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

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Speaker 4 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 Techla.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 My second guest is the very, very successful and incredibly nice entrepreneur Carlo Dupon. Carlo comes from a Mexican family.
He's a real estate developer in Mexico.

Speaker 4 He owns one of the most successful real estate agencies in Mexico called Astamar, which is also kindly sponsoring this podcast.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 here in West Hollywood to share the stories with us.

Speaker 4 So, I hope you guys enjoy this very powerful, very special episode of Cat on the Loose.

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Speaker 5 Oh my goodness, guys. I have major, major successful manpower on this week's episode of Canva de Luz.
To my left, Peter Takla, super successful, award-winning movie director.

Speaker 5 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 DuPone.

Speaker 5 I don't even know how to explain because you do so many things, Carlo. You own one of the top real estate companies in Mexico, Astamar.
You are a real estate developer.

Speaker 5 I mean, you're multi-hyphened, multi-talented. Thank you for driving here all the way from San Diego.

Speaker 6 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Welcome to Cat on the Luz. Thank you for having me.
Welcome to Canon De Luz, Peter.

Speaker 7 Thank you for having me, Kat. I'm so enjoying being with you guys, and

Speaker 7 especially in here.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And I'm going to explain to everyone why both of you are here today.

Speaker 5 Peter, we filmed, 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 But for the audience that doesn't know us, can you just give them like the short, short summary about the movie?

Speaker 7 Well, I'm not sure it's gonna be short or not

Speaker 7 because this this movie it's uh has like a very good place in my heart. I worked on it like so um so much and so hard and I was enjoying working with everyone in the crew.

Speaker 7 Uh I'll try to be very uh short and uh direct to the point.

Speaker 7 So it's called 40 Days and um it's about legal immigrants who are trying to make the hard way to the United States through um uh South and Central America.

Speaker 7 And actually their um point of start starts from their country of origin way further than South America and they travel

Speaker 7 through tough journey

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 7 these people are victims of a lot of criminals that they face too. Sometimes they make it to the US and sometimes, unfortunately, they don't make it.

Speaker 7 It's tough. We're trying to say that

Speaker 7 yes, America is land of like a dreamland or land of dreams or the American dream, whatever you name it, but

Speaker 7 your life still worthy.

Speaker 7 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 crewing.

Speaker 7 And we just wrapped about like three weeks ago. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 It was a very, definitely very special project, project, very tough shooting, like we were telling Carlo before we started filming, shooting the podcast. We were literally filming out in the woods.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 end up dying in the process, falling in the hands of these coyote criminals.

Speaker 5 And this is why I decided I got to invite Carlo to be a part of this episode, because all three of us are immigrants and come from, from, well, Carlo, you come from a family of immigrants.

Speaker 5 And a lot of people from your family have actually gone through this in real life.

Speaker 6 Correct? Well, yes, that's correct.

Speaker 6 Kind of common concept is I think that a lot of the people that come through, my family came over through,

Speaker 6 just to give some context, during the 60s and 70s.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 most of them came out here and they migrated towards the Bakersfield area, where all, when you go down a grapevine you see all the all the agriculture and they worked in the fields there they worked hard none of them I can probably say were criminals

Speaker 6 they all were hardworking

Speaker 6 grew and 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

Speaker 6 which are my cousins Most of them are all successful now, college graduates, have great jobs, some controllers.

Speaker 6 One of my cousins actually runs their whole agricultural company there now,

Speaker 6 where her parents worked.

Speaker 5 And they came from Mexico.

Speaker 6 From Mexico. And they came just exactly as the movie is going to depict.
They came that way.

Speaker 5 They risked their lives.

Speaker 5 Because they were looking for a better future.

Speaker 6 A better future for their family, a better place to live,

Speaker 6 opportunity. Also,

Speaker 6 see, a lot of things we got to realize is it's difficult to make money in Mexico. So when they come here, they make more money.

Speaker 6 They send money back to their families, help support their families at home as well.

Speaker 5 But that's the interesting thing, right, Peter? I mean, you're from Egypt.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 A lot of people get in the hands of these coyotes for people that don't know what the coyotes are. Maybe you maybe you can explain better what a coyote is.

Speaker 7 Well, absolutely.

