MOVIE MAKING AND IMMIGRATION WITH AWARD WINNING MOVIE DIRECTOR PETER TAKLA AND ENTREPRENEUR CARLO DUPONE

On this episode of Cat on the Loose, we are going to talk about the art of making indie movies with award-winning director Peter Takla, and we are also going to talk about a subject that is so important to millions of us in this country, the American dream and immigration, and how thousands of people every single day risk their lives to cross the border through Mexico in search of this dream. Many of them not only risk their lives, but lose their lives.
And this is the subject of Peter's next upcoming movie called 40 Days, which I am very honored and proud to be a part of. My second guest is the very, very successful and incredibly nice entrepreneur, Carlo Dupone.
Carlo comes from a Mexican family. He's a real estate developer in Mexico.
He owns one of the most successful real estate agencies in Mexico called ASTAMAR, which is also kindly sponsoring this podcast. And although he's American and lives in the United States, several of his relatives have risked their lives doing the crossing.
And now they're very, very successful business people living here. So very few people know stories so up close and personal like he does.
And he was kind enough to drive all the way from San Diego to my studio in West Hollywood to share the stories with us. So I hope you guys enjoy this very powerful, very special episode of Cat on the Loose.
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Oh my goodness, guys. I have major, major successful manpower on this week's episode of Can't Run the Lose.
To my left, Peter Tacla, super successful, award-winning movie director. To my right, one of the men that I admire the most.
I mean, I consider you my mentor, business mentor, super successful business owner, entrepreneur, Carlo Dupont. I don't even know how to explain because you do so many things, Carlo you own uh one of the top real estate companies in mexico astamar you are a real estate developer you're you i mean you're multi-hyphenate multi-talented thank you for driving here all the way from san diego absolutely welcome to can on the loose thank you for having me welcome to can on the loose peter thank you for having me kat i'm so enjoying being with you guys and especially in here.
I know. And I'm very honored because both of you live super far away.
So I know it was a really long drive and there is so much we have to talk about in 45 minutes. So let's do this fast and furious and I'm going to explain to everyone why both of you are here today.
Peter, we finished shooting a movie just like a few weeks ago that we were talking about that we're so proud of that you are directing. And I am very, very honored to be a proud of part of called 40 Days.
It's a movie mostly about immigration, right? Do you want to explain a little bit without telling too much about people? Because the movie is coming out really soon. but for the audience that doesn't know us can you just give them like the the short short summary about the movie well i'm not sure it's going to be short or not because this this movie it has like a very good place in my heart i've i worked on it like so um so much and so hard and i was enjoying working with everyone in the crew.
I'll try to be very short

and direct to the point. So it's called 40 Days and it's about illegal immigrants who are trying to make the hard way to the United States through South and Central America.
And actually their point of start starts from their country of origin way further than South America. And they travel through a tough journey all the way until they get to the US border and where the story happens so we're trying to emphasize on how tough this journey is and how these people are victims of a lot of criminals that they face too sometimes they make it it to the US and sometimes unfortunately they don't make it.
It's tough. We're trying to say that yes, America is like a dreamland or land of dreams or the American dream, whatever you name it, but your life's still worthy.
Do not put it in danger. So this is basically what we were discussing in this movie.
We've been working for about a year and a half now since we started the idea, writing, casting and crowing. And we just wrapped about like three weeks ago.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was a very definitely very special project. Very tough shooting.
Like we were telling Carlo before we started shooting the podcast, we were literally filming out in the woods. But like you said, it's about people trying to get to the United States the hard way, the hard way through Mexico, through the desert.
And a lot of them end up dying in the process, falling in the hands of these coyote criminals. And this is why I decided I got to invite Carla to be a part of this episode, because all three of us are immigrants and come from, well, Carlo, you come from a family of immigrants.
And a lot of people from your family have actually gone through this in real life. Correct? Well, yes, that's correct.
Kind of common concept is I think that a lot of the people that come through,

my family came over through, and just to give some context,

during the 60s and 70s.

