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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How 'Uvalde Mom' director Anayansi Prado captured the heart of a town in trauma
Three years ago, an armed young man entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers. Hundreds of law enforcement officials reportedly stood around the school campus for more than an hour without approaching the shooter. In the midst of the inaction, one mom — Angeli Rose Gomez — pleaded with officers to take action or let her go in to get her two children and nephew. She was apprehended and handcuffed, but ultimately talked her way out of arrest before she sprinted inside the school to grab the kids. Videos on social media captured the moments that Gomez brought her sons and nephew out of the school. The Texas field worker and mother of two was quickly dubbed a hero in national and local publications for her courage. The new documentary film "Uvalde Mom" follows Gomez after becoming nationally recognized — while examining the forces at play in the Uvalde community which allowed for the shooting to take place, as well as the aftermath of such a tragedy. "All I wanted that day was my kids to come out of the school alive, and that's what I got," Gomez says in one pivotal moment in the film. "I don't want to be called a hero. I don't want to be looked at as the hero because the only job that I did that day was being a mom." Read more: Abcarian: The pathetic lessons of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas The feature's director Anayansi Prado was "moved" and "horrified" by what had happened and felt motivated to make a film about the event after seeing members of the affected families on TV. "I saw that there were Latinos, they were Mexican American, that it was a border town, that it was an agricultural farming town, and that really resonated with me and with communities I've done film work with before," Prado told The Times. Prado began reaching out to people in Uvalde shortly after the shooting, but didn't hear back from anyone for over two months due to the inundation of media requests everyone in the city was receiving. The only person to reply to her was Gomez. Ahead of the film's screening Saturday at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Prado spoke with The Times about the process and the challenges of making her documentary. This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity. Was the idea always for this project to be a feature-length film? Or were there talks of making it a short or a series? I've always thought about it as a feature because I really wanted to dive in and understand Uvalde as a character. I wanted to understand the history of the criminal justice system, the educational system. I knew I wanted to make something that was going to be of a longer form rather than just a piece that was about Angeli or something. And a few people told me this would make a great short, but as I uncovered more about Uvalde, I was like, "No, Uvalde itself has its own history, just like a person." Read more: Families of Uvalde school shooting victims are suing Texas state police over botched response When it came to choosing Angeli, was she the first and only person who responded to your outreach? I think the people in town were oversaturated with media coverage, and Angeli was the one that got back to me. What was really interesting is that I learned on that first trip [to Uvalde] about her backstory and I learned about how the criminal justice system had failed her. I saw a parallel there of how the system failed the community the day of the shooting and how it was failing this woman also individually. I wanted to play with those two stories, the macro and the personal. Once I learned who she was, beyond the mom who ran into the school, I was like, "I have to tell this woman's story." How did you go about balancing her personal stuff and the failures that happened on a larger scale? So much of the way the film is structured is reflective of my own experience as a filmmaker. It was a sort of surreal world, these two worlds were going on: what was happening to Angeli and then what was going on outside with the lack of accountability and the cover-up. So that informed the way that I wanted to structure the film. In terms of the personal, it was a journey to gain Angeli's trust. At some point at the beginning, she wasn't sure she wanted to participate in the film, and so I told her, "You don't owe me anything. I'm a stranger, but all I ask is that you give me a chance to earn your trust." And she was like, "OK." From there on, she opened up and, pretty quickly, we became close and she trusted me. I was very cognizant [of] her legal past and even the way she's perceived by some folks. I also didn't want Angeli to come off as a victim and people to feel sorry for her, but I still wanted to tell her story in a way where you get mad at the system for failing her. What kind of struggles did you have trying to get in communication with some of the officials of the city? We used a lot