Diego Luna Bringing Life of Cesar Chavez to Film

Filming is already well underway in Hermosillo, Mexico.  Director Diego Luna and his stellar cast – Michael Peña as Cesar Chavez, America Ferrera as his wife, and Rosario Dawson as Dolores Huerta – are there filming essentially what is the first feature length film about one of the United States’ most famous chicanos in history: César Chávez.  Slated for a 2013 release date, the yet untitled movie is a biopic that will reportedly pay homage to the late civil rights leader.

Cesar Chavez was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.  Today, he is still regarded as the best known Latino civil rights leader in history.

For a lot of young people, however, César Chávez is little more than the name of a library or a street in their communities – someone in history who was important enough to have a building or a street named after them, but that’s about it.  That’s precisely what Luna hopes to change with this new film, his first in English.

It’s about Cesar Chavez, but it is also the story of an event that changed the life of a community and the perception the country had of this community, the seed he planted in the community and how it spread and gave confidence to a community that had been invisible… They found strength in their numbers and realized they could use their voice and … collapse an adversary. – Diego Luna

¿Cómo la ven?  This one sounds like it could be pretty good, no?  Oh, and in case you’re wondering why they’re filming in Mexico, reportedly it’s because Hermosillo looks a lot more like California in the 1960s and 70s than even California does today.

¡Ojalá que le hagan justicia!