American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez is a documentary feature that looks at the life of the Chicano playwright and director (
Zoot Suit,
La Bamba), who recognized the profound impact an audience can experience by seeing their own humanity reflected onstage and on-screen.
The documentary was directed by David Alvarado and brings the viewer close to Valdez, sharing his career milestones and cultural influence. The film makes use of split screens, archival footage and narration to tell Valdez's story.
Daniel Chávez-Ontiveros (pictured) edited the project and says he met director David Alvarado back in 2022 at a party during DOC NYC.
"A year later, he emailed me saying he was developing a film about Luis Valdez, the famous Chicano playwright and filmmaker," recalls Chávez-Ontiveros. "I immediately said yes. When I was a kid in Mexico, I remember seeing La Bamba on cable TV and being fascinated by the film, by the story of Ritchie Valens and because it was a Hollywood movie partially spoken in Spanish. Later, when I began watching the interviews David had recorded with Luis, I instantly connected with Luis’s dreams of becoming a storyteller and his struggles as a Mexican-American in the United States. I felt compelled to edit a film that could honor and celebrate his life."
Chávez-Ontiveros has edited six feature-length documentaries to date - all while using Adobe Premiere.
"For this project, we used a Premiere feature called Productions," he recalls, "which allowed us to work on the film remotely. The assistant editor, Claudia Ramirez, was in LA organizing and classifying all of the materials. I was cutting the film in the Bay Area. And David was in New York reviewing the scenes and cuts. Productions made this workflow fast and seamless."
Chávez-Ontiveros points to a strong sequence that recalls Valdez's success with the Chicano play ‘Zoot Suit.’ The play was already a success in Los Angeles when it premiered on Broadway in New York City.
"Luis was excited but also nervous about taking his original work to Broadway," Chávez-Ontiveros says of the footage. "On opening night, the audience was blown away by the play; their response was excellent. But while the production team celebrated, they began reading the reviews from the major newspapers and the critics destroyed the play. This scene never fails to move me. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, and you feel Luis’s pain so deeply: 'They didn’t understand the Chicano experience at all.'"