The Academy is also very prestigious.
So, I am honored.
DEADLINE:How would describe your overall experience with the Academy Museum during your screening series?
Filmmaker Lourdes PortilloCourtesy of Antonio Scarlata
That was very touching.
DEADLINE:Most of your work emphasizes social injustice, especially toward women.
LP: I live in San Francisco, so theres a certain activism that goes on here.
Academy Museum of Motion PicturesAMPAS
And I, of course, tried to help in any way that I could.
So, it all began in that form a form of protest.
And being in San Francisco, youre kind of protected by the population here, at that time.
And so [it] enabled me to go forward.
DEADLINE:Besides documentary films, you have also made scripted narrative, docu-fiction, and experimental films.
How challenging is it to work between these forms of storytelling?
LP: Its a challenge that is welcomed.
The thing is that I studied art and film at the San Francisco Art Institute.
So, it was part of the atmosphere that we were living in.
I find it very satisfying to venture to have beauty be a part of protest.
LP: I dont believe theres a resolution.
And so, the protest grew instead of diminishing and resolving that problem.
Everybody kind of woke up and said, Oh my God, women are disappearing from my town.
It became a very big cause, and people were very, very aware when it happened.
But I also believe that that has been happening certainly probably before the conquest of the Spaniards in Mexico.
I think that thats been one of my interests.
I think that we have to become very, very aware of that so that we can stop it.
And thats part of my mission…
I have a variety of missions.
I live in the United States, I experienced racism in a very ugly way.
I dont like that, its awful.
So, I want to do something about it.
I feel that cinema is a great tool.
Its a wonderful tool because it can be served as almost anything as a documentary, as a feature.
Im passionate about art.
I like making films that kind of break barriers, that express things that havent been expressed.
DEADLINE:What process of filmmaking do you most enjoy?
LP: I think I like it all.
I love editing, of course.
It really has, because I feel that I can make a difference.
It makes me feel really well.
DEADLINE:What film are you currently working on?
LP: I wanted to work on storytelling.
I wanted to work on people telling each other stories of what happened to us.
I mean, before we had cinema before we had literature, we would tell each other our stories.
This is my project that Im doing.
Itll be the last project because I dont have the stamina of a young person anymore.
I have a friend, and his name is Guillermo Gomez-Pena, and hes a performance artist.
We live in San Francisco, and we were friends.
So sometimes we get together, and we talk to each other about back home Mexico.
