Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 6:30pm
The Screening Room
127 E. Congress
$5 / FREE for UA students with Catcard
Advance tickets available at The Screening Room
Cesar’s Last Fast, co-directed and produced by Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary explores the private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind Cesar Chavez’s struggle for the humane treatment of America’s farm workers, and the impact of his legacy on today’s generation of organizers fighting for farm worker rights.
Cesar’s Last Fast centers on the events of 1988, when Chavez began his “Fast for Life,” a 36-day water-only hunger strike, to draw attention to the horrific effects of unfettered pesticide use on farm workers, their families, and their communities. The film is built around powerful, never-before-seen footage of this fast, interwoven with the historic events that defined the life mission of America’s most inspiring Latino leader and the struggles confronting today’s farm workers. Culled from hundreds of hours of footage, rarely heard interviews of Cesar himself, as well as testimonies of the people closest to Chavez, Cesar’s Last Fast illuminates the story of one man’s commitment and dedication to social justice and uncovers an overlooked chapter in the story of civil rights in America.
“Touching, insightful, and extremely well crafted, Richard Ray Perez‘s work shows above all an admiration for a man whose life wasn’t entirely his but of his people.” Carlos Aguilar, Indiewire