Empowering Emerging Filmmakers From The Borderlands To Create Their Own Narratives

Luis Carlos Davis, an alum of the college's language, reading, and culture doctoral program, was featured in a Fronteras Desk piece about a filmmaking workshop he led in Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora in October. The workshop was part of "Cine En La Frontera" or "Cinema On The Border,” a short film contest for student and emerging filmmakers from both Arizona and Sonora. Raised in the borderlands, the director and producer says through workshops like this, students and emerging filmmakers from Sonora and Arizona gain storytelling skills to go beyond “black and white” narratives about the borderlands. "Davis started the class by asking the aspiring filmmakers how border communities are usually depicted in the media. “A lot of the narratives that are told about this region, are from people who are not from this area," he said. "So. I think it’s time for us to start telling our own stories.”