And most of them came out here, and they migrated towards the Bakersfield area,

where when you go down a grapevine, you see all the agriculture.

And they worked in the fields there. They worked hard.
None of them, I can probably say, were criminals. They all were hardworking.
Grew up there. They had families of their own, the kids, which are my cousins now.
The second generation, which would be considered myself as well, which are my cousins. Most of them are all successful now, college graduates,

have great jobs, some controllers.

One of my cousins actually runs their whole agricultural company there now

where her parents worked.

They came from Mexico.

From Mexico.

And they came just exactly how the movie is going to depict. They came that way.
They risked their lives because they were looking for a better future. A better future for their family, a better place to live, opportunity.
Also, a lot of things we've got to realize is it's difficult to make money in Mexico. So when they come here, they make more money.
They send money back to their families to help support their families at home as well. But that's the interesting thing, right, Peter? I mean, you're from Egypt.
I came from Brazil. You come from a family from Mexican immigrants.
We are very lucky because we made it, right? We live here. We all agree that our lives are very prosperous here.
I think we all agree that we're very lucky. But that's not the case with everyone.
A lot of people don't make it. A lot of people die trying to get here.
A lot of people get in the hands of these coyotes for people that don't know what the coyotes are. Maybe you can explain better what a coyote is.
Well, absolutely, Lisa. So we're not against immigration because we are immigrants.
So a lot of immigrants are very successful in here. I would say like most of them.
And I totally agree with Carlos because media shows that some immigrants are like criminals. But no, no, we're not.
We're very successful. We're trying to make our life better.
And same thing with people trying to come from different parts of the world through the same journey. And most of them, they don't really realize or they don't really know how tough it is.
Maybe they've been told that it's a tough journey, but they didn't know that they are in the hands of coyotes. Coyotes, like, it's a term you call, maybe you call it, like, smugglers, or they're like a mafia or something.
They're, like, very terrible people that are taking advantage of people who want to immigrate to the United States. You pay them, and they say they will cross you here, correct? Yes, well, this is ideal, but you pay them and sometimes they ask for more and more.
And sometimes they kidnap people, ask for more money. Sometimes they kill people if they don't pay them.
Because to them, these people are just merchandise. True, true.
Actually, some stories that I was told that they get dressed into Mexican police. So people would feel like, we're safe in police hands but they're not actual police they're fake so a lot of these terrible things that immigrants wouldn't know about and the worst part is that they don't allow them to use their cell phones to make videos so they can't like warn other people coming from different parts or taking the same journey.
So most of the immigrants are like more into victims like and more than being criminals. So they come here looking for a better life, for opportunity.
Yes, America is the land of opportunity, but they don't realize that they might not even make it to the U.S. Right.
I think many times they don't realize they're risking their lives. They might end up dying in the middle of the desert.
And we were having lunch before coming here to the podcasting studio, and you were saying something like that happened to one of your relatives that he was crossing and they asked for more money or something? Yeah, this was not too long ago, a few months ago. Oh, a few months ago.
So this is fresh. This is fresh, yeah.
Oh, my God. Oh, that's sad.
Yeah, so he was traveling through the desert. Oh, by the way, about cell phones you were mentioning, they made him take all the cell phones go into, one of the guys takes all the cell phones and controls them all.
So they don't even allow to no they weren't even allowed to hold their phones oh my god during that particular time they didn't so yeah and so they they charged I think it was about $10,000 to cross and this is a common thing they do is once you're in the middle of the desert they'll make a phone call to the family members and say, if you don't, we need an additional $20,000 or whatever the X-rays the amount is. And if you don't deliver, we're going to leave them here in the desert.
And we're going to leave them here without any water, without any food, nothing. Just drop them off.
Or lots of times they'll just say, we're going to kill them. We're going to kill them and we're going to leave them here him here uh so you know these families don't have

