On Tuesday afternoon, Ray Balberan, veteran documentary filmmaker and lifelong San Franciscan, was organizing some 300 of his short films on police violence and gentrification, an archiving project he’s been working on for about five years.
At the same time, Debra Koffler, an independent documentary filmmaker and arts educator, was driving up to San Francisco from Los Angeles.
The two are set to meet at the Roxie Theatre on Jan. 27, to join artist Vero Majano and filmmaker Loriz “Ginger” Godines for the premiere of “Mission Love,” a film the four have been working on since 2020.
“Mission Love” is four short films, largely showcasing social scenes of the neighborhood in the 1970s: Vietnam-era protests, montages of Mission landmarks, fights for youth multimedia programs. The collection has a particular focus on attempts in the ’70s, “when young people really fight to get their voices heard and to tell their own story,” said Koffler — which may be incomprehensible to a modern, tech-savvy audience.
“Nowadays, it might be hard for young people to understand, because you have technology at your fingertips,” said Koffler, 54, founder of the Conscious Youth Media Crew nonprofit, which trains young people in multimedia production. “You have TikTok and Instagram, and you can just talk right into your phone and then upload it, and the world can see it.”
“Mission Love,” which runs for 69 minutes, begins with “The Family,” a 12-minute short that Balberan shot, focusing on what happens at his own kitchen table: Relatives piercing a baby’s ear; mothers and aunts bathing and feeding children; women sitting around the table, telling stories about police brutality.
“I wanted to show what families looked like in the Mission,” said Balberan, who is known as “Uncle Ray” in the neighborhood. “Everything would have to start in that kitchen.”
Majano, one of the filmmakers, relates strongly to those kitchen scenes. After her partner gave birth to their baby boy, now six months old, they came home from the hospital to see their families. “We were all in the kitchen, holding the baby and talking about people’s experiences of having babies,” Majano said. “It totally made me think about that scene in the film.”
“Everything happens in the kitchen. We should call this film ‘The Kitchen’,” the narrator in “The Family” says, referring to the film’s title.
“The Family” is followed by a 4-minute montage showing Mission street life in the 1970s, including well-known landmarks such as Dolores Park, Mission High School, La Palma Mexicatessen and New Mission Market.
“It’s kind of like a mix tape,” Manajo said. “It just puts people in the mood, like, you are gonna have a good time with these films.”
“Back on the Streets,” the third film in the roster, runs for 36 minutes and encapsulates the volatile social revolutions in the 1970s through the lens of the neighborhood. It portrays how young soldiers returning from the Vietnam War found more conflict communities: Protests against police brutality and for free speech, human rights and youth employment.
The short ends with Nicaraguan poet Roberto Vargas reading his poem “Blame it on the Reds,” a piece commemorating Vincent Gutierrez, an 18-year-old Latino beloved by the neighborhood and killed by the police on 24th Street. The poem condemns the “business as usual” attitude of the government.
The final short, “Mission Coalition Organization Demonstration and Press Conference,” is 17 minutes long and features a protest against the sudden cancellation of the “Mission and 24th Street” program, a film- and television-training program put on by KQED in 1970 that was suddenly canceled after three years.
Balberan recalls how Mission Mediarts was the first community-based organization to partner with KQED, introducing the idea of a multimedia program in the neighborhood. Invaluable as it was, he said, the program was canceled over what Balberan called censorship.
“We couldn’t have access, and we couldn’t have free speech,” Balberan said. “We couldn’t have artistic control of our work.” He said he appreciated KQED for creating the opportunity to make films, “but they killed our contract, and that was the end of my film career.”
“People like Ray were at the forefront of this time where they were like, ‘We want our own programs, we want our own shows, we want diversity on the airwaves,'” Koffler added, saying that “Mission Love” is also a project to celebrate Balberan and his work as a filmmaker, and to digitize his collection of 16 millimeter films. He turns 80 this year.
“There’s always been sort of this push and pull to the whole movement for more diversity in the media.” Koffler said. “And what Ray and Mission Mediarts was doing at the time was really integral, in terms of revolutionizing.”
“I feel like it’s a good time to be showing these films about, like, there’s beautiful stuff in this city,” Majano added. “You know, there’s always work to be done.”
The show will start at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 27, at the Roxie Theatre at 3117 16th St. The 69-minute film will be followed by a post-screening discussion with the directors. Get tickets here for $15. Member discount tickets are $10 each.
Good job! Thank you Missionlocal and Xueer. Ray Balberan