OC Film Fiesta, Documentary on Mormon Church and Prop 8 Roll in Santa Ana Tonight
And now for something completely different . . .
For tonight, Santa Ana is also the site of a very different screening. It's the documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition, which is about the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California.
Since we've already given OC Film Fiesta some love, we'll start with the Mormons.
Reed Cowan's documentary, which previously screened at Sundance and the Newport Beach Film Festival, is an eye-opener, revealing the Mormon church has been heavily embroiled in a secretive, decades-long campaign against LGBT human rights. It screens at 7 tonight not in a Mormon temple but the Church of the Foothills, 19211 Dodge Ave. (at Newport), Santa Ana. Call 714.544.1319 for more details.
OC Film Fiesta continues a half hour earlier tonight with El Compadre Mendoza, a classic film from the Mexican Golden Age about an opportunistic landowner who wants to be everyone's compadre. Rosalio Mendoza entertains government officers with his best cognac and then breaks out the mescal for the rebels. But everything changes for Mendoza after he marries an impoverished young beauty. A pot-luck reception follows tonight's 6:30 screening at CALACAS, 324 W. 4th St., Santa Ana.
The Fiesta continues 2 p.m. Thursday with Short Film Showcase, which is part of the Santa Ana College student body's "Hispanic Heritage" celebration, followed at 3 p.m. by Francesco Taboada Tabone's award-winning documentary Los Ultimos Zapatistas, which features interviews with some of the last surviving members of Emiliano Zapata's army. The flicks roll in the college's Phillips Auditorium, 1530 W. 17th St., Santa Ana.
That same evening, the Fiesta's Latino Short Film Program includes Paul Bobadilla's award-winning drama Tijuaneros, which is out of Chapman University and is about an aspiring photographer who snaps the death of his best friend in Tijuana. This program begins at 5 p.m. at Original Mike's at Main and First in Santa Ana.
The previous screening lingers into the Happy Hour at downtown developer Mike Harrah's restaurant and watering hole, which is great because the drink specials should lighten the mood in time for the 7 p.m. screening there of the 1986 John Landis comedy ¡Three Amigos!, which stars Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Garden Grove's own Steve Martin. They play a trio of silent movie stars who are mistaken for actual revolutionary heroes by villagers threatened by the menacing El Guapo, played to the hilt by Alfonso Arau.




