twenty thousand dollars just to that you know just sit around like you know like anyone uh so they have to call family members borrow money call friends get all the money together and then do a western union wire or there are other forms of payment that they take and get the money wired over to them so then in this situation it ended up okay he ended up in um in the city he was supposed to go to, which is Utah in the state. But it could have ended badly if he didn't have the money.
Or you still don't know, like you could send the $20,000 that they're demanding and you still don't know if he's going to make it. That's actually happened in a lot of cases where they do send the money and you still don't.
They could still kill the person. That's still happening.
You never know. And trustworthy.
So you cannot trust them. Right, you cannot trust them.
And actually, so a little background about the movie. When Peter invited me to be a part of the movie, I was so honored.
And then, and I know this is an even bigger honor because you said to me, which role do you... I had two options between the roles.
I could play one of the officers, right? The interview immigration officer, or I could play a coyote. And I said, I want the tough one.
I want the really tough one. I want to play the coyote.
And he let me do it. And it was really, really tough because, you know, it's the opposite of my nature.
I'm zero violent. I'm zero mean.
It was a very difficult scene to shoot because I had to be nasty to those people and really mistreat them. And in my mind, I had to believe that.
And it really shook me up thinking that, oh, my God, those people. And it's fun because we were shooting in the elements, like I was telling Carlo.
We were literally up in the Tujunga Mountains. It was was cold it was the end of the day after we were shooting for like 12 hours and mentally of course we're actors you know we know it's fake but you know mentally we're living that for a long time and we see those people with those faces and we're getting tired and you're being so mean to them and I started thinking oh my I cannot believe people are actually right now.
There are some people out there in the desert probably going through the same. Can you imagine the psychological abuse and fear that these people are going through to get to the United States? Yeah, you're absolutely right.
So as you mentioned, you're an actor. So you feel like, OK, at the end of the day, I'm acting.
I'm going back home. Yeah.
But imagine the actual situation, which as much acting we do, as much shooting or lighting or whatever the actual location, but still the reality is worse. I've heard a lot of stories that kind of match Carlos' stories.
And some people actually paid money and they got killed. Yeah, because they don't they don't really care about a person's life.
They have multiple people. They just need money.
And imagine how how people under this stressful situation that they don't know actually they are going to make it. They're going to be alive.
what they should do at this moment. And also one more story, speaking of money, I was wondering, I was asking people like if you have to pay like $10,000, sometimes more to go for a better life, you can spend this amount of money in your home country and do something for you.
And this question just popped up to my mind. And I realized that actually they borrow this money.
They don't own it. They don't have it.
They just borrow it from their family, their friends, sometimes from they sell whatever they have and just hoping to come to the U.S., make more money and just pay this money back. So they're sacrificing their money, their positions, even children, their life just for this tough journey and from the other side the coyote that you played, one of them, taking advantage of this.
So they're taking their money, taking their life It's really tough. Raping their women.
This happened actually. Raping and killing and leaving them behind.
This is actually more common than not, is the women. This is not an actual family member, but it's a friend.
Because obviously I have a lot of friends as well in Mexico. And his daughter that came across, she was 22 years old.
And she disappeared. They don't know where she's at.
They don't know if they got sold a sex trade or human trafficking or was killed in a desert. Imagine the parents, their parents feeling they don't know where she is right now.
Is she alive? She's not. Is she suffering? Of course she is.
Yeah. How will they ever see her again? I mean, it's it's it's very tough feeling and it's mixed feelings.
And at the end of the day, you ask yourself a question. Does it really worth it? Is it worth it, right? I don't think it's worth risking our life for anything.
But I have a few tough questions for you guys. Obviously, election year, I think this movie could not be coming at a more appropriate time.
It's such an important story to be told. And there's a major reason why I wanted to be a part of it.
Number one, the honor of working with you again, because, you know, I love your work. If you guys never watched his movies, please go to Google him, Peter Takla.
In a few years, he made 10 movies. His movies are winning awards because we have the tendency to watch movies from American filmmakers, which are fantastic, but we have so many fantastic international filmmakers.
So here's a very well-deserved plug. Go watch his movies.
They're really fantastic. But this one coming in a perfect timing.
I see these politicians on TV, right? They talk about the border, the wall, immigration. I do this.
I do that. I do that.
A lot of them don't have this close approach. Like, Carlo, it's literally your family.
It's your relatives. I don't know.
It doesn't matter who you want to vote for. But this is one question.
Is this problem? I'll ask you first, Peter, and then you, Carlo. Do you think this problem is fixable? These people trying to cross the desert and being abused and this literally human trafficking? It is, of course, it is fixable.
And regardless of my political views, because I don't have some political views, but I try. I know, let's try to keep that.
Yeah, I'm going to keep. Because that's a whole other episode.
I'm going to keep this to myself, but in this movie, we had zero politics.

