This film is available for the run of the festival starting the day of Thanksgiving 2021. To watch or to vote for this film please click on the orange “TICKETS” button below and purchase a ticket for BLOCK 5. You also have the option to buy the Movie Buff Pass to watch all the films of the festival until December 15, 2021.
Synopsis
An undocumented high school senior, Elena, gives tips on how to get her professionally frustrated History teacher to write her a much needed letter of recommendation for college. Her teacher, Paco, in turn gives tips on how to avoid student requests so he can focus on being a lazy teacher. It’s a story which juxtaposes two generations of Latinos struggling in completely different ways, and comedically shows our current challenges in the world of education.
Director Biography – Gustavo Guardado, Jr.Gustavo Guardado, Jr. was born in San Salvador, El Salvador. His parents settled in Concord, Ca. in 1985. Gustavo excelled at video production in high school and majored in Communication at St. Mary’s College earning his BA in 2001. At Loyola Marymount University, Gustavo earned his MFA in Film Production in 2005. He taught video production at St. Mary’s College from 2006-2008.
In 2009, Gustavo focused on writing and producing Love, Concord – his self-financed feature film directorial debut. The film was produced on a micro-budget with key crew positions held by film professionals and support from talented St. Mary’s College students and faculty.
Love, Concord premiered at the New York Latino Film Festival in 2012. It was an official selection of the 2013 Miami Latino Film Festival. In 2013, a distribution deal was secured with FilmWorks Entertainment. It was released to critical success and made two top 10 Latino films lists for 2013 from respected Latino cinema blogs.
Currently, Gustavo is in his tenth year of teaching video production at Heritage High School in Brentwood, CA. He also created the annual Opificer Media Student Film Festival in 2014 to give student filmmakers an opportunity to compete and showcase their work. He continues to produce and direct artistic and commercial projects through his production company and has recently finished the script for his second feature film entitled Fracking Tenure.
Letter of Wreck is a unique short film in that it is a direct prequel to the my next feature film entitled, Fracking Tenure.
In this short film I wanted to comically juxtapose two non-stereotypical Latino characters in how they deal with their common world of high school. While this short film’s story is self contained, Letter of Wreck is but a teaser for the larger story of these two connected but clearly different and passionate Latinos of higher education.
