again tomorrow.

If you're prepared, we'll see you. All right, let's go ahead and present to us.

If you're so good, raise your hand if you're coming on.

Thank you so much, everyone. And I'm not penis.

Whatever you like.

And the other one.

There we go.

There we go.

Thank you, folks. Thank you so much for coming out. Please tell your friends

about it.

If you liked it, it's good. If you didn't, that's perfectly fine. We'll be

outside answering any other questions. Thank you.