Vargas documentary previews in San Francisco
TV journalist Lloyd LaCuesta holds post-screening conversation with Jose Antonio Vargas. PHOTOS BY JOAQUIN JAY GONZALEZ III
Audience at Golden Gate University welcomes filmmaker at screening.
SAN FRANCISCO, California — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas’ film Documented screened at Golden Gate University April 19 to an audience of nearly 200. (See trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7F8uw9hw_A )
The showing was hosted by the online magazine PositivelyFilipino.com as its first public event, according to publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco.
Former TV newsreporter now San Jose State University journalism professor Lloyd LaCuesta held a conversation with Vargas after the showing. Vargas fielded questions from the audience afterward.
The documentary written, produced and directed by Vargas’ chronicles his experience as an undocumented immigrant who becomes a crusader for immigration reform.
Vargas publicly revealed his immigration status in a June 2011 New York Times Magazine piece. His “coming out” also landed him on the cover of TIME.
The film climaxes in Vargas’ poignant Skyped reunion with his mother, whom he had not seen for 14 years.
Documented will be released in select New York and Los Angeles theaters before its television broadcast on CNN, which bought its national distribution rights.
The film’s executive producers include Napster co-founder Sean Parker, The Hangover‘s Scott Budnick and The Joy Luck Club‘s Janet Yang.
Westbay Multi-Services’ Rudy Asercion and Inquirer.net marketing VP Esther Chavez hands Vargas the Philippine American Press Club Torch Bearer Award in Journalism after the showing.
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