Speaker 7 So it's not, we're not against immigration because we are immigrants.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 7 some immigrants are like criminals, but no, no, we're not. We're very successful.
We're trying to make

Speaker 7 our life better. And same thing with people trying to come from different parts of the world through the same journey.
And

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 It's a term

Speaker 7 you call, like maybe you call like smugglers, or they're like a mafia or something. They're like very terrible people that take an advantage of people wanting to immigrate to the United States.

Speaker 5 You pay them and they say they will cross you here, correct?

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 5 Because to them, these people are just merchandise.

Speaker 6 True, true.

Speaker 7 Actually, some stories that I was told that they get dressed into Mexican police. So people would feel like, okay, we're safe in police hands, but they're not actual police.
They're fake. Oh, my God.

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 7 warn other people coming from different parts or taking the same journey.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 most of the immigrants are like more into victims, like

Speaker 7 and more than being criminals. So they come here looking for

Speaker 7 a better life,

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 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 and they asked for more money or something yes not too long ago a few months ago um oh a few months ago so this is fresh this is fresh yeah oh my god oh that's sad yeah so he was um traveling through uh through the desert and um oh by the way about cell phones you were mentioning um they made him take all the cell phones go into one of the guys takes all the cell phones controls them all so they don't even allow to hold no they weren't even allowed to hold their phones oh my gosh during that particular particular time they didn't okay so yeah

Speaker 6 and um uh so they they charged uh i think it was about ten thousand dollars to cross

Speaker 6 and this is a common thing they do is they 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 uh we we need an additional twenty thousand dollars or what have whatever the xyz 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 um or that or lots of times they'll just say we're going going to kill him.

Speaker 6 We're going to kill him and we're going to leave him here.

Speaker 6 So, you know, these families don't have $20,000 just to, you know, just sit around like, you know, like anyone.

Speaker 6 So they have to call family members, borrow money, call friends, get all the money together, and then do a Western Union wire or their other forms of payment that they take and get the money wired over to them.

Speaker 6 So then in this situation, it ended up okay. He ended up in

Speaker 6 in the city he was supposed to go to, which is Utah in the state.

Speaker 6 But it could have have ended badly if they didn't have the money.

Speaker 5 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 be able to.

Speaker 6 That's actually

Speaker 6 in a lot of cases where they do send the money, and you still don't.

Speaker 5 They could still kill the person. That's still happening.

Speaker 6 You never know.

Speaker 7 Untrustworthy. So

Speaker 7 you cannot trust them.

Speaker 5 Right. You cannot trust.
And actually, so

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And I really, 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 Tohunga Mountains.

Speaker 5 It 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.

Speaker 5 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 god I cannot believe people are actually right now

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 So as you mentioned,

Speaker 7 you're an actor. So you feel like, okay, at the end of the day, I'm acting, I'm going back home.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 But imagine the actual situation, which um as much as acting we do as much shooting or uh lighting or whatever the actual location but still the the reality is worse um i've i've heard a lot of uh stories that um kind of matched uh carlos stories and um some people actually paid money and they got killed yeah because they they don't they don't really um care about a person's life they have multiple people they just just need money um

Speaker 7 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,

Speaker 7 what they should do at this moment. And also, one more story, speaking of money, I was wondering, I was asking people like

Speaker 7 if you have to pay like $10,000, sometimes more to go

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 They don't own it. They don't have it.
They just borrow it from their family, their friends, sometimes from

Speaker 7 they sell whatever they have and just hoping to come to the US, make more money and just pay this money back. So they're sacrificing their money, their positions,

Speaker 7 even children, their life

Speaker 7 just for this tough journey. And from the other side,

Speaker 7 the coyote that you played, one of them,

Speaker 7 taking advantage of this.

Speaker 7 So they taking their money, taking their life.

Speaker 5 It's really tough.

Speaker 7 Raping their women.

Speaker 7 This happened, actually.

Speaker 5 Raping and killing and leaving them.

Speaker 6 Actually,

Speaker 6 more common than not is

Speaker 6 the women.

Speaker 6 This is not an actual family member, it's a friend.

Speaker 6 Because obviously, I have a lot of friends as well in Mexico. And

Speaker 6 his daughter that came across, she was 22 years old, and she disappeared. They don't know where she's at.