of news [archives] to represent that part of the story. The [authorities] weren't giving any interviews, they were just holding press conferences. So access was limited, but also the majority of the time that we were filming, we were very low-key about the production — because Angeli was on probation and there was retaliation for her speaking to the media. We tried to keep it under wraps that we were filming, so not a lot of people knew about it [besides] her family. Obviously other folks in town [were] part of the film, like her friend Tina and family members. Outside of that, it was too risky to let other people in town know what was going on. Read more: Justice Department report finds 'cascading failures,' 'no urgency' in Uvalde shooting response Ultimately I wanted to make ["Uvalde Mome"] a personal portrait. I was just very selective on the people that we absolutely needed to interview. I'm happy with Tina, who's an activist in town, and Arnie, a survivor of the shooting and a school teacher, [plus] Angeli's legal team. I felt like those were people we needed to tell a fuller story. But we just couldn't be out in the open making a film about her and let people know. What kind of reception have you gotten from people of Uvalde that have seen the film? We had our premiere at South by Southwest, which was great. A lot of folks came from Uvalde and spoke about how, almost three years later, a lot of this stuff is still going on. Every time Gov. Greg Abbott came on-screen, people would scream, "Loser!" It was really moving to have those screenings. As was expected from the folks who are not fans of Angeli, there was some backlash. It's the same narrative you see in the film of, "She's a criminal, don't believe her." It's a town that is an open wound. I just try to have compassion for people. Ultimately, Angeli's story is the story of one person in Uvalde of many that need to continue to be told. And I hope that other filmmakers, journalists and other storytellers continue to tell the story there, especially with the lack of closure and accountability. I'm happy that the film is putting Uvalde back into the headlines in some way; that way we don't forget about it. Had you ever spent an extended amount of time in Texas before? I had been to Texas, but I hadn't done a project in Texas. Because I'm an outsider, it was very important for me to hire a 100% local Texas crew for this film. My crew was entirely Texas-based, from our PAs to our sound to our DPs. I also wanted to have a majority Texas-born Mexican American crew so that they could guide me. We began production in September of 2022 and the atmosphere was very tense. This is a story that is deeply rooted in the Latino community and the tension about the law enforcement in Uvalde. What was it like dealing with that tension and how did you personally feel that when you went into the town? When I got to Uvalde, I saw that the majority of the Latino community had been there for several generations. You would think a town with that kind of Mexican American history, and them being the majority, that they'd be pretty cemented and represented, right? It was really eye-opening to see [how] these folks are still considered second-class citizens. A lot of them are being repressed. And then you have folks that get in positions of power, but they're whitewashed in line with the white conservative agenda. So even those that are able to get into positions of power don't lean towards the community. They turn their back on it. I heard from folks that the history of neglect was what led to the response that day at Robb Elementary. And they're like, "Yeah, that's what happens on that side of town. You call the cops, they don't come. Our schools are run-down." You really see the disparity. This was a Mexican American community that had been there for a long time. It's fascinating how the conservative white community, even if they're the smaller part of the population, they can still hold the power. Get our Latinx Files newsletter for stories that capture the complexity of our communities. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Abcarian: Another Big Lie: RFK Jr. wants to make America healthy again
What do you think would happen, I asked my daughter, a nurse practitioner who works in addiction medicine, if Narcan, the drug that reverses opiate overdoses, were suddenly to disappear from pharmacy shelves? 