Sundance 2023: ‘Radical’ directed by Christopher Zalla
Christopher Zalla returns to Sundance (‘Padre Nuestro’, U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize 2007) thanks to one of Hollywood’s most innovative producers, Ben Odell and Eugenio Derbez, the top star of Mexico. Their company 3Pas has consistenly created entertainment for the Latinx community in new ways and now this powerfully inspiring story about a teacher deserves to be put to the test to see how it stands with a public along side with education classics as ‘Blackboard Jungle’, ‘Goodbye Mr. Chipps’, ‘Dead Poets’ Society’ and ‘To Sir With Love’. And yes, ‘Stand and Deliver’ as well, Edward James Olmos’ breakthrough and best film.
With Mr. Zalla in Sundance is Mexican Superstar Eugenio Derbez, who appeared at Sundance in 2021 as Bernardo in Sian Heder’s Coda, top prize winner at Sundance and winner of three Oscars including Best Picture. InCoda he played an inspirational high school music teacher, and in Radical he is again such a teacher.
Every student in K -12 should be given the opportunity to see this film on the educational non-theatrical circuit as well as theatrical and streaming platforms. This is the film that will inspire children to become teachers like Sergio Juarez as played with all his heart by Eugenio Derbez, Mexico’s top comedian and movie star. The discovery of the joy of learning for the children on Matamorros, Mexico, a place where kids live in a world where they can’t be kids, was based upon a true story.
Eugenio Derbez — Co-Founder, 3Pas Studio — Lead Actor & Producer, Radical speaking at Illuminative’s Indigenous House, courtesy of the social justice organization IllumiNative, a Native woman-led racial and social justice organization dedicated to challenging the narrative about Native peoples:
“I started as a comedian in television. When I made the transition to cinema, I always tried to bring joy into each of my movies. Even though it’s drama, it’s part of our brand. I have a production company called Tripas Studios. Tripas means guts, so when you do everything with your guts, you can make all the decisions with your guts. When we are looking for a project, we always look for the three H’s: Humanity, Humor, and Heart. We need at least two of these elements to be in the movie. But I always need to put in some humor. Even though ‘Radical’ is a drama and a really sad and true story, you’re going to laugh a couple of times because humor makes everything easy. When you show me drama and a true story, I put in a little bit of joy, so you can digest the information much better.”
[When asked what he wanted viewers to take away from Radical] “I want to celebrate education. I think education is the base for future generations. I feel that right now education, not just in my country, but worldwide, has been the same for the last 200 years. The same kind of structure, it’s twisted, we’re teaching kids to obey, sit down, shut up, do this, do that, memorize this. We’re teaching them to obey, we’re teaching them to memorize and we need to teach them how to learn.”
Radical shines a light on the incredible potential children can manifest when an innovative teacher empowers them to think for themselves. The Wired article by Joshua Davis (also a producer here) explains it is based on the life of teacher Sergio Juárez Correa, who with his students was the subject of a 2013 Wired magazine cover story titled A Radical Way of Unleashing a Generation of Geniuses. The article details Juárez’ rather incredible story as an unorthodox teacher in a poor Mexican border town called Matamoros. It is a forgotten poor city with little hope for its kids, particularly in the elementary school, where he uses a teaching method he stumbled upon seeing a TED Talks video in which the students lead the curriculum in learning what they want to learn, not what officials dictate through testing and other methods.
After establishing the To Sir, with Love nature of this school and who the kids in the sixth-grade class are, we meet Sergio. He has turned over all the desks in his classroom and tries to convince the incredulous students to come aboard these “lifeboats” in the make-believe ocean for the kind of off-the-wall lesson they have never encountered before.
As we learn to know the students: Paloma (the nascent shining star Jennifer Trejo), who aspires to be a rocket scientist (That is true and her story is more incredible), Nico, Lupe and others surrounded by cartel culture and bullies, their fates take shape.
Derbez never has been better than in this film, one that’s for sale and, if there is any justice, will be picked up immediately by a distributor looking for a feel-good true story with real potential to make a difference. It co-stars Daniel Haddad, Jennifer Trejo, Mia Fernanda Solis and Danilo Guardiola.
Radical was produced by 3Pas Studios (Derbez’s label run by Benjamin Odell), in association with Epic Magazine and The Lift, and financed by TelevisaUnivision/ViX.
The film is seeking worldwide distribution in all territories, save Mexico. Andrew Herwitz of The Film Sales Company is representing the film.
“Three Steps” says Ben Odell, co-founder of 3Pas (as in 3Pas, Tripas or tripe, or Guts as Eugenio decribes them), when explaining to me the meanng of the pun. 3Pas in Spanish means three steps, but is also a play on words, something Mexicans like a lot. Personally, I too love tripas y menudo. Delicioso!
Ben and Tripas also won the 2007 Grand Jury Prize Winner at Sundance with the art house Spanish language thriller, Padre Nuestro. IFC changed the title to Sangre de mi sangre for its U.S. release. It also played at New Directors/ New Films at Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Spring of 2007, received two Independent Spirit Awards nominations, for Best First Feature (for which Odell was nominated) and Best Screenplay.
Ben is sure that his producing partner Eugene will go way beyond his current core Latinx market “He is so lovable to watch. He has a magic about him that is undeniable and transcends language and culture.”
When Ben and Eugenio decided to go together they knew it was The-One-Time-In-A-Career-To-Capitalize moment. It happened while Eugenio was making his breakout film Instructions not Included. They formed 3Pas to focus on brand-building based upon Eugenio’s popularity. They planned to go beyond his own work, in English and Spanish. 3Pas Studios signed a first-look deal with Pantelion in August 2014. Neither Eugenio nor Ben had any idea Instructions not Included would be so big. It was released in 2013 by Pantelion and grossed $44.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S. It grossed another $55 million overseas making it the number one Spanish language movie in the world.