Speaker 6 They don't know if they got sold a sex trade or human trafficking or was killed in a desert.

Speaker 5 Imagine the parents,

Speaker 7 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?

Speaker 7 I mean, it's a 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?

Speaker 5 Is it worth it, right? Risking our life. I don't think it's worth risking our life for anything.
But this is a I have a few tough questions for you guys.

Speaker 5 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 this is a major reason why I wanted to be a part of it.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 His movies are winning awards because we have the tendency to watch movies from American filmmakers, which are fantastic, but we have so many many fantastic international filmmakers.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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 is literally your family, it's your relatives.

Speaker 5 I don't know, it doesn't matter who you want to vote for, but

Speaker 5 this is one question.

Speaker 5 Is this problem? Do you I'll ask you first, Peter, and then you, Carlo, do you think this problem is fixable?

Speaker 5 These people trying to cross the desert and being abused and this literally human trafficking?

Speaker 7 It is, of course, it is fixable. And regardless, my political views, because I do have some political views, but yeah, but I know.

Speaker 5 Let's try to keep that. Yeah, I'm gonna keep a whole other episode.

Speaker 7 I'm gonna keep this to myself. But in this movie, we had zero politics.
So

Speaker 7 we were talking about this issue from the humanity side,

Speaker 7 from

Speaker 7 do not risk your life.

Speaker 7 From you are a victim. Just wake up.

Speaker 7 This is not something that you want to do for yourself or your children.

Speaker 7 Regardless of the political views, it is fixable.

Speaker 7 Any political party can fix it. And I think

Speaker 7 they can just make

Speaker 7 a better immigration way or immigration laws or make it more um

Speaker 7 um

Speaker 7 controllable and um i i i really believe it's it's fixable but maybe for political reasons um

Speaker 7 maybe they don't want to or they want to but they're waiting for some time

Speaker 6 but definitely it is fixable well it's definitely fixable but i think without getting political obviously okay um but if you reach a bipartisan agreement you know between both sides of political party here and work in conjunction with the Mexican government.

Speaker 6 If they can reach that kind of an agreement

Speaker 6 together,

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I understand you said, you know, 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, those impoverished countries.

Speaker 6 A lot of them are politically

Speaker 6 ostracized. They're put in jails.
They have no choice. A lot of them are threatened to do certain things that

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 risk going through the desert with their entire family to get through here because otherwise they're going to get killed anyway and their countries are in.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Could they file for, for example, political, because you know, like in, I know a lot of Russian people, they file for political asylum because they say, oh, I'm feeling afraid for my life there.

Speaker 5 Do you know if Mexicans, if they were

Speaker 5 afraid of the cartels or something, like fearing for their lives, could they file for some kind of political asylum here? Probably not, right?

Speaker 6 There's avenues to that, but they're the same.

Speaker 5 It takes forever, right?

Speaker 6 Yeah, it takes a long time. It takes forever.
And the U.S. does take precedence towards some countries.
Are there other countries? Yeah. So, yeah.

Speaker 5 It's very complicated, right? It's the same for Egypt, right?

Speaker 5 To immigrate legally, if you come, let's say you come legally, you take a plane and you land here.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 to figure out a way to stay.

Speaker 5 It takes forever and ever and ever, right?

Speaker 7 Well, kinda, 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 a way that we we're asking people to do just try to come legally or at least uh 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 what happens once you you get um uh you suck?

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Speaker 7 Successfully cross the border. It takes still some time to get a green card, maybe years, maybe a whole life.
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Speaker 5 But it's a very complicated problem because of the, well, especially coming from Mexico, because of the amount of people coming.

Speaker 6 They come in droves. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, because like. 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.

Speaker 6 I don't know if you've seen those videos, but I haven't. Yeah, I haven't.

Speaker 6 They come in the little, you know, little Panica boats and pull up right to the shore and they all run out like it's just happened in Carlsbad.

Speaker 6 and they all come around and spread out as cars or SUPs waiting to pick up.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 There are some happy ending stories. Thank goodness.

Speaker 5 So these relatives, do you know what they say about it? Because

Speaker 5 you used the phrase. that I hope people notice.
You said they're not criminals because a lot of Americans, and it's hurtful.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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 election year.

