Films by Filmmaker

Luis A Argueta

 

Luis Argueta is a filmmaker who has also worked as a commercial director, lecturer and teacher in the United States, Europe and throughout the Americas. Born and raised in Guatemala, Argueta has been a resident of New York since 1977. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and a Master’s degree in Romance Languages from The University of Michigan, where he also did postgraduate work in cinema. He has directed and produced short films The Squirrel, Perdón del Gato Rabón and Guatemalan Christmas, a 60-minute featurette The Tricycle, documentaries The Cost of Cotton, Guatemala 9.11.03 – The Human Face of a Civic Celebration and The Literary Angel and two feature films The Silence of Neto and Collect Call. Argueta has lectured extensively at universities and colleges across the country and at international conferences. Argueta has received several international awards, his film The Silence of Neto is the only Guatemalan film ever to have reached the Academy Awards competition and he is the only Guatemalan director to have received a CLIO. In April 2009, the British newspaper The Guardian, listed Mr. Argueta as one of Guatemala’s National Living Icons, alongside Nobel Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu and Singer/Songwriter Ricardo Arjona.

Presently Argueta runs his production company Maya Media Corp. and is currently directing and producing abUSed:The Postville Raid, a documentary about the largest, most expensive and most brutal Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the history of the United States. By weaving together the personal stories of the individuals, the families, and the town directly affected by the events of May 12, 2008 at Agriprocessor’s Inc., the film presents the human face of immigration, the socioeconomic forces which fuel migration, the exploitation experienced by the workers, and serves as a cautionary tale against government abuses of constitutional and human rights.