AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ
A film by David Alvarado
(USA, 2026, 93 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
Groundbreaking Chicano activist/director Luis Valdez mounted agitprop performances on flatbed trucks in the 1960s with his El Teatro Campesino, mobilizing California farmworkers to secure their first union contract; authored Zoot Suit, the first Chicano play on Broadway, and directed the 1981 screen adaptation, starring Edward James Olmos; and wrote and directed the highest-grossing Hollywood Latino movie in history, the Ritchie Valens biopic, La Bamba.
American Pachuco (Valdez defines pachucos as Mexican-American “street cats with style”) playfully tracks his extraordinary life and career, with rarely seen footage from his subversive theater and television work, and interviews with Valdez; actors Olmos (who narrates the film in his Zoot Suit pachuco voice), Lou Diamond Phillips, and Cheech Marin; labor activist Dolores Huerta; and Linda Ronstadt.
Opens Friday, July 17
Film Forum
209 West Houston St. New York City
Tickets and more information:
https://filmforum.org/film/american-pachuco
Q&A with Subject Luis Valdez, Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, and Filmmaker David Alvarado, Co-Presented by Cinema Tropical and The Gotham Film & Media Institute.
Friday, July 17, 6:45pm
Q&A with Subject Luis Valdez and Filmmaker David Alvarado
Saturday, July 18,
7:15pm
Post-Screening Conversation with David Alvarado, Lemon Anderson, and Amalia Olivia Rojas, Co-Presented by The Action Lab
Monday, July 20,
6:40pm
Introduction by Sound Designer & Mixer Peter Albrechtsen
Friday, July 24,
6:40pm
Watch the trailer:
