Interview with Yolanda Cruz

“Interview with Yolanda Cruz” is a conversation with filmmaker Yolanda Cruz, a graduate of UCLA’s film school and 2011 Sundance Screenwriters Lab Fellow. The interview focuses on her filmmaking, indigenous origins as a Chatino (one of sixteen indigenous groups in Oaxaca, Mexico), and views of