Speaker 5 They think everybody that comes here, especially illegally, are criminals.

Speaker 5 And you use that phrase very

Speaker 5 delicately in the beginning. You said they're not criminals and

Speaker 5 they're productive and they do this and they do that and they do that.

Speaker 6 Well, I mentioned that because it's the first

Speaker 6 time and it's so important all you hear in the news now is they just talk about this criminal criminal so everyone just thinks that's all that's going on and it's not true no so what what do your relatives say about this whole situation have you ever asked them the sensitive subject they're you know my uncles and aunts are now older and they don't really like to talk about that yeah no that you know they um what i can say is they all worked towards getting either their u.s citizenships or their um visas and um

Speaker 6 they've 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.
They made it. So they have.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 She is a real, very successful immigration attorney, right?

Speaker 7 And she's immigrant too, by the way.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And she was talking about these detention centers and how people are treated when they come in. And like,

Speaker 5 and it was to me, and I can never describe the way she described it. I wish she was here right now.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 Yes, because

Speaker 7 as far as I know, as far as i was told it's um they're not they're not few handful amount of people they're like thousands yeah some some sometimes like hundreds of thousands so uh there is no enough officer to to officers to decide whether they're allowed to get to the to the s or not so they they throw them in detention center sometimes they spend months and months until they get a decision um i want to go back to the um

Speaker 6 um

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 7 the criminal thing that the media shows um and i want oh yeah yeah because this is uh one of the movie messages. So

Speaker 7 we want to show that immigrants who decide to come illegally, obviously

Speaker 7 they exhausted their choices to come legally. And they're not criminals.
They're not trying to come for criminal reason. They're just victims.
They don't know how tough the journey was.

Speaker 7 And they have dreams. They have American dreams.
They want to come here.

Speaker 7 We have this pregnant lady. She wants to give birth to her kid in the US

Speaker 7 and just raise him. And they have dreams to have their own house, their own nice job.

Speaker 7 And at some point, they realize that they are victims.

Speaker 7 They're not criminals. So this is something that we want to emphasize with the movie.

Speaker 7 Going back to detention center, it's

Speaker 7 again,

Speaker 6 it's a horrible place.

Speaker 7 Although it's safer than being

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 It's a place that you're just staying there, waiting for a decision. You don't know when.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 6 A lot of money.

Speaker 5 And then they make it here.

Speaker 5 And then

Speaker 5 they get sent back. Absolutely true.
They're not allowed to stay. Can you imagine the frustration?

Speaker 6 Or just imagine the women too that get assaulted sexually. You know, they're raped in the desert.

Speaker 6 They make it through. They're under detention.
And then all that they went through, and then they're sent back.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. I cannot.
I cannot imagine.

Speaker 7 It's a case-by-case situation. I think it depends on the immigration officer or the immigration judge.
Depends on what the laws are, but

Speaker 7 not everyone make it to the detention center,

Speaker 7 not necessarily to be admitted to the us

Speaker 5 um 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 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 even 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 gonna 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 okay 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

Speaker 5 I wanted to play the coyote because I never played a bad guy. You know, because I'm cute and blonde and adorable.
So, usually, that's the types I play.

Speaker 7 You look so different.

Speaker 5 I know. And I told Peter, I said, give me, I promise you, I'm going to show up looking like a nasty bitch.

Speaker 7 You did it amazingly. Thank you.

Speaker 5 And I think I looked like really nasty.

Speaker 5 I would be afraid of me if I saw me.

Speaker 7 If you guys are following cats, so you will see a very, very different cat.

Speaker 5 I started posting a little bit of the behind the scenes and it was so cool because one of the guys there he was like he had a lot of training and you would have loved it i should have forced you to go there carlo this day because we had what's his name he um 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

Speaker 5 uh 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.

Speaker 5 So we were doing like all these lessons, like this is how you punch and this is how you go in somebody's face and this is how like you hold a gun and move.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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 gonna

Speaker 7 do it that's true so the reason uh a coyote that you played is punching someone it's not because they hate them it's because uh they are not allowed to talk right yes they're not exactly intimidation tactic exactly exactly just something to show them and to show everyone that yeah you're you're you're just a number you're you're just a couple hundred dollars or whatever a couple thousand dollars that you paid to us and that's it yeah you're not allowed to object you're not allowed to ask questions yeah so this is basically yeah, it's literally like shut up, shut up, don't and actually, that was the line.