So we were talking about this issue from the humanity side. From do not risk your life.
Yeah. From you are a victim.
Just wake up. This is not something that you want to do for yourself or your children.
Regardless of the political views, it is fixable. Any political party can fix it.
And I think they can just make a better immigration way or immigration laws or make it more controllable. And I really believe it's fixable, but maybe for political reasons, maybe they don't want to or they want to, but they're waiting for some time.
But definitely it is fixable. Well, it's definitely fixable, but I think without getting political, obviously.
Okay. But if you reach a bipartisan agreement, you know, between both sides of the political party here, and work in conjunction with the Mexican government.
If they can reach that kind of an agreement together. Together they can make that area safe and make it safe for people to apply for immigration, apply, come over legally, and not have to do what they're doing.
yeah I understand you you said you wouldn't risk your life for coming through, but stop and think about what kind of lives are they experiencing right now in South America and those areas of impoverished countries. A lot of them are politically astrophized.
They're put in jails. They have no choice.
A lot of them are threatened to do certain things that they don't want to by the local gangs or cartels in those countries. So they have to leave.
They have to flee with their families and they have no choice. So they might as well risk going through the desert with the entire family to get through here because otherwise they're going to get killed anyway and their countries are in.
So in this case, that's a very good point and it's a very tough one. But in this case, and I don't know, maybe you know the answer.

Could they file for, for example, political?

Because, you know, like I know a lot of Russian people, they file for political asylum because they say, oh, I'm feeling afraid for my life there.

Do you know if Mexicans, if they were afraid, afraid of the cartels or something like fearing for their lives, could they file for some kind of political asylum? Probably not, right? There's avenues to that, but they're— It takes forever, right? Yeah, it takes a long time. It takes forever.
And the U.S. does take precedence towards some countries where there are other countries.
Yeah. So, yeah.
It's very complicated, right? It's the same for Egypt, right? To immigrate legally. If you come, let's say you come legally, you take a plane and you land here.
Like if you're not going through the desert, if you, I don't know, if you say I'm going to get on a tourist visa and come here and try to figure out a way to stay. It takes forever and ever and ever right um well kind of but what you said is is legally so they can just take a tourist visa and come here and there are like multiple ways to to change the visa i think i'm not an attorney but um based on my little experience yes there are multiple ways uh but this is this is the way that we we're asking people to do just try to come legally or at least um if if you uh exhaust legal resources then you think about it but the illegal resources you it's still it's still the same thing so what happens once you you get um uh you you the great rewards hunt is on!

