MACHETERO **Six International Awards For Best Film**
(2008) 1h 38min | Crime, Drama, News |
Director: Vagabond Beaumont

“A powerful piece of Filmmaking… I dug it. I loved the film”
– Sam Greenlee author & co-screenwriter of The Spook Who Sat By The Door

Post 9/11 definitions, ideas and notions of terrorism are challenged in this highly controversial and experimental film. Machetero is an allegorical narrative that follows French journalist Jean Dumont played by Isaach de Bankolé (Ghost Dog, Casino Royale, Manderlay, The Limits Of Control) to a New York prison where he interviews Pedro Taino a so called “Puerto Rican Terrorist” played by Not4Prophet (lead singer of the Puerto Punk band RICANSTRUCTION). Pedro is a self-described Machetero fighting to free Puerto Rico from the yoke of United States colonialism. He is obsessed with freedom, freedom for his country, his people and for himself. Jean questions Pedro about his decisions to use violence as a means to achieve that freedom.

As Jean and Pedro speak, another story unfolds. A ghetto youth played by Kelvin Fernandez (in his first starring role) grows up in the ghetto streets and crosses paths with Pedro. Pedro sees potential in the ghetto youth and reawakens a revolutionary spirit instilled in from childhood by a mentor in Puerto Rico played by former Puerto Rican Prisoner of War Dylcia Pagan (who did 20 years in US prisons). Pedro tries to provide the means for the ghetto youth to grow into the next generation of Machetero.

The film is structured around songs from the album, “Liberation Day” written and performed by RICANSTRUCTION and interwoven into the film as a modern day Greek chorus. RICANSTRUCTION also provides an original improvised score that moves from hardcore be-bop punk to layered haunting and abstract Afro-Rican rhythms.

WARNING!!!
This is a warning to those looking for something they are accustomed to; Machetero is not a typical film. It’s open and unapologetic about what it is and what it has to say. It’s a film about revolution, revolution in both a political sense and in a cyclical sense. It’s a restless film that refuses to be boxed in and defined by a single genre or form. It’s a drama but it’s also a musical. It’s a feature film but it uses elements of the music video form. It’s an art film that isn’t pandering to an art house audience and doesn’t ostracize any other audience. The decisions to make Machetero in this way; were deliberate. The theme of revolution couldn’t exist solely within the confines of the plot but had to inform every decision of the filmmaking process. The structure of the film, the casting, the musical score, the utilization of songs as narrative voice, the use of voiceover dialogue and the application of text within the film were devices that were taken into careful consideration in the making of this film. Other non-artistic concerns such as the miniscule budget and the employment of guerrilla production tactics influenced these filmmaking decisions as well.

Everyone says they want to see innovation and evolution but when it comes along it’s tangled and messy and unfamiliar and not at all what we either imagined or hoped it would be. In order to appreciate that tangled mess of unfamiliarity to find the beauty that exists within, the ideas of the past have to be let go in order to properly see the possibilities of the future.

– Vagabond Beaumont, Director