'More people would die of overdoses,' she replied. Pretty simple. Now, maybe you are the sort of person who thinks it's OK for people to die from overdose because they shouldn't be taking drugs like fentanyl in the first place. If you are that callous, I don't have much to say to you. Read more: Abcarian: The government's pronatalism warps family values But if you consider addiction a disease, as most medical experts do, then you would certainly be in favor of anything that helps preserve lives, and helps avoid the grief of those whose loved ones have died accidentally from a drug overdose. And if you had spent, say, 14 years as a heroin addict, you would surely push as hard as you could to make Narcan, the trade name of naloxone, as widely available as possible, especially at a moment when fentanyl continues to kill Americans in depressingly high numbers. That, at any rate, is what I would expect from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the aforementioned heroin addict. However, a leaked version of President Trump's budget proposes cutting the department's $56-million program that distributes naloxone kits and trains people on how to use them. Read more: RFK Jr. said his agency will find the cause of autism. These researchers have actually been looking The leaked document is a preliminary plan, and Kennedy has not specifically addressed the proposed cut. In fact, in late April at a drug summit in Nashville, he spoke about his addiction and acknowledged that solving the addiction crisis requires strategies including maintenance treatments using suboxone and methadone, which lessen drug cravings; fentanyl detectors to prevent unwitting ingestion of the drug; and Narcan, which has saved countless lives. But in the face of numerous news reports about the proposed cuts, Kennedy has not offered full-throated, public support for the naloxone program. Maybe he simply doesn't have time, busy as he's been overseeing what the Washington Post described as 'a sweeping purge of the agencies that oversee government health programs.' In his quest to 'make America healthy again,' Kennedy — with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency — has slashed 20,000 of the agency's 82,000 employees for an estimated annual savings of $1.8 billion. Here are some of the Health and Human Services programs that have vanished amid the cost-cutting frenzy: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's lead poisoning prevention staff was sacked. 'They played a key role in addressing lead contamination in applesauce pouches,' reported the Post. Read more: Covered California pushes for better healthcare as federal spending cuts loom The black lung screening program for coal miners was briefly killed off before an outcry led to a temporary reinstatement. Programs on smoking cessation, diabetes prevention and cancer screenings have all been canceled. The Food and Drug Administration lost senior veterinarians who worked to keep milk and pet food safe during the bird flu outbreak. Scientists at the U.S. labs that track sexually transmitted diseases, such as drug-resistant gonorrhea and viral hepatitis, were laid off. The list goes on. But the most worrisome development in all this bloodletting is how Kennedy's antipathy toward vaccines is playing out. Read more: Abcarian: Kennedy's hypocritical approach to public health puts us all at risk For years, he has promoted conspiracy theories and undermined public confidence in vaccines. Last month, he announced that in September, he will reveal the cause of autism, which has eluded actual experts for decades. Chillingly, he has reportedly hired David Geier, who has no medical license, no scientific training and has been described as a 'vaccine cynic and fraudster,' to conduct a study on whether vaccines and autism are linked. This is insanity masquerading as science. The question has been studied, you might say, almost to death. The scientific consensus is clear — vaccines do not cause autism. But can you imagine the damage Kennedy's war on vaccines is going to do to the health of American children? These days, it takes very little to shake the public's faith in vaccines. Read more: Hiltzik: RFK Jr.'s views on autism show that anti-science myths are rampant at the agency he leads After all, the misconception about vaccines and autism took flight after a single, fraudulent 1998 study involving only 12 children. The study was retracted, and its author Andrew Wakefield, guilty of ethical breaches and scientific misconduct, lost his medical license over it. And yet the lie lives on. Just last week, Kennedy told American parents to 'do your own research' on vaccines as if the average American mother is capable of running a double-blind study at her kitchen table in her abundant downtime. 'It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism, even though they don't,' Autism Science Foundation president Alison Singer told the Post. 'They are starting with the conclusion and looking to prove it. That's not how science is done.' We are at a sad moment in American history for so many reasons. But putting a charlatan like Kennedy in charge of the nation's health is like hiring an arsonist as your fire chief. It's not going to end well. Bluesky: @ Threads: @rabcarian If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Abcarian: Another Big Lie: RFK Jr. wants to make America healthy again
