The Last Brown Beret Screening with Director Del Zamora

The OC Film Fiesta is excited to present Del Zamora's long-awaited feature film The Last Brown Beret starring Zamora (Repo Man), Randy Vasquez (JAG), Vance Valencia, David Castro, Ingrid Oliu (Stand and Deliver) and Linda Lopez. The film, based on the award-winning 1993 play The Last Angry Brown Hat by Alfredo Ramos, deals with four former Brown Berets coming to terms with how the passage of time has taken a toll on their ideals and activism when getting together for a friend's funeral.

The Last Brown Beret is adapted from a successful play, performed 282 times, on an 8 year national tour at dozens of universities and theaters where audiences dubbed the play, The Chicano Big Chili, in reference to The Big Chill.

Opening titles play over archival footage showing the peaceful protest at the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles, 1970, which spiraled out of control as protestors are attacked with teargas & batons by the Los Angeles Sheriffs & Police.

We’re brought forward to the present day where our 5 main characters are getting ready for a funeral of one of their fellow Ex-Brown Beret, leftist activists. Willie Velarde, owns the home that most of the story takes place in. He is robust, and longs for the days of the Chicano Movimiento. Anita Velarde, his wife is an educated and strong latina woman. Louie Flores, is a teacher who returned to the barrio, to proudly teach in the community. Joseph 'Jo Jo' Martinez, who is a Hollywood writer, but once was the most radical of all of them. They all gather for the funeral of Frankie Munoz, who was once their charismatic leader. He was the most accepting, yet strong Brown Beret, back in the day. Meanwhile Rude Boy, who was Frankie's road dog, meanders on his way to join the others, as they arrive at the church and graveyard to bury the ashes of one of their fallen brothers, in the Chicano Movimiento.

After the burial, they continue on to the traditional Mexican-American custom, of throwing an after burial party. Anita hosts the party inside while Willie waylays the boys into his garage, a time capsule of former meetings. Rude Boy joins the party late, bringing a bag of beers, tequila, and a bucket of salt to pour on their emotional wounds as they reminisce about their halcyon days of the late 1960's, early 1970's. A time where Chicanos struggled against a much more racist society that discriminated against them, held them back, and ultimately served up Chicano lives as cannon fodder for the Vietnam War; their higher casualty rate, per capita, decimated the Chicano communities of the Southwestern United States. It is in this garage, that most of the story unfolds.

Who were the Brown Berets? Why did they form? Why did they become marginalized? What is their ultimate destiny? Is there room for a revival of Chicano activism? Told with tons of humor, our story touches on these and other aspects of what it means to be Chicano in the USA, yesterday and today.

These 4 men come to terms with their past, what they changed, and what they were unable to change, and ultimately ask the question, what is the legacy of the Brown Berets and the Chicano Movimiento?

Host or Publisher Media Arts Santa Ana (MASA)