"The Ministers," the latest film project by writer-director Franc Reyes, will make its national premiere in New York on October 16, 2009. The tale of two twin brothers who avenge the “murder by arson” of their parents in the South Bronx was penned by Reyes who draws on his experience as a South Bronx native and the recollections of the sweeping arson for insurance incidents that decimated so much of the Bronx in the 1970’s. It is a subject matter that highlights the effect that one pivotal moment can have on a lifetime and, more so, the effects that greed and evil can have in shaping the world view of its victims. It also highlights the very reasons that films from a Latino perspective are so vital – what is merely an unsavory footnote in the history of one New York borough is herein brought to life by a writer for whom those incidents were vivid and immediate. Thanks to Reyes, those incidents of profiteering at its most greedy and evil are dissected and re-imagined and, most importantly, a human face is given to the real life victims behind the dry statistics.
Calling themselves "the ministers of his word," the two brothers (both played by the very talented John Leguizamo) turn into murderers themselves to avenge their parents’ deaths at the hands of arsonists and their brother’s tragic death at the hands of a police detective, played by the inimitable Harvey Keitel. In doing so they also set off a course of events that shapes the life of one of their victims whose trajectory will put her on a collision course with the brothers. Reyes, the son of a Pentecostal minister mother, draws on his memories of ministry-in-action for the religious fervor that is interwoven throughout this fictionalized account of tragedy and revenge.
The most important thing that Black filmmakers did in the 1980's, he states, was to find and cater to a Black movie going audience that until that point had not been particularly looking for Black films. A similar opportunity exists with Latino audiences but is falling short of similar achievements thanks to inherent issues within the Latino community itself. As an illustrative example of the disparity between these two filmmaking communities, he imagines that that Black filmmakers will go to studios and say "This is a black film" and will pitch it as such for black actors to be delivered as fare for a black movie going audience. Latinos on the other hand, he imagines, will go and say "This is a Latino movie about Jose and Maria" – before proceeding to pitch Leonardo Dicaprio for the role of Jose, saying "Dicaprio would make a great Jose!" This, he believes, speaks to the Latino community’s often self sabotaging desire for outside validation from mainstream society.
Chief among the other issues affecting Latinos and their foray into the world of commercially viable filmmaking is the issue of self identity and the fact that many Latinos don’t wish to own the Latino struggle. In addition, there is also a class issue that exists within the community in that upper middle class Latinos tend to want to determine what constitutes the image of Latinos as a whole. He notes that when it comes to self identity many Latinos have no clear definition of where they themselves stand on the Latino continuum, an issue which is further complicated by the fact that Latin Americans don't often consider U.S. Latino Americans as truly Latino as they are. He recalls being asked by someone who was half Brazilian and Half Argentine, born in the U.S. but raised in Argentina, if he should consider himself "Latino."
There are also deep rooted issues of skin color that also cloud the issue of Latino identity on both sides of the camera; lighter skin Latinos tend to identify more closely with the mainstream white culture while darker skin Latinos tend to identify with the African American dominant hip hop culture. Finding relevant references within the African American world once again, he points out that to the Black community Spike Lee is no less Black because he does not speak Swahili. He recalls that the cast of "Illegal Tender" stood out in the world of Latino films for its use of dark skinned Latino talent. It is especially a rarity when compared to Latin American films from abroad where light skinned Latinos are the norm. He points out that at prior Alma Awards it was easy to see where Celia Cruz and Jon Secada were seated because their dark features were easily distinguishable amidst a sea of light skinned faces. At the end of the day, he states, Latino is a culture; it's what defines all of us - "whether it's Tego or Luis Miguel." But whether a person chooses to identify with it or not is more often the true question. Therefore, Reyes surmises that for true progress to be made Latinos must come to both fully own and embrace their own identity.
Another stumbling block to commercial viability is the fact that many Latino filmmakers do not make commercially driven films but instead make films that do not appeal to a wide range of audiences. Stating that as Latinos the majority of us "did not grow up on Godard or Truffaut" but rather on commercial fare and, as such Latino filmmakers should make films inspired by the films that they themselves have been inspired by. Too often filmmakers who "get a shot" wind up making non-commercially viable films that a majority of audiences would not go to see and consequently do not get the greenlight for a theatrical release. He points to the fact that many mainstream commercial films have a large percentage of Latinos in the audiences as evidence that Latinos will, in fact, go out in large numbers for films that appeal to their entertainment sensibilities.
