My mission as a filmmaker is to empower people to be aligned with their motives: Patricia Chica
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#PatriciaChica; #Filmmaker; #StoriesWithMessage; #CreativeProcess; #MaleDominatedSets
During a retrospective of her films and Q & A at the University of Southern California (USC), hosted by the Central American Film Festival in 2016, filmmaker Patricia Chica shares personal moments of her life and career journey, and inspirational anecdotes about her creative process working with actors, writers, and producers with TV Host/Interviewer: Sandra Chavarria and the audience.
Asha Bajaj, Editorial-Director of Canadian-Media brings you the excerpts:
Sandra: I heard you say in your introductory speech Koalas to Astoria meaning what is your story. what is your story, Patricia?
Patricia: My story is very similar to about 2 million people in El Salvador where I was born in the 1970s. When the war struck in my country my father left the country to go to Mexico and apply for a visa for Canada. After working very hard from cleaning bathrooms to painting walls, within 6 months, he was able to pay for me, my mother, and my three little brothers to go to Canada. But we could not get visas to Canada due to the war. So, we had to lie and from Mexico City boarded a plane for Madrid with a stopover in Montreal, where my mother left the airplane leaving all her personal belongings with the luggage. Once in Montreal, we sought political refugee status. My parents were paid to learn French and soon they became Canadian citizenships and professionals and I educated myself to become a filmmaker. At present, about 200,000 to 250,000 Salvadorians are in Canada. 50,000 are in Montreal where I am from and there are many in Toronto and Vancouver. So that is my story.
What inspired you to become a filmmaker as you probably did not know many filmmakers from El Salvador?
I did not know any filmmakers in the world. From my childhood, I used to draw pictures to tell stories. When given a camera to record the vision in my head, I knew could transform people with my stories. I realized cinema to be the right tool for as it encompasses everything that I love including to stage, direct people, create, guide people to empower themselves creatively. My aim is to utilize all art…
