The Storm that Swept Mexico

Grantmakers, please click the link below to request additional information about this project or to invite the project manager to submit a formal application to your foundation.

Contact the project managers >>

Images

Baldomero Blanquet was a Zapatista. We interviewed him shortly before his death.

Zapatista Gallo Pacheco Valle was over 100 years old when we filmed him.

Soldiers in the Revolution came from all walks of life.

Railroad cars transported troops and served as field hospitals.

Jorge Zapata Gonzalez, Zapata's grandson, was interviewed on his own hard-won land.

General Francisco "Pancho" Villa created his own myth - with the help of Hollywood.

Women fighters ("soldaderas") were an important part of the revolution.

"The Storm that Swept Mexico" is an HD production which highlights the beauty of Mexico, then and now.

Budget

Raised to date: $ 1,040,000.00
Estimate to complete: $ 185,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $ 1,225,000.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 08/18/2009

Status

Production

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Key Personnel

Ray Telles
Producer/Director
Telles is a veteran producer of many award-winning programs including The Fight in the Fields, the biography of Cesar Chavez, Inside the Body Trade (National Geographic Explorer), Children of the Night (Frontline), and Race is the Place. He has produced and directed programs for PBS, ABC, NBC, Discovery, and National Geographic. Telles has won numerous awards including Emmy Awards, the DuPont-Columbia Gold Baton, PBS Programming Awards for News and Current Affairs, The Ohio State Award, ALMA Award, top honors in the San Francisco, Chicago and New York Film Festivals, as well as numerous other awards for his work in film and broadcast journalism. He brings to the project a personal passion: his grandfather initially supported Madero then Villa. Eventually his family was torn apart by opposing political views and the turmoil of a country at war.

Kenn Rabin
Producer/Writer/Archivist

Rabin is a consultant, film researcher, and writer who has worked on many award-winning television shows and feature films. Highlights of his over one hundred production and consulting credits: Vietnam: A Television History, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, The Great Depression, The American Experience, American Masters, Frontline and Bill Moyers’ Journal (all for PBS), The Twentieth Century Project (ABC/NHK), 500 Nations (Kevin Costner for CBS) and Daughter From Danang. He has received two Emmy nominations for his documentary work. Feature credits include Good Night and Good Luck, The Good German, and Milk. Rabin is the co-author of Archival Storytelling: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music.

Manuel Tsingaris
Editor

Tsingaris is an accomplished editor who has worked on long-form documentaries and broadcast television for over fifteen years. Some of his recent documentaries include A Test of Courage: The Making of a Firefighter (ITVS/PBS), which received the Bronze medal in the 2000 Houston International Film Festival; Girls in Trouble: Teens in the Juvenile Justice System (MSNBC); Ties that Bind (Discovery Channel); Long Gone, a film about hobo life and culture ("Best Documentary" at Slamdance 2003); and China Blue, a documentary on globalization. This film was an official selection for the Toronto International Film Festival and IDFA in 2005, and aired on PBS on the series Independent Lens. Another Independent Lens program, A Dream in Doubt, won Best Documentary at the Arizona International Film Festival in 2007, and yet another, Writ Writer, was an official selection at the South by Southwest and San Diego film festivals. Tsingaris has also edited multiple segments for the highly acclaimed PBS program Life 360.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

The Storm that Swept Mexico will be an engaging 2-hour telling of the story of the Mexican Revolution. It will be good history and good television. However, the life of the show after its initial broadcast is at least as important as the broadcast itself. We have already done preliminary design of some of the elements of a vibrant, interactive website that will allow viewers and students to explore a detailed timeline of the revolutionary period, click on portraits of the major characters involved in the story and see pictures and read biographical material, explore cultural artifacts and other fine and performing arts from Mexico during this time period, order the DVD when it becomes available, read or contribute to an ongoing blog, and watch "webisodes" on specific subjects such as the life of Emiliano Zapata, the Pershing Punitive Expedition, and the expropriation of Mexican oil in 1938. Another highlight will be a "lotería" game, with which students can test their knowledge of the subject matter both inside and outside of the classroom using a traditional Mexican bingo-type game.

