Production
Gregory Nava had to re-create a Mexican village in California when he and his production crew were, more or less, kicked out of Mexico during the film shoot.
Nava said: "We were filming in Mexico during the end of the López Portillo presidency, one of the last of the old-fashioned caciques to rule Mexico. One day, men with machine guns took over the set. I had guns pointed at my head. We were forced to shut down production, bribe our way out of the country, fight to get our costumes back, and start shooting again in California. Ironically, in the United States our extras were real Mayan refugees. They were the people the movie was about."
Nava tells the story that, at one point, Mexican police kidnapped their accountant and held him for ransom, while, at the same time, his parents had to pose as tourists in order to smuggle exposed film out of the country in their suitcases.
Read more about this topic: El Norte (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)