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The history and relevance of the corrido will be examined in a new documentary "El Corrido, The Two Sides of the Song." It was shot, edited and produced by Donnie Meals,
owner/producer of Edit Point Studios and professor in San Antonio College's Radio/TV/Film Department.
The documentary will be screened at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14 in the Jean Longwith Radio and Television Auditorium, Room 101A, on the San Antonio College campus.
According to Meals, the film is currently making the round of film festivals coast to coast. After the Friday screening there will a Q & A session.
Meals also said the classic storytelling lyrics of the corrido are woven into Mexico's rich cultural history -- stories of small Mexican communities and their iconic heroes -- and have been adopted by Mexico's narcotics trade.
The corrido goes back almost a 100 years. We asked Meals from his research, why do he think the song form still attract attention and intrigue?
"It's all in the story. Fact, fiction, half-n-half a good jucy story with some catchy phrasing is what most of those I interviewed seem to credit it to. However, lots of the corridos/ narcocorridos were only regional in popularity which I feel gave theme even more of a sense of ownership. 'Hey, that's from my town, I was raised on a ranch neer there'."
And so, why is this documentary significant today?
"This documentary came about in an odd way; sort of a "completion backwards" principal. The storys told to me had to be translated before I got the big picture. What I then assembled was totally different from what I started to do," he said. "By my own admission, what I originally went after was severly flawed. The history of oppression on rural Mexicans is as present today as it has been for generations. The need for a valiente, which is present throughout the corridos and narcocorridos, is every bit as necessary to give this working class a voice and an identity. I think this is totally void in the views of most of white America. Part of this is lack of knowlege of the language or the culture or simply blind, ignorant prejudice. The Doc tries to illustrate this Mexican condition and how it is illustrated and disseminated through the corrido."
In the news release describing the documentary, Meals pointed out "The corrido heroes are ultimately betrayed, resulting in an untimely and violent death, and this documentary - live, raw and unrehearsed - explores the corrido's transformation and its effect on the urban culture, including stories of Pancho Villa, Jesus Malverde and the Valientes, for a very real past and present experience through rural Mexico."
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