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slash promos and April 27, 25 at 11 59 p.m eastern successfully across the border it takes still some time to get a green card maybe years maybe maybe whole life so it's not even um something that would be um guaranteed uh of course they would be safer than what happened in their own country. And I totally agree with that.
Some people, they don't have choice, but I don't think the millions out there at the border, they all have no choice. No, I agree.
That's true. Yeah.
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But it's a very complicated problem, especially coming from Mexico, because of the amount of people coming. They come in droves, yeah it's not like just a desert anymore.
Now they're coming through boats. And I mean, boats have recently landed along the San Diego shores.
Oh, my God. And they come running out.
I don't know if you've seen those videos, but... I haven't.
Yeah. I have not.
They come in the little, you know, little Panika boats and pull up right to the shore and they all run out like it's happened in Carlsbad. And they all come around and spread out.
There's cars or SUVs waiting to pick them up. So it just gets worse and worse and worse your family the ones that made it like you were saying they build a great life because it does happen thank God right there are some happy ending stories thank goodness so these relatives do you know what they say about it because you used the phrase that I hope people notice you said they're not criminals criminals because a lot of Americans, and it's hurtful.
I know because I'm an immigrant, and I know, I mean, I've suffered prejudice ever since I was a little kid, just the fact that I'm from Latin America. They don't know a lot about us, and, you know, they have this wrong image.
And we see that a lot on TV and everything, especially on an election year, they think everybody that comes here, especially illegally, are criminals, criminals. And you use that phrase very delicately in the beginning.
You said they are not criminals and they're productive and they do this and they do that and they do that. Well, I mentioned that because it's the first, right now when you...
And it's so important. All you hear in the news now is they just talk about this criminal.
So everyone just thinks that's all that's going over. Exactly.
And it's not true. No.
So what do your relatives say about this whole situation? Have you ever asked them? A sensitive subject. You know, my uncles and aunts are now older, and they don't really like to talk about that.
No. What can't say is they all worked towards getting either their

u.s citizenships or their um visas and um they bought their homes they have mortgages they have credit card bills and they you know so they're doing great they made it they made it yeah so they have yeah when we started filming the first day we filmed the movie not in order but the first day we were filming in the office of an attorney. She is a real, very successful immigration attorney, right? And she's immigrant too, by the way.
Yeah, she's a very successful immigration attorney. And she was consulting for Peter because Peter wanted to make the movie as realistic as possible.
And she was talking about these detention centers and how people are treated when they come in. And like, and it was to me, and I can never describe the way she described it.
I wish she was here right now. But I was like really shocked because it's not like they get this one-on-one individual attention and the attorney and everything.
They're literally thrown in a detention center. Yes, because as far as I know, as far as I was told, they're not a few handful amount of people.
They're like thousands, sometimes like hundreds of thousands. So there's no enough officers to decide whether they're allowed to get to the yes or not.
So they throw them in detention centers. Sometimes they spend months and months until they get a decision.
I want to go back to the criminal thing that the media shows. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because this is one of the movie messages. So we we we want to show that immigrants who decide to come illegally.
Obviously, they had they are they exhausted their choices to come legally. And they're not they're not criminals.
They're not trying to come for a criminal reason. They are just victims.
They don't know how tough the journey was and they have dreams. They have American dream.
They want to come here. We have this pregnant lady.
She wants to give birth to her kid in the U.S. and just raise him and they have dreams to have their own house, their own nice job.
And at some point they realize that they are victims they're not criminals

so this is something that we want to emphasize with the movie

going back to the detention center

again it's a horrible place

although it's safer than traveling to the US border

but it's still a horrible place

it's a prison obviously

and actually we made it to shoot in an actual detention center

and it's a prison

Thank you. It's still a horrible place.
It's a prison, obviously. And actually, we made it to shoot in an actual detention center.
And it's a prison. It's a place that you're just staying there, waiting for a decision.
You don't know when. And a lot of them, by the way, get sent back.
After all this trouble, like they cross the desert. Okay, they don't get killed.
They get a lot of money taken away from them, right? A lot of money.

And then they make it here, and then they get sent back.

Absolutely true.

They're not allowed to stay.

Can you imagine the frustration?

Or just imagine the women, too, that get assaulted sexually.

You know, they're raped in the desert.