What do you think would happen, I asked my daughter, a nurse practitioner who works in addiction medicine, if Narcan, the drug that reverses opiate overdoses, were suddenly to disappear from pharmacy shelves? 'More people would die of overdoses,' she replied. Pretty simple. Now, maybe you are the sort of person who thinks it's OK for people to die from overdose because they shouldn't be taking drugs like fentanyl in the first place. If you are that callous, I don't have much to say to you. Read more: Abcarian: The government's pronatalism warps family values But if you consider addiction a disease, as most medical experts do, then you would certainly be in favor of anything that helps preserve lives, and helps avoid the grief of those whose loved ones have died accidentally from a drug overdose. And if you had spent, say, 14 years as a heroin addict, you would surely push as hard as you could to make Narcan, the trade name of naloxone, as widely available as possible, especially at a moment when fentanyl continues to kill Americans in depressingly high numbers. That, at any rate, is what I would expect from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the aforementioned heroin addict. However, a leaked version of President Trump's budget proposes cutting the department's $56-million program that distributes naloxone kits and trains people on how to use them. Read more: RFK Jr. said his agency will find the cause of autism. These researchers have actually been looking The leaked document is a preliminary plan, and Kennedy has not specifically addressed the proposed cut. In fact, in late April at a drug summit in Nashville, he spoke about his addiction and acknowledged that solving the addiction crisis requires strategies including maintenance treatments using suboxone and methadone, which lessen drug cravings; fentanyl detectors to prevent unwitting ingestion of the drug; and Narcan, which has saved countless lives. But in the face of numerous news reports about the proposed cuts, Kennedy has not offered full-throated, public support for the naloxone program. Maybe he simply doesn't have time, busy as he's been overseeing what the Washington Post described as 'a sweeping purge of the agencies that oversee government health programs.' In his quest to 'make America healthy again,' Kennedy — with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency — has slashed 20,000 of the agency's 82,000 employees for an estimated annual savings of $1.8 billion. Here are some of the Health and Human Services programs that have vanished amid the cost-cutting frenzy: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's lead poisoning prevention staff was sacked. 'They played a key role in addressing lead contamination in applesauce pouches,' reported the Post. Read more: Covered California pushes for better healthcare as federal spending cuts loom The black lung screening program for coal miners was briefly killed off before an outcry led to a temporary reinstatement. Programs on smoking cessation, diabetes prevention and cancer screenings have all been canceled. The Food and Drug Administration lost senior veterinarians who worked to keep milk and pet food safe during the bird flu outbreak. Scientists at the U.S. labs that track sexually transmitted diseases, such as drug-resistant gonorrhea and viral hepatitis, were laid off. The list goes on. But the most worrisome development in all this bloodletting is how Kennedy's antipathy toward vaccines is playing out. Read more: Abcarian: Kennedy's hypocritical approach to public health puts us all at risk For years, he has promoted conspiracy theories and undermined public confidence in vaccines. Last month, he announced that in September, he will reveal the cause of autism, which has eluded actual experts for decades. Chillingly, he has reportedly hired David Geier, who has no medical license, no scientific training and has been described as a 'vaccine cynic and fraudster,' to conduct a study on whether vaccines and autism are linked. This is insanity masquerading as science. The question has been studied, you might say, almost to death. The scientific consensus is clear — vaccines do not cause autism. But can you imagine the damage Kennedy's war on vaccines is going to do to the health of American children? These days, it takes very little to shake the public's faith in vaccines. Read more: Hiltzik: RFK Jr.'s views on autism show that anti-science myths are rampant at the agency he leads After all, the misconception about vaccines and autism took flight after a single, fraudulent 1998 study involving only 12 children. The study was retracted, and its author Andrew Wakefield, guilty of ethical breaches and scientific misconduct, lost his medical license over it. And yet the lie lives on. Just last week, Kennedy told American parents to 'do your own research' on vaccines as if the average American mother is capable of running a double-blind study at her kitchen table in her abundant downtime. 'It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism, even though they don't,' Autism Science Foundation president Alison Singer told the Post. 'They are starting with the conclusion and looking to prove it. That's not how science is done.' We are at a sad moment in American history for so many reasons. But putting a charlatan like Kennedy in charge of the nation's health is like hiring an arsonist as your fire chief. It's not going to end well. Bluesky: @ Threads: @rabcarian If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Abcarian: The government's pronatalism warps family values
