Dos Americas at the USF Human Rights Film Festival

Dos Americas, director David Zlutnicks’ fourth film, touches on the topic of migrant workers in New Orleans and their aid in reconstructing the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The film focuses on the way that Latino migrant workers have been abused by those who contract them and have become easy targets for violence. These issues cannot be brought forward to the police because of fear of deportation and the fact that many of these crimes are being committed by the police officers themselves. Throughout the film, you see interviews with many of the migrant workers that have left their country to follow the American dream, and have been met with horrible living conditions, meager wages and all kinds of abuses. To change these conditions, we learn about a group of migrant workers who have come together to help the victims of this abuse and give a voice to this hardworking group of people. The films interviews with the migrant workers, gave us a first hand account of the tough lives they must lead in order to make little money, to support themselves and their family. The film opens our eyes to issues that are not brought up my the mainstream media. The creation of such a film has given a voice to the voiceless latino migrant workers of New Orleans and those around the country.

The Q & A that followed after the film was very interesting and added a lot to the film. The director David Zlutnick, Jorge Aquino and Ron Sundstrom really informed the audience about the background information of New Orleans and some of the issues that are going on there at this present moment. The director gave some more background information about the film and the audience seemed to have really enjoyed the film and the subject and opened their eyes to a situation that has never really been touched upon in mainstream media.

Here you'll be able to find more information about the films that showed at University of San Francisco's Human Rights Film Festival

"Taxi to the Dark Side" at USF's Human Rights Film Festival

Last night, I attended the final night of The Human Rights Film Festival here at USF. I watched the Academy Award Winning documentary directed by Alex Gibney, Taxi to the Darkside. The film dealt with the murder of Dilwar, a young Afghan Taxi drive accused of helping to plan an attack on the U.S base. He is put into the prison in Bagram and is tortured with variety of torturing “methods” that will make him talk. Eventually, Dilwar dies within his prison cell. Throughout the film, we hear testimony from the men who tortured Dilwar and government officials who knew of the torture that was occurring in Bagram. The film did a great job of shedding light on the subject of torture. Though this wasn’t the first to die from the extreme torturing methods used and approved by the U.S. government. It did a great job shedding the light on such horrible acts. The testimonies of the soldiers that torutured Dilwar, made it that much more powerful. One of the surprising scenes in this film is the press tour of Guantanamo Bay. The soldiers made it seem as though Guantanamo Bay was a summer camp. The guide at one point says, that on Sunday they get ice cream and they even have half a basketball court.

The film definitely shed some light for on how serious the torturing of these prisoners (who may have nothing to do with any terrorist) really is and how Bush’s administration wiped their hands clean of any blood that was shed because of them. There was a large audience at the presentation of the film and audience was horrified by some of the scenes that were presented to them in the film. This film definitely had the audience and I very emotionally involved. This film definitely made me think about the torturing of ETA prisoners in Spain. Spain has denied that they have tortured anyone and that those that have been captured have lied about being tortured or inflicted the injuries themselves.

If you are interested about one of the most recent cases of torture in Spain here is a a link to an amnesty international article.

tech with the fu?

So my children, I have decided to finally fulfill my dreams and am about to embark on a great journey. After thinking long and very hard about it, I will be starting a video podcast about technology and other such delicious topics. At the moment, I am developing the concept of the show and would really enjoy any comments or suggestions on what you would be interested in seeing. I would welcome all the help that I can get to make it as successful as possible.

i love my mamacita!

my mom is the most hilarious person in the world! We went to dinner on saturday night to the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco. My mom thinks they have the best bread, very rustic looking and it is really good, but all of a sudden I see my mother pull out a plastic bag. I start to think to myself, "Is she really going to kidnap the bread ?" I see her hand reach across my plate and she grabs the bread, I look at her face and she is smiling like she just won a million dollars. SHE KIDNAPPED THE BREAD! I started to laugh uncontrollably. This is why i love my mother so much.

Can you see me?

In my Digital Media production class with professor Silver we are creating digital media content with different programs, like facebook, twitter, flickr, etc and using our real name when we create it. But the fact that we are exposing our true identities has caused some controversy with other professors. Here's the link to my professors blog and all the comments that he has received about allowing us to create the content with our actual names . I also left a comment defending the fact that we are using our real names when creating content through these programs and how it actually is benefiting us.

"I'm also a student in this class and I think it's great that we get create something with newer technologies like facebook, twitter,, Flickr, etc. We all consented to using our real names and had the choice to leave if we were not comfortable with the idea of exposing ourselves to the public.
Yes we are putting our personal information out into the Internet exposing it to the public but we obviously are comfortable or at least becoming comfortable with idea of doing this. We are taking the risk that everything that we are putting out there can come back and haunt us later on but I don't think that what we have produced through this class and will continue producing will hurt us professionally or personally, if anything it will help our careers and allow us to become even more comfortable with exposing ourselves and our work to the public"

Reminiscing of flowers

When I was about 10 years old I became obsessed with Doc Martens. When I would go to Spain for christmas, we would go to Irun and there I found a store that sold the most beautiful shoes. I would admire all the shoes in the window and want a pair for my feet. I finally asked my dad if he would buy some. My first pair were flowered Doc Martens that I thought were the most beautiful thing in the world. I eventually gave them away and wish I would have kept them, if just to admire them. I've been contemplating buying a pair again and I'd love to find the flowers ones again but I believe they were limited edition. Hopefully soon I'll buy a pair that I'll admire as much as those.

señorito is eating my money

I have an issue with Outtakes making candy so expensive and I read the yelp reviews and others agree, but I never really realized how expensive it was until yesterday. I bought chocolate covered raisins and gummy worms and it cost me 7 dollars!!!!!!! Those 7 dollars can go to something else. so please please please make it 4 dollars because it will save me 3 dollars.