They make it through, and now they're in detention. And then all that they went through, and then they're sent back.
Oh, my God. I cannot.
I cannot imagine. It's a case-by-case situation.
I think it depends on the immigration officer or the immigration judge. It depends on what the law is, but not everyone make it to the detention center not necessarily to be admitted to the U.S.
Most of them actually send back. And I think they are signing a law or something that they want to send almost everyone back, even if they got to the U.S.
Because that's the thing. That's a question, right? And I don't want to get political, but it's a massive amount of people.
It's so many. And I think they get desensitized, right? They are treating those people like numbers.
Like if I remember a scene that we were shooting this officer, like when she goes interview the main character, they literally they have to interview piles of people to decide what they're going to do with them. So to them, if they get emotional with each person that comes there, they wouldn't be able to do a job.
Right. Right.
So we get emotional because it's like, oh, my God, I could never do this job. I would be crying all day long.
But they literally like, OK, you go do the like the way the girl, right? They're very automatic. Like that's why you want to play the coyote in the movie.
I wanted to play the coyote because I never played a bad guy, you know, because I'm cute and blonde and adorable. Usually that's the types I play.
You look so different. I know.
And I told Peter, I said, give me. I promise you I'm going to show up looking like a nasty bitch.
You did it amazingly. Thank you.
And I think I looked like really nasty. I was I was I would be afraid of me if I saw me if you guys are following cats you will see a very different cat I started posting a little bit of the behind the scenes and it was so cool because one of the guys there he had a lot of training I should have forced you to go there this day because what day because we had, what's his name?

Oh my God, I'm horrible with names.

One of the actors, he had a lot of training

with the props and martial arts and guns.

I mean, Tito?

No, no, not Tito.

He was one of our actors. Oh my God,

I feel so bad that I forgot his name.

And he was, we were literally doing,

before my scene, he was, because I

never did that. I never punched anybody in my life.
So we were doing like, before my scene, he was, because I never did that.

I never punched anybody in my life.

So we were doing like all these lessons, like this is how you punch and this is how you go on somebody's face.

And this is how like you hold a gun and move.

So it was like really fun, but really intense.

Because you have to believe if you have a gun, you would shoot someone.

If you're going to punch someone, that you really mean to punch them, to hurt them because you hate them, right?

All right. if you have a gun, you would shoot someone.
If you're going to punch someone, that you really mean to punch them, to hurt them because you hate them, right? All these things that are not my nature, but if you're going to do that scene, you have to believe you're going to do it. That's true.
So the reason a coyote that you played is punching someone, it's not because they hate them. It's because they are not allowed to talk.
Right. Yes, exactly.
Intimidation tactic. Exactly.
So it's just something to show them and to show everyone that, hey, you're just a number. You're just a couple hundred dollars or whatever, a couple thousand dollars that you pay to us, and that's it.
You're not allowed to object. You're not allowed to ask questions.
So this is basically what you're showing. Yeah, it's literally like, shut actually that was the line no i'm not gonna no no i'm not don't let me talk too much let me tell you a story it's i'm not sure it's a should i call it like a funny story or or a terrible story but it's it was told to me by one of these immigrants um so you know there were some egyptians and egyptians are like kind of like mexicans when they laugh and when they have jokes even in the bad situations they have some jokes because it's a long journey so at some point in in one of the vehicles or uh staying whatever they were just making some jokes with a loud voice and one of these guys were just like annoyed about their loud voice so they just put the gun on top of one of their heads and then guys if you don't make it down I'm gonna kill your friend is it is it that cheap I mean I mean but it happens yeah it was like surprisingly it's not like asking them to lower their voice or whatever it's just like okay I'm gonna kill'm going to kill this guy.
I'm going to shoot you. Yeah, that's it.
That's the one thing. The majority of these coyotes are also run by cartels.
And cartels don't have any care for life. They have zero care for life.
It doesn't matter to them. You're just, like you said, you're a dollar figure.
And get you from point A to point B. Or it doesn't matter if you don't get to point b they'll just leave you there and rot so and i guess it's if sonica the three of us are talking and of course i have all these memories of being a part of this movie which was one of the most incredible experiences of my life i get very emotional because i'm an immigrant you know i think you are you are in many ways and it's such a of our, our stories, our history and a huge part of this country.
And I think it's so important to tell stories like this, but just the thought that so many people go through this, you know, without help, I don't think we're going to see a solution in our lifetime, but we only hope we can, because I would hope that everybody can come in a safe way. Like you I would hope and I understand why you said that that they are risking their lives there a lot of them the cartels put them against the wall and they say give me money or I'm gonna kill your family especially in Mexico right that's one thing I don't like about Mexico the cartels of course but I would hope somehow I don't know how everybody would be able to come in a civilized, safe way, which I don't think we can, you know, we are going to see.
But before we started recording the podcast, you mentioned something really, really special that Peter and I didn't know about, about your friend that does this work. Can you mention his name? Because if anybody out there has a family member in this situation, anybody from Mexico or Egypt or any other country that is, you know, out there in the desert or thinking about immigrating illegally or anybody that thinks that they need help in the borders, Carl, can you share this information? Because I think that's really important.
Yes, a personal friend of mine, his name is Manuel Ramirez. He's an attorney in San Diego.
He's a board member of an organization.