Having grown up in a world where overpopulation was touted as an existential threat, I have trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that humanity is now doomed to extinction because people — well, the right kind of people — are failing to procreate. But that is precisely the message emanating from a White House in thrall to the Heritage Foundation's 'pro-family' Project 2025, and from quirky billionaire Elon Musk, who spreads his seed in a compulsive quest to reverse the world's declining birth rate. 'I think for most countries, they should view the birth rate as the single biggest problem they need to solve,' Musk said last year at an investment conference in Saudi Arabia. 'If you don't make new humans, there's no humanity and all the policies in the world don't matter.' Personally, Musk is sparing no effort. Read more: Abcarian: Is there a bigger lie than the one about how Republicans are pro-family? As the Wall Street Journal reported, he has at least 14 children with four women he deems highly intelligent, and possibly many more. He calls this brood his 'legion' after the Roman Empire's largest military unit. 'To reach legion-level before the apocalypse,' he texted Ashley St. Clair, who has engaged him in a child support battle over their infant son, 'we will need to use surrogates.' (Paging Margaret Atwood.) It does not matter that Musk is the richest man in the world and can easily afford his harem. Having so many children with so many women is not just cringe, it is inimical to being a good dad. What kind of conservative family values are on display here? Frankly, Musk seems to be a terrible father. He totes his 4-year-old son around like a shiny object. He's called the boy his "cuteness prop." He has told the world that he considers his transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, 'dead, killed by the woke mind virus,' and that he was tricked into signing off on her gender transition. Is it any wonder that in a court filing Wilson described him as angry and absent and said she no longer wishes to be related to him? Musk is not alone in his passion for procreation. 'Pronatalism' in fact, is having quite a MAGA moment. For all the wrong reasons. Read more: Abcarian: Kennedy's hypocritical approach to public health puts us all at risk The New York Times reported last week that the White House is entertaining ideas about how to get American women to have more babies. They include offering a $5,000 bonus after a baby is born, awarding a medal of honor to women who bear six children or more and teaching women about their menstrual cycles so they know when they are ovulating. After fighting against sex education, conservatives now want to teach it to facilitate pregnancy? (See what I mean about all the wrong reasons?) No one really knows why the birth rate has declined, but it is a global phenomenon. Some theorize that as female education and employment rise, fertility rates drop. Makes sense to me. Controlling fertility is one of the best ways women can improve their lives, and the lives of their children. From a health perspective, childbirth is far, far riskier than abortion. The idea, articulated in 2021 by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett as she voted to gut Roe vs. Wade, that women with unwanted pregnancies can simply pop out the babies, leave them at the firehouse door, then go about their lives as if nothing has happened, is insane. Read more: Abcarian: Americans aren't waiting for the Democratic Party to take on Trump Women die in childbirth, especially in the U.S., where our maternal mortality rate is the highest of all wealthy countries. In 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. maternal mortality rate was 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births. In 2022, Black women died at a rate of 49.5 deaths per 100,000 live births. Compare this terrible figure to, say, Norway, which has zero deaths per 100,000 live births. Or Switzerland, with one. Or Sweden, with three. Despite our wealth and resources, we can't seem to provide equal access to quality healthcare, nor have we been able to overcome systemic problems such as racism and socioeconomic inequality. Which is a shame, because more than 80% of American maternal deaths are considered preventable. It hardly needs to be said that the people who valorize heterosexual marriage and big families are the same ones who offer little support to struggling American families, oppose reproductive rights and have tried to shut down health research on women before being shamed into restoring it. If pronatalists really wanted to encourage bigger families, they would dedicate themselves to making parenthood easier. They would push for universal healthcare and generous, mandated paid parental leave. They would support high-quality, affordable child care, a crushing expense for most families. They would offer early childhood education programs at no cost. They would increase the child tax credit, which can dramatically reduce the childhood poverty rate. They would require workplaces to be family friendly. They would drastically reduce the cost of college — or better yet, make it free. Offering meaningless motherhood medals or small one-time payments are nothing more than pronatal publicity stunts. American families deserve better. Bluesky: @ Threads: @rabcarian If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fired assistant sues Paul Schrader, alleging sexual assault, harassment and retaliation