Before I met Ben, I always pictured him as my other friend whose last name is Odell, a slight and wiry, dark haired type. How surprised I was to see this big, handsome blond who exuded warmth and a good-willed wit and storytelling skill. Love at first sight! And I am sure I am not the only one who is smitten with him. I wish I could convey his spirit, humor and strength as he recounted his life and career(s) to me in the hour we spent together in his new spacious, airy and bright Santa Monica office where Ben Shalom-Martinez was the third person in the new company, manning a phone system not yet working.
I told Ben I had read his mini bio in IMDb, and it made me want to know how he had gotten into the Latinx side of the business. I expected him to reveal that, in fact, and in spite of his name, he was Latino.
One year out of college, Ben said,
“I worked in editing with the Maysles Brothers. I was a P.A. on the first film John Turturro directed called “Mac”, and I was a reader for Art Linson. And that was my degree in Liberal Arts in Film. I wanted to be a screenwriter but I didn’t feel I had enough life experience. A family friend offered me a job in commercial production in Colombia. It was 1992 and my dad said: “if you love all things Latino, go learn Spanish and become an expert in the Latino market. It’s going to need people that understand it. No one was really talking about its importance then but that piece of advice changed my life. I moved to Colombia to learn Spanish and start what would be a life long journey in all things Latino, from U.S. Latino to Latin America. It’s not a single market but there is a connectivity between all of it.”
Ben grew up in Pennsylvania and when he was six years old, neighbors, who had old friends from Colombia, did an exchange of one of their children with a Colombian child. “My father ended up basically adopting that child for the year he lived with our neighbors and from that grew a friendship with this Colombian family.”
When he was 12 years old the whole Colombian family moved to Philadelphia. “I wanted them to adopt me. They were crazy, emotional, passionate, loving. It was a warmth and lust for life I hadn’t really experienced in suburban white America. And then I realized there was a whole country full of them.” At 15 he went with a friend to Colombia and loved it.
His father eventually married someone from that family. So Ben’s connection to Colombia, if not to all of Latin America was very organic. Colombia is not part of the “U.S. Latino market” per se, but Colombia and the rest of Latin America share certain characteristics and commonalities — views on life and death, family, spirituality — that end up working their way into storytelling that are shared throughout the U.S. Latino market and Latin America along with a larger emotional scale in the tone of their storytelling.
Odell lived in Colombia from 1992 to 2000. He also worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a Spanish language television writer and screenwriter there.
When he was in Colombia working in commercials, he met Tom Quinn, a journalist Iiving there for 25 years, working for Time Magazine and running an English language rag called The Colombian Post. In his youth, Tom had run with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. He had lots of adventures and lots of stories of those days.
Ben asked Tom what was the most compelling story they could make into a movie that wasn’t about narcotrafficking, and Tom said one word: “Emeralds.” Colombia supplies 60% of the world’s emeralds. The mines in the Emerald Zone have strong drug laundering connections as well, as one might guess. The land is leased by the government to the three or four mining companies and they control everything with no supervision by the government.
Ben thought this was a great story to develop into a movie, and so he went back to New York to the contacts he had made including an exec at Tribeca Films. “They all said the same thing, great story but you are not a writer. Go write the script and then we’ll talk.” Ben returned to Colombia to do research.
In the meanwhile he began writing for Colombian TV. He had never written a feature film script, nor did he speak Spanish. He had, however, taken a course in feature film screenwriting with Robert McKee. And he had a girlfriend who was bilingual. He knew about Colombian TV and he saw the potential for legitimizing the story first as a TV show and then making it into a feature later.
Tom Quinn was very well known in Colombia as he was the Time News correspondent there at a moment when the magazine had a lot of power; the drug wars were one of its most consistent cover stories. They pitched it to RTI TV, and structured it like The Fugitive.
There is a drug, called burandanga, scientifically known as Scopolamine. It comes from a plant that grows wild in Colombia. The drugged one loses control of his or her will. Ben once heard a story about a man in a bar who wakes up in jail accused of a murder he can’t remember. This became the basis of the story. The lead goes into the Emerald Zone and drugged by burundanga, he kills one on the wrong side in a war going on there. He wakes up with no recollection and a full on civil war going on around him. He can’t get out of the Emerald Zone until he finds the man who drugged him. The title of this series that Tom and he pitched and in 1998 created was Fuego verde, like the 1954 Hollywood movie, Green Fire starring Grace Kelly and Stewart Grainger.
As a television writer, he eventually created and wrote over 300 hours of Spanish-language narrative television including Fuego Verde — the first-ever action series. It was one of the highest rated series on Colombian television. He also co-wrote the Colombian political satire feature film, Golpe de estadio, which was nominated for Spain’s Academy Award, the Goya in 1999, and was Colombia’s nomination to the Oscar in 2000. It is still one of the highest grossing Colombian films of all time.
In the film, Golpe de estadio, (Golpe de Estado means “Coup d’état”but it also could mean “Coup de Stadium”), an oil company has set up a camp for geological research in a small village in Colombia that has been named New Texas. It becomes the target of the guerrillas who are constantly clashing with police in the area. The confrontation is put on hold however during the TV transmission of the world Cup qualifiers.
For more about this and Ben, read my blog from several years ago here.
In summary, Tripas has created a feel-good story that has great potential to make a difference and is available for distribution.
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