It's a nonprofit organization called Border Angels.

You can go and visit their website.

It's borderangels.org.

And what they specialize in is just advocate towards human rights.

And that's their main focus.

Assist everyone that's coming over that are looking for a better life and are struggling through that desert, like you mentioned, they help provide assistance for them. So definitely visit their site.
Borderangels.org. I'm definitely going to try to invite him to be on the show because this is such important information.
It is so nice of him. It's a group of attorneys,.
So they focus on human immigration reform, social justice, things like that. So that's what's important.
And I would say these type of people, they're really in need of assistance. Because once they get to the U.S.
land, they're lost. They're still lost.
They just feel safer. But they don't know what to do.
They don't know what route they should take. They need legal assistance.

They need human rights assistance.

So it's so nice of him doing that.

They're lost during the journey

because as they're coming,

they don't know what's going to happen.

They keep being shuffled around,

like thrown between one coyote to the other,

the other, the other.

They don't know where they're going to go.

They're just basically in the dark.

They're just hoping they're going to survive, right? And then, like you said, they get here. They're hoping for the best.
They don't know what is going to happen. And this is really, really a very powerful, fantastic script.
It's just a beautiful, beautiful story. I cannot wait for the movie to be out for us to share it with the world.
I think with today's, what's improved is obviously with social media. Everyone has cell phones now compared to the 70s and 80s when no one did.
I think people now that are coming across know the dangers because it's seen, you know, like your movie, it's going to be one that's going to come out. And everything that's on social media, people are aware of what's the dangers involved compared back in the 70s and 80s when they hope that they get through and everything's going to be okay.
And they assume that. But even now, like you mentioned right now earlier at lunch, the process at the very beginning seems very calm and relaxed and you arrive and everything looks like it's going to go normal and it slowly progresses to get to the worst case scenario.
You mentioned that. I don't know if you want to touch on that, too.
Yeah, well, this is exactly the same story that I've been told from almost everyone. So the journey starts very comfortable, just taking a plane with a visa legal to one of these South or Central American countries, mainly, I think, Colombia or Panama.
So everything is okay, legal. They just go to the country.
They have a room in a hotel, spend the night, take the journey to another country and so on. And then it gets worse and worse as they go.
I think until they reach a certain point in Mexico, then where all things bad start to happen. They're on their own, no guides, spending the night in the middle of nowhere, no vehicles, no hotels, nothing.
Just going different routes away from the police, away from everywhere, everyone just to get to the border. But as you mentioned now, when I was actually doing research about this story, first of all, I thought it just for the past few years, because of social media and because it's like this is the focus on it right now.
But I realized that, no, it's been there for like almost like 100 years or so. Like too many years, a lot of people are taking the same route.
But the focus on it right now, because of politics, number one, and because of social media and because of the numbers are increasing. So, of course, the number of people are coming coming right now is not the same as 10 or 20 years ago.

But it's an ongoing topic.

That's why, as you mentioned, we hope to see a solution in our lifetime,

which we still hope that there will be a solution.

