A FILM TO WATCH FOR

For the second year in a row, I was lucky enough to attend the New York International Latino Film Festival, sponsored by HBO. (Last year's LOVE SIMPLE, a charming unpretentious romance, is slowly going on to a real life and, I believe, is now available on iTunes.)

This year, one of the real gems is the debut film of twenty-seven year old William David Caballero, a multi-talented gentleman who directed, shot, edited and scored a really wonderful documentary entitled AMERICAN DREAMS DEFERRED. Caballero, a NYU film school grad, decided that the well-stream of his art and soul was his family, with all their trials, tribulations and dysfunctions, and so he chose to make a documentary about them. Risky, that--turning the camera on your family. (My mom won't allow even snapshots and when she does, she makes a face--even did that in family wedding photos!) Not only do you risk potential alienation, but then the process for the artist to pick and choose from so many, many personal details becomes a painful process. Objectivity can go out the window or shut the artist down completely. It turns out, however, that the love and pride that all of them feel for him (the family calls him David) creates a trust and they open up for the camera with astonishing honesty and feeling.

The film never sugar coats, and there are moments in the lives portrayed that are harrowing, dark, and painfully sad. Problems of chronic illness, drug abuse, violence, sex abuse and aging are revealed, but they are infused (as they are in life) by the joys and complications of true caring that comes from family ties. The sense that no one will ever be abandoned, no matter how difficult the trials, is truly awe-inspiring and a testament to the strength of family. And as with any family, humor is the survival key and a moment can flip from dark to light--and then possibly dark again--in an instant. But what makes the film so rich and astonishing is the sense of love that continues through truly difficult circumstances. The director's parents share a devotion through the father's many years of devastating illness, and this is revealed so movingly, both in actions and in certain moments of stillness, that the audience was audibly moved to tears. And a scene where his hospitalized father sobs that he doesn't want his son to go back to New York shows a directness and depth of emotion rarely seen on screen. That we were moved to such a depth of emotion not by editorial or artistic manipulation but by simple, direct honesty--the sign of a wise film maker. His grandparents, his aunt and her children, his cousins, are all intimately a part of Caballero's life--and of his documentary, and by concentrating on nuances only a close intimate would know, he creates an enormously revealing portrait.

It is not the generalities of each of our lives that makes a work universal. Ironically, it is those unique details specific to our experience that make us connect, as we recognize the truth about our lives and the depths of our feelings. With its use of incredibly intimate candid detail, AMERICAN DREAMS DEFERRED is an absolutely remarkable portrait of love and family, an ultimately uplifting and moving experience that anyone who's ever been a family member will find riveting.

There is one more showing in the New York International Latino Film Festival--Saturday at 1:30pm at the Chelsea Cinema, West 23rd between 7th and 8th Avenues. But hopefully, this will just be the beginning of the distribution of this wonderful documentary, one to keep on your list of things to see.