San Francisco Premiere

It is the eve of the film's broadcast in Los Angeles (tonight at 10:30pm on KCET), and we have just returned from our San Francisco premiere!

Guess what we found RIGHT IN FRONT of our hotel subway exit at Union Square??? YES: a HUGE Forever 21 store!

Lupe, Almudena and Robert in front of Made in LA's poster at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco

The Roxie Theater was packed! 289 seats, and NOT ONE seat available! About 100 people were turned away at the door (so painful - a bittersweet mark of the event's success)

The screening itself was a moving evening of tears, cheering and laughter throughout the film. Perhaps not so surprisingly, this was the first time that the audience cheered when Lupe goes to Hong Kong to protest the World Trade Organization!

We had an extended panel afterwards, moderated by the wonderful Katie Quan, Associate Chair of UC Berkeley Labor Center. I must point out that, many years ago, when the film was developing, we conducted a number of interviews with experts, and Katie was kind enough to let me interview her. None of these 20+ interviews (which include Noam Chomksy and Howard Zinn) made it into the film, but the best, including Katie Quan's, will be part of a special DVD extra that we hope to be able to incorporate into a future edition of the DVD...

The audience had tons of intelligent questions about consumer responsibility, a system for "labeling" the production of clothes (similar to the labels in food), the need to "stop fighting" globalization and embrace "global organizing", the successes and challenges facing worker centers in US, Europe and Asia, and the need for an effective and fair immigration reform to help make immigrant workers less vulnerable to exploitation. A precious moment was Lupe's answer to the question: "What would you tell people who are scared of complaining or protesting"? Lupe said: "My mom would say, ‘he who gets angry, loses'. Very often when I get angry, I feel like a ball of fire that is burning me inside. I would tell everyone to take that ball of fire, plan things out, and, calmly, throw it against what makes you miserable. Don't get consumed by that ball of fire. Fire back."

The event was organized by Active Voice and the UC Berkeley Labor Center. It was co-sponsored by KQED with Amnesty International Western Regional Office, Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, Global Exchange, ITVS, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, POV, and Sweatshop Watch. Thank you all for your kindness and your support of this event!