52mn made-for-French TV 1997 documentary film directed by Marianne Dissard and featuring theCamaradas Lowrider Bicycle Club from South Tucson, Arizona.
To watch the 1995 short film/trailer version of 'Low Y Cool', go to : https://youtu.be/d-f7NeIeJP8?si=eSKHT5iu5k4RnWU1
To watch the raw unedited s8mm film footage shot in South Tucson and Nogales during the making of the 'Low Y Cool' documentary film, go to : https://youtu.be/-LJ3hzfgPdI
To watch the Terran quinceñera with Dukes Car Club South Tucson (not my footage, uploaded by permission for sharing), go to : https://youtu.be/eBVeuswWgWE
Note: I had to mute the song at around 5 minutes (Vincente Fernandez' Volver, Volver) so youTube wouldn't block the video from being accessible worldwide.
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UPDATE 202021
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I made this film in 1996. I would make it very, very differently now. It was my first film with a production company and I lost control of some things that mattered a lot in the process of making it. Seriously, what is up with those cheesy voice-over actors the French production company insisted on for 'global' distribution? But it matters more that this film is available to view.
Some things have changed in Tucson. Others have not. Some of the kids have kids of their own now, who inherited their parents' lowriders. Shade Tree long ago passed. One of the kids was lost to gun warfare. Others left Arizona. In the background of the film, there are urgent community efforts and a focused activism that would see the launch the Mexican American Study Program at TUSD in the late 90s, followed by reactionary backlash.
This is about community and survival. This is about a time and a place. This is about Tucson.
Since 1996, I've become a singer, touring, composing and recording with Tucson musicians Sergio Mendoza, Joey Burns, Brian Lopez, Howe Gelb, Brian Lopez, Salvador Duran, Naïm Amor.
We had a 25th anniversary screening in 2022 in Tucson at the downtown The Screening Room, the theater of the original premiere in 1997. Thanks to all who came. Thanks to everyone in the film.
I hope you like seeing it and please share.
http://www.mariannedissard.com
http://www.mariannedissard.bandcamp.com
http://www.instagram.com/mariannedissard
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LOW Y COOL (1997)
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Low Y Cool was directed by Tucson filmmaker Marianne Dissard in 1996 with funding by French TV channel Planête Cable. It was shot by legendary American documentary filmmaker Robert Kramer shortly before his passing. The film has received praise for its sincere exploration of issues of cultural identity. It has been broadcast regularly since 1997 on French cable channel Planête.
In 2011, Low Y Cool got selected to be part of the AZ 100 INDIE FILM collection to celebrate the Arizona Centennial in February of 2012. The AZ 100 INDIE FILM is a project of the University of Arizona Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry in conjunction with the Arizona Media Arts Center. This project is the first step in establishing a Media Archives for Arizona independent films.
Before shooting the film in 1996, Dissard became a member of the Camaradas club, which provides a constructive alternative to gang-affiliation for many Chicano and Mexicano youths. The film documents the tensions which flared when the French-born Dissard brought a foreign crew to film the bike club for French TV. Through her dual experiences - as both an insider and outsider to the bike club and the community of South Tucson; as a Frenchwoman and new American - Dissard explores issues of race, history and community.
Low Y Cool features an array of Tucson notables, including DJs of KXCI's radio program Radio Xicana, Chicana poets Jessica Jaramillo and Marie Contreras, the Tucson Xicano Coalition and Miguel Ortega and, perhaps most colorfully, a bike mechanic and drifter named Shade Tree.
Like countless lowrider bike and car clubs all across the US, the South Tucson, AZ Camaradas Lowrider Bike Club, resolutely positioned as an alternative to gangs, offers Chicano and Mexicano youth an all too rare place to affirm their cultural identity while keeping them out of the street.
When French-born filmmaker and Camaradas club member, Marianne Dissard, brings in a foreign documentary crew to shoot her lowriding friends for French TV, tensions suddenly erupt in the local Chicano community. Fragment by fragment, the camera attempts to penetrate its intimity and unveil the mystery of its delicate balance, between American assimilation, Mexican roots and the lost glory of an Aztec past.