The University of CA at Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department is committing resources to populating and maintaining the website; however, we still need funding to continue design of, and produce the website itself.

Additional outreach will include print advertising, advertising through the websites and ad campaigns of both PBS and ITVS, and a presence on social networking sites -- to raise awareness for both the program and the project website content.

UC Berkeley has also agreed to take the lead on creating appropriate secondary school curriculum materials. The film, website, and curriculum materials will work seamlessly together to create a full immersion into this time period -- its politics, its economics, its culture, and its personalities -- for both students and viewers alike.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
Independent Television Service (ITVS)	$ 300,000.00	03/24/2009
Latino Public Broadcasting	$ 40,000.00	05/19/2008
National Endowment for the Humanities	$ 700,000.00	04/13/2007

Location(s)

2600 10th St.
Suite 608
Berkeley, CA, 94710
See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

The Storm That Swept Mexico, a two-hour HD documentary for PBS and other distribution, tells the story of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, its causes and its legacy, using contemporary footage and interviews with participants, historians, and others, as well as with period photographs and motion picture from the earliest days of cinema. The film, and an accompanying website, will debut in the fall of 2010, on the centennial of the revolution.

Description/Treatment

The Storm That Swept Mexico is a Paradigm Productions/ITVS feature length special for PBS, in association with the National Endowment for the Humanities and Latino Public Broadcasting. It tells the story of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the first major political and social revolution of the 20th century. This was a conflict that not only changed the course of Mexican history, but also profoundly impacted relationships between Mexico and the rest of the world. At stake was Mexico’s ability to claim its own natural resources, establish long-term democracy, and re-define its identity. The legacy of the revolution included a new commitment to national education, as well as an explosion in the arts, music, literature, and cinema.

The color, drama, tragedy and significance of the Mexican Revolution, as well as the near-mythic quality of some of its players, such as Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Emiliano Zapata, make it an ideal subject for a powerful documentary. Yet a balanced and interpretive examination of the war and its legacy has never been presented on television. The Storm That Swept Mexico is being produced in high definition (HDTV) to fully capture the wealth of visual and oral materials on this subject. The revolution is one of the best-recorded events of the early 20th century. Cinema was in its infancy. Hours of material, much of it on nitrate film, and some never catalogued or seen by the general public, are on the shelves of archives and in private collections around the world.

We have assembled an advisory board of distinguished international scholars representing a variety of expertise and perspectives. With their guidance, we have drawn from the fields of history, political science, economics, Latin American studies, international studies, labor studies, religion, anthropology, women’s studies, journalism and media studies, art history and criticism, literature, music and film.

The revolution was an international event, not just a regional one: Both U.S. and European foreign policy influenced the outcome of the war. Direct U.S. intervention helped exacerbate the already troubled relationship between the two countries. At the same time, Britain, France, and Germany worked behind the scenes to protect their financial and political interests in Mexico. Our film, then, is a story about early globalization and the shifting landscape of capitalism as the 20th century began.

One of the most central and pressing questions we face today is how developing countries can make the transition to a modern state within a democratic framework, protecting human rights and fostering equality. The Mexican Revolution was part of the first wave of worldwide political and social upheavals in the early part of the last century; nationalistic uprisings not only swept across Mexico, but also Russia, Iran, China and parts of the Third World. The Storm that Swept Mexico explores the beliefs and conditions that led to the revolution, influenced the course of the conflict, and determined its consequences. It also explores the role of myth and memory in shaping public perceptions about both the revolution and its legacy.

For further information please contact:

Paradigm Productions
+1 510 883 9814

Raymond Telles, Producer /Director
raymondtelles@gmail.com

Kenn Rabin, Producer/Writer/Archivist
kenn@fulcrummediaservices.com

Contact the project managers >>

return to search

Main Menu

Featured Project