Speaker 5 No, I'm not gonna no, no, that I'm not, don't, don't let me talk too much.

Speaker 7 Let me tell you a story. It's uh, I'm not sure it's uh, should I call it like a funny story or a terrible story, but it's it was told to me by one of these immigrants.
Um,

Speaker 7 so you know, there were some Egyptians, and Egyptians are like kind of

Speaker 7 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 in one of the vehicles or uh staying whatever they were just taking 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 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

Speaker 6 I mean, but it happens.

Speaker 7 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 this guy.

Speaker 5 I'm gonna shoot you. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 6 That's no, that's the one thing.

Speaker 6 The majority of these coyotes are also majority ran by cartels. So, and cartels don't have any care for life.
They have zero care for life. Yeah.
It doesn't matter to them.

Speaker 6 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. Duelists leave you there and rot.

Speaker 5 And I give it 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.

Speaker 5 I get very emotional because I'm an immigrant. You know, I think

Speaker 5 you are in many ways, and it's such a huge part of our stories, our history, and a huge part of this country. And I think it's so important to tell stories like this.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 because I would hope that everybody can come in a safe way. Like you said, I would hope, and I understand what you said, that they are risking their lives there.

Speaker 5 A lot of them, the cartels put them against the wall and they say, give me money or I'm going to kill your family, especially in Mexico, right?

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 I don't think we can, you know, we are going to see.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 Because I think that's really important.

Speaker 6 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 non-profit organization called Border Angels.

Speaker 6 You can go visit their website. It's borderangels.org.

Speaker 6 And what they specialize is just

Speaker 6 advocate towards human rights. And that's their main focus.

Speaker 6 Assist everyone that's coming over that are looking for a better life and are struggling

Speaker 6 through that desert, like you mentioned.

Speaker 6 They help provide assistance for them.

Speaker 6 So definitely visit their site.

Speaker 6 Borderangels.org. Borderangels.org.org.

Speaker 5 I'm definitely going to try to invite him to be on the show because

Speaker 5 this is such important.

Speaker 6 It is

Speaker 7 so nice of him, yeah.

Speaker 6 And it's a group of attorneys too. So they focus on human immigration reform, you know, social justice, things like that.

Speaker 7 So that's what and I would say these type of people, they they're really in need of assistance because once they once they get to the US land, they they're lost. They're still lost.

Speaker 7 They 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 like human rights assistance.

Speaker 7 So it's so nice of him doing that.

Speaker 5 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 It's just a beautiful, beautiful story. I cannot wait for the movie to be out, for us to share it with the world.

Speaker 6 I think with today's

Speaker 6 what's improved is obviously with social media, everyone has cell phones now compared to the 70s and 80s when no one did.

Speaker 6 I think people now that are coming across know the dangers because they've seen, you know, like your movie, it's going to be one that's going to come out.

Speaker 6 And everything that's on social media, people are aware of what's the dangers involved.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 And it slowly progresses to get to the worst case scenario. You mentioned that.
I don't know if you should want to touch on that too.

Speaker 7 Yeah, well, this is exactly

Speaker 7 the same story that I've been told from almost everyone.

Speaker 7 So the story, 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.

Speaker 7 So everything is okay, legal. They just go to the country.

Speaker 7 have a room in a hotel spend the night take the journey to another country and so on

Speaker 7 and then it gets um

Speaker 7 worse and worse as as they go i think i until they reach a certain point in

Speaker 7 Mexico, then where all

Speaker 7 things bad start to happen.

Speaker 7 They're on their own, no guides, spending the night in the middle of nowhere, no

Speaker 7 vehicles, no hotels, nothing, just

Speaker 7 going

Speaker 7 different routes

Speaker 7 away from the police, away from everywhere.

Speaker 7 everyone just just to get to the border uh but as you as you mentioned now uh when i when i was actually doing research about this story uh first of all i thought it just for the past few years um because of social media and because it's um like um this is the um

Speaker 7 the focus on it right now but i realized that no it's been there for like

Speaker 7 almost like 100 years or so like too many years um a lot of people are taking the same route uh but it the focus on it right now because of politics number one and because of social media and because of the um the numbers are increasing so of course the number of people are coming right now is not the same as like 10 or 20 years ago.