I think, as Carlo mentioned, if there's some type of agreement

with the Mexican government and the U.S. government,

this would be stoppable at some point that would be incredible I think if we all work together as governments, not as individuals there are solutions in the meantime from our side we're talents, we're storyt our yeah we're using our storytelling talent to yeah uh just emphasize hey there's an issue here yeah i think and and i i i hope i think you agree with me when you're making indie movies especially in emphasize indie movies we're not a huge year we're not a huge studio small budget one day tons of blood, sweat and tears goes into it you guys have no idea

but We're not a huge studio. Small budget movies.
One day. Tons of blood, sweat and tears goes into it.
You guys have no idea. But it makes it even more special because it's so much harder than having like $50 million, right? Working with Warner Brothers.
And we tell stories. We put it out there for the passion and the love of telling stories.
And I feel that that's the part we can make. And when somebody like you is willing to come and share as well, because it's such a huge part of your heritage, I think you're doing it for your relatives that, you know, that did it.
You know, they did it and survived. And like you said, they're not criminals.
They are a huge part of what built our country. Well, let's face it, too to i wanted to take a second to applaud you for making this film because um let's face it uh most of us are constantly just uh in our own little world or a little bubble work right it's true we're all busy we're working we work 10 hour days 12 hour days i really don't know what's going on in the world we don't listen to the news i know a lot of people that way.
They don't have a clue what's going on anywhere in the world. But they watch movies.
So this is a great way, a powerful way for you to get your message across to enlighten people and educate people what's actually happening there. So again, my hat off to you for making this film.
Oh, my God. And when you watch it, I promise you're going to love it.
It's coming soon, right? Next year, beginning of next year.

Yeah, we're planning to make it ready by 2025, by the beginning of 2025,

which is so close because time flies.

Oh, my God.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, we're in post-production now and we're working like very hard to make it happen to the best that we can.

Yeah.

And of course, once it's out, you're going to come back and we're going to scream it from the top of our lungs. We want everybody to watch it.
And I don't want to get into politics, but you asked me on the way here, am I going to vote? And, you know, I'm like, I always play, I always joke that I'm Switzerland because coming from Brazil, I'm so traumatized about politics. But I am going to do my part and vote.

Are you going to vote?

Well, of course, of course.

It's our duty to vote.

Yes.

So I'm saying cat on the loose, cat kingdom, please, let's vote.

I don't care who you vote for, right?

Let's vote.

It's our part.

It's our duty to the country to vote.

So we all have to go to vote regardless. Maybe think about who you vote for.
But vote. Yeah, not for the person.
I don't want to go politics, but not for the person. Just go for the beliefs of the party.
I think, yeah, vote. Execute your right and make your voice heard.
Gentlemen, I feel extremely honored honored because i truly truly admire both of you i'm so happy i connected both of you i'm sure we will do amazing wonderful projects in the future together peter thank you for driving such a long distance thank you with my heart for including me in your project it's an all i cannot speak in words i want to thank you for being part of this movie so katie you've been very helpful very supportive not not only like i'm gonna start crying no i i mean i i have to say it so it's not only as um an an actress um in the movie so katie you've been with me like when when we just started when we just started pre-production uh she invited actually the team to her house and we had the first pre-production meeting. Oh, wow, that's true.
Yeah, so we had a lot of work and she was doing set design for us. She was doing like everything that she could do to help us making this film happen.
So I want to thank you so much, Kat, for the big part that you've done for us and thank you for having us here honor if anybody has the luck next time i invite you to come to a peter tacla set run don't walk i will it's a huge honor because i'm sure one of these days we're going to be there picking up your oscar and you know i i adore you i your work. You're one of my mentors.
I know you drove a huge long distance to be here. Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me. Owner of Asta Maralty, one of the top real estate companies in Mexico, in the Mexican Riviera.
Huge part of your culture. Thank you for supporting the podcast.
Thank you for driving here. Thank you for everything you do.
You're super inspiring. One of these days, I want to do a new episode with you about

being an entrepreneur,

being successful. How

do you run all these businesses? Because you know what?

I get messages from people from all

over the world asking these questions

like, how do you run a business? And I don't

know how to answer, so I definitely want to invite you back.

I'd be happy to.

Thank you, guys. This was such an honor.

40 days coming soon, so stay tuned. Be safe out there.
Thank you, guys. Thank you for having us.
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