Like, who would have thought a movie like “Roma,” in black and white, on Netflix, and in Spanish, would go to the Oscars? You put that movie out 10 years ago, no one would have given a … about it. We’re starting to really challenge our audiences. We’re living in a good time right now where things are talked about. Between TV shows like “Jane the Virgin” and “One Day at a Time,” last year’s Oscar contender, “Roma,” and last week’s Democratic primary debates, in which several candidates made it a point to speak in Spanish, does it feel like the tide is changing a little for how people react to hearing Spanish? Or do you think it’s born out of necessity, with creatives wanting to show Latinos in a more humane, less stereotypical light? And the crew felt like they were really stepping into this authentic representation of “culture shock.” The film is bilingual as well: Close to half of it is in Spanish. So between us, we would really connect in our native language, and that doesn’t happen often. Just talking to the actors in Spanish, we all understood the message we’re portraying with the film. It just happened so organically, so naturally. I have been on many sets, and it was the first time I had ever witnessed something like that. When I was on set, I watched you direct a scene in Spanish, casually flipping back and forth from Spanish to English and vice versa. Which is what makes “Culture Shock,” with its large Latinx cast and crew and distinctive, timely subject matter, an important glimpse into what Hollywood is capable of grappling with when Latinx people are adequately represented. Only 6% of speaking roles in the top 100 movies at the box office go to Latinx characters, according to USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, while Latinx people make up more than 18% of the U.S. Meanwhile, Hollywood still has a long way to go when it comes to racial and gender equality, and one of the biggest gaps in representation is suffered by the Latinx community. Their struggles in their home countries may outweigh the potential hazards the journey across the border entails, and as Marisol believes, some migrants feel the chance is worth taking for a better life - if not for themselves, for their children. Recent descriptions of detention facilities at the border have provoked comparisons to Japanese internment camps and the concentration camps built by Nazi Germany, and yet migrants continue to make the trek, despite the risk of imprisonment or death. After all, Border Patrol has separated migrant families at the border, placed children as young as infants in cages, and allowed conditions to deteriorate to the point that some reportedly sleep on cold concrete floors and go without soap, toothbrushes or even, at times, warm meals to eat. Soon enough, events bear out Marisol’s suspicion that things aren’t what they seem, and what she once thought of as a land where dreams come true turns out to be a nightmare.Īgainst the all-too-real horrors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and deportations, and the indefinite detention of undocumented immigrants, “Culture Shock,” which premieres July 4 as part of Hulu’s Blumhouse-produced horror anthology “Into the Dark,” doesn’t seem so outlandish. Here, she is a new mom, with a creepy nanny (Barbara Crampton) who won’t let her touch the baby - and that’s only the beginning of the strange occurrences that pile up. When she wakes up the following morning, with no memory of what happened the night prior, Marisol finds herself in a Pleasantville-like town, full of pastel and pastries, somewhere in the United States. She hires a coyote to get her across the border, but the group of immigrants with whom she makes the journey is caught. In director Gigi Saul Guerrero’s first feature, “Culture Shock,” co-written with James Benson and Efrén Hernández, Marisol (Martha Higareda) is pregnant and alone, and dreams of a better life for herself and her unborn child in the “land of opportunity,” America.
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