Latino Stories, American Stories

In a voice shot through with passion, Gregory Nava delivered a sermon on movies, humility and finding your path in life. 

Nava, the acclaimed writer and director whose filmography includes “Frida,” “My Family,” “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “Selena” and his breakthrough film “El Norte,” was a special guest at this past weekend’s Port Townsend Film Festival. Booked at the last minute, he joined the festival that highlighted Latino films, filmmakers and stories.  

At Saturday morning’s forum in the Cotton Building, Nava could not wait for the appointed start time of 10 a.m. With festival Executive Director Danielle McClelland rapt beside him, he began around 10 minutes early, holding forth about a particular scene in “El Norte.” 

Refugees from Guatemala, having traveled through Mexico, are crawling through a tunnel in the scene. They’re trying to reach the mythical north, the United States, when a swarm of rats attacks them. 

Crossing the border is a horrific experience, Nava said. He was determined to convey that reality to his audience.  

“You’re trying to portray the emotions of the characters and make the audience feel those emotions,” he said, even as his forum audience moaned a little in response to his description of the rat scene. 

Nava is an independent filmmaker, but he emphasizes that directors like him do not make movies—families do: from the gaffers to the cinematographers to the composers of the music. When they fulfill their purpose, he added, they offer catharsis. 

“The purpose of drama is to heal us,” Nava said, “heal our wounds as we are going through life.” 

Nava’s “El Norte” screened during the film festival as did an array of movies spotlighting Latinos: “American Pachuco,” about playwright-filmmaker Luis Valdez; “La Bamba,” the 1987 hit directed by Valdez; and the festival centerpiece about the beloved band from East L.A., “Los Lobos: Native Sons.” 

The filmmaker’s role, Nava said, is to become a hollow bone, a vessel through which the story flows. Ego can get in the way, and being too much in your head can trip you up. While making “Selena,” Nava reminded its star, Jennifer Lopez, of this. 

“Relax,” he told her. And the actor, who had been struggling, completed the scene.

“If you’re a hollow bone, you’re open to the universe flowing through you,” Nava told his Port Townsend audience. 

The question, throughout the process, is: “What is this about? That’s the seed from which everything grows,” he added. 

“Your job is to not lose track of what the movie is about.” 

Nava’s next project is a biopic about Dolores Huerta, the legendary activist who advocated for farmworkers’ rights, safety and dignity from the mid-1950s onward.

“She is one of the greatest civil rights figures of our time,” he declared. 

When Nava asked Huerta what her movie should focus on, she responded that it should not be about her—but instead be a work that inspires a new generation of activists. 

Nava himself carries no shortage of inspiration—and fire. He credited his “pre-Columbian ancestors,” the Aztecs, with crystallizing his way of living. 

The indigenous people of Mexico, Nava said, believed in finding your right path in life. Whether that path is to grow grapes or direct movies, your work is a sacred thing. 

A day after his forum, Nava attended the final screening of “Los Lobos: Native Sons” at the American Legion. When the movie had ended, filmmakers Doug Blush and Piero F. Giunti walked to the front of the auditorium. After their remarks, the band members appeared—yet not all of the Lobos stepped on the stage. 

Bassist and founding band member Conrad Lozano was seated off to the side at first. His bandmates Steve Berlin, David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez Jr., and Cesar Rosas discussed the movie, their many albums, their community in Los Angeles and their 53 years as not only a Mexican-American band, but an American band.  

Then Lozano moved to the center, in front of the stage. In a refrain of Nava’s message, he spoke briefly about his art and his family.  

“These are my brothers,” he said. 

Placing his hand on his chest, Lozano added: “This music was heartfelt.”