SAN FRANCISCO—Come and show your Mission Love at this night of cinematic storytelling.
October 22, 2022
Location: Brava Theater, San Francisco
Event Schedule
6pm – Open Doors
6:30 – 6:45pm- Aztec Dance + Blessing
7pm – Film Screening • The Family • Back on the Streets • Mission Coalition Organization (MCO) Demonstration + Press Conference
8:15pm – Moderated Discussion with Ray Balberan.
Film Descriptions
The Family (1971): In the style of cinema verite, director Ray Balberan documented the beauty of his own Mission District family: the raw, observational scenes of mothers around the kitchen table telling stories about bringing up their families, bathing and feeding children, and sharing their views on current events, while the men played poker and talked about supporting their families and the struggles they encountered in the streets of San Francisco. The Family was broadcast nationally as part of a series about “Love” officially commissioned by PBS television.
Back on the Streets (1972): Starting off as a protest against the war, Back on the Streets came together as a series of dreamlike images that portrayed a time of contradictions and hypocrisy, when young men came home from the war abroad to communities in the midst of the struggle for free speech and human rights. Imbued with a sense of surrealism, the film moves between space and time, from recreated moments of war on the battlefield to real life moments of war in their own Mission community where young people raised their voices and organized against police suppression and brutality. Back on the Streets also features wellknown revolutionary Nicaraguan poet Roberto Vargas reading his poem “Blame it on the Reds”.
Mission Coalition Organization Demonstration and Press Conference (1973): This documentary footage shows a community-based action organized by Mission Coalition Organization to protest the cancellation of the “Mission and 24th Street” program produced by Mission Mediarts on local public television. At the press conference, Mission Mediarts founder Ray Rivera speaks about the need for employment opportunities and communitybased media programming that truly represented the perspectives of youth and people of color who were systematically excluded by the mainstream media.
This exhibit is supported by a Humanities for All Quick Grant.
