"Cesar Chavez" Opens This Weekend!
Friday, March 28, 2014(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
"Cesar Chavez,"
the first major movie in years to show the labor movement in apositive light, opens in area theaters
tonight. “Go
see it!” urges Metro Washington Council – and DC Labor FilmFest Co-Chair –
Jos
Williams. “Cesar Chavez
tells a monumental story about an incredible union leader and the workers he
helped lead to victory,” said Williams. “Chavez and the farmworkers are an
essential part of our country’s history, and we are proud to be supporting
this
film.”
Click here for Washington-area
show-times and tickets this weekend.
Director Diego Luna’s new film shows Chavez
battling
generations of injustice and mistreatment in the fields by leading farm workers
in the historic 1965-1970 Delano Grape Strike. It portrays Filipino and Latino
workers joining together in solidarity on the same picket lines where they
endured violence from growers. It highlights how Chavez was the first to apply
boycotts to large-scale disputes between employers and unions. And it concludes
with farm workers winning the first union contracts in agriculture after five
years of relentless struggle and sacrifice.
Cesar Chavez –
which is rated PG-13 -- stars Michael Pena as Chavez, America Ferrera as
Chavez’s wife, Helen, Rosario Dawson as Dolores Huerta and John Malkovich as
the patriarch of a huge grape-growing empire. From the
beginning
of the movie, Chavez makes it clear that only with a union can farm workers
overcome the abuse and poverty that plagues their lives. It is a message that
is as relevant today as during the events of the 1960s that the film
chronicles.
Movies such as Cesar Chavez are judged by how well
they do
at the box office the first weekend they’re released. “It’s vital to get
as
many people as possible into the movie theaters this first weekend to make sure
Cesar Chavez stays on the big screen and expands to more theaters throughout
the country,” says Williams. “Most important, if this film succeeds, then
more
pictures like it will also be made.”