Speaker 7 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,

Speaker 7 as Carlo mentioned, if there's like some type of agreement with the Mexican government and the US government, this would be stoppable at some point. Yeah.

Speaker 5 That would be incredible.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I think if we all work together

Speaker 7 as governments, not as individuals.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 In the meantime, in the meantime.

Speaker 7 I mean, from our side, we're talenting.

Speaker 5 We're storytelling.

Speaker 7 Yeah, we're using our storyteller telling talent to

Speaker 7 just emphasize, hey, there's an issue here.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think, and

Speaker 5 I think you agree with me. When you're making indie movies, especially in, emphasize indie movies.
We're not a huge, we're not a huge studio.

Speaker 5 Small budget one day 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 fifty million dollars right with working with warner brothers and we we tell stories we put it out there for the passion and the love of telling stories and i i feel that that's the part we can make and when if 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 Well, let's face it too,

Speaker 6 I wanted to take a second to applaud you for making this film because

Speaker 6 let's face it, most of us are constantly just in our own little world, our little bubble.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 They don't have not a clue what's going on anywhere in the world. So, but they watch movies.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 So, again,

Speaker 6 my hat off to you for making this film.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. And when you watch it, I promise you're going to love it.
It's coming somewhere next year, beginning of next year.

Speaker 7 Yeah, we're planning to make it ready by 2025, by the beginning of 2025, which is so close because

Speaker 7 oh my god, yes, yes, yeah, we're in post-production now, and we're working like very hard to make it

Speaker 5 to the best that we can. Yeah, and of course, once it's out, I'm gonna, you're gonna come back and we're gonna scream it from the top of our lungs.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 7 Well, of course, of course.

Speaker 5 Vote.

Speaker 7 It's our duty to vote.

Speaker 5 Yes. So I'm saying, cat on the loose, cat kingdom, please, let's vote.
I don't care who you vote for, right?

Speaker 5 Let's vote.

Speaker 7 It's our part. It's our duty to the country to vote.
So we all have to go to vote regardless.

Speaker 7 Maybe

Speaker 7 think about who you vote for.

Speaker 6 But vote. Yeah,

Speaker 7 not for the person.

Speaker 7 I don't want to go politics, but not for the person. Just go for the beliefs of the party.

Speaker 5 I think, yes, vote.

Speaker 5 Execute your right and yeah, make your voice heard. Gentlemen, I feel extremely honored because I truly, truly admire both of you.
I'm so happy I connected both of you.

Speaker 5 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 all my heart for including me in your project. It's an

Speaker 5 I cannot speak in words.

Speaker 7 I want to thank you for being part of this movie. So, Kat, you've been very helpful, very supportive.

Speaker 6 Not only like as

Speaker 6 an actress, no,

Speaker 7 I mean, I have to say it. So, it's not only as an actress

Speaker 7 in the movie. So, Kat, you've been with me like

Speaker 7 when we just started, when we just started pre-production, she invited actually the team to her house and we had the first pre-production meeting.

Speaker 5 Oh, wow, that's true.

Speaker 7 Yeah, so we had a lot of work and she was doing set design for us. She was doing like everything

Speaker 7 that she could do to help us making this film happen. So I want to thank you so much, Kat,

Speaker 7 for

Speaker 7 the big part that you've done for us. And thank you for having us here.

Speaker 5 If anybody has the luck, next time I invite you to come to a Peter Takla set, run, don't walk.

Speaker 5 It's a huge honor because I'm sure one of these days we're going to be there picking up your Oscar.

Speaker 5 and you know i i adore you i love your work you're one of my mentors i know you drove a huge long distance to be here thank you so much carlo dupone owner of astamar realty 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 and being an entrepreneur being successful how do you run all these businesses because you know what i get I get messages from people from all over the world asking these questions: like, how do you run a business?

Speaker 5 And I don't know how to answer, so I definitely want to invite you back.

Speaker 6 I'd be happy to.

Speaker 5 Thank you, guys. This was such an honor.
40 days coming soon. So stay tuned.
Be safe out there.

Speaker 6 Thank you, guys.

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