Forum of Independents 2001 / Mi Vida Loca / USA 1993
Gang violence is an every day fact of life in Los Angeles as it is in other major American cities. This is the first film that deals with this subject from a female perspective. The film focuses on the Echo Park Latinas, a girl gang in LA’s Echo Park neighbourhood. This intimate look at the lives of young Mexican-American women explores friendships, loves and rivalries as well as the fight for identity. In this "inside" portrait of the ghetto, where most boys are dead or in prison by the age of 20, Anders mixes amateurs and professionals to tell stories about adolescent girls who find meaning in outlaw life. The actual gang members advised Anders on the script, locations, hair and make-up.
92 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Allison Anders
/ Screenplay Allison Anders
/ Dir. of Photography Rodrigo Garcia
/ Music John Taylor
/ Editor Richard Chew
/ Producer Daniel Hassid, Carl-Jan Colpaert
/ Production Cineville
/ Cast Angel Aviles, Seidy Lopez, Jacob Vargas, Marlo Marron, Nelida Lopez, Jessie Borrego, Magali Alvarado, Salma Hayek
Allison Anders was born in Ashland, Kentucky and spent her adolescence running away from home and hitchhiking around the country, sometimes ending up in jail or an institution. At 18, she left for England and returned with a baby girl. She settled in LA, worked as a midwife and a waitress in a bar, while studying philosophy and writing poetry. She decided to study film at UCLA, where she shot her first film on Super 8, Nobody Home. Anders is the mother of three children. Films: Border Radio (with Kurt Voss and Dean Lent, 1989), Gas Food Lodging (1992), Mi Vida Loca (1993), Four Rooms (episode The Missing Ingredient, 1995), Grace of My Heart (1996), Sugar Town (with Kurt Voss, 1999), Things Behind the Sun (2001).
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