A former assistant to Paul Schrader has accused the Oscar-nominated writer-director of sexual assault, sexual harassment, retaliation and reneging on a confidential settlement deal. The accusations came in a complaint filed Thursday in New York seeking a summary judgment regarding enforcement of the settlement, which the "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" screenwriter allegedly agreed to in principle on Feb. 5 but never signed. The former assistant is referred to in court documents as Jane Doe to protect her privacy amid allegations of sexual impropriety. Read more: Abcarian: How the stars of 'It Ends With Us' spawned a universe of legal and PR battles Philip J. Kessler, Schrader's attorney, deemed the lawsuit "desperate, opportunistic and frivolous" in a comment to the Associated Press and said many of its llegations are false or materially misleading. He "absolutely" denied that Schrader ever attempted to have a sexual relationship with Doe and said that his client simply chose not to sign the proposed settlement. According to a court document, Doe, 26, worked for Schrader, 78, from May 2021 to September 2024. The document alleges he sexually assaulted her in May 2024 during the Cannes Film Festival, where they were promoting his most recent directorial effort, the Richard Gere-Uma Thurman drama "Oh, Canada," which he also co-wrote. Schrader forced Doe "to work in a sexually hostile, intimidating, and humiliating environment on a daily, if not hourly, basis," according to an affirmation by her attorney, Gregory S. Chiarello. "Defendant Schrader's barrage of sexual harassment included, among other things, sexual assault, forced exposure of his genitals, unwanted sexual advances, repeatedly professing his love and desire to touch Ms. Doe (both verbally and via numerous emails), and near-constant inappropriate sexual questions and lewd and misogynistic commentary." The document further alleges that, in Cannes, Schrader at one point ordered Doe to his room where he "trapped her inside, grabbed her arms, and thrust his face into hers to kiss her against her will, and then further restrained her in an effort to keep her in the room." Read more: 'Oh, Canada' is director Paul Schrader's wobbly salute to guilt and suffering Three days later, after "luring" Doe to his room ostensibly to pack his bags for him, saying he was "dying" and couldn't do it himself, "Schrader opened the door to his hotel room wearing nothing but an open bathrobe with his penis fully exposed," the filing says. "As Ms. Doe attempted to pack Mr. Schrader's bags in terrified silence, he repeatedly commented, 'I am so sweaty. I sweated through the bedsheets. Feel how wet they are.' Ms. Doe packed his bags as quickly as she could, and left." Schrader sent Doe emails around the same time, the filing alleges, saying, "I sense you recoil every time I have the impulse to touch you" and "Sometimes I get the feeling (not today) that you are afraid I might touch you ... I cringe at the thought you fear I might touch you." The writer-director fired Doe in late September after she "refused to acquiesce" to his sexual advances, the document says. Two days later, he emailed Doe, the document says, writing, "I f— up. Big time ... If I have become a Harvey Weinstein in your mind then of course you have no choice but to put me in the rear view mirror.' After a settlement amount was determined in early February, the filing says, attorneys went back and forth via email about non-material details. The filing says that in late March the writer-director got sick, "did some 'soul searching'" during the illness and decided he didn't want to pay the full, agreed-upon amount. Read more: COVID shut down his set. How Paul Schrader finished shooting 'The Card Counter' in 5 days Schrader's attorney disagreed with that assertion. "The agreement that they're trying to enforce against Mr. Schrader, in plain English, required both parties to sign it before it became legally effective,' Kessler told the AP. 'Mr. Schrader declined to sign it. It's frankly as simple as that.' The settlement amount was redacted from documents associated with the claim. Doe is asking that Schrader pay her the allegedly agreed-upon sum plus interest, court costs, legal fees and additional damages equal to 10% of the settlement. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what's going on in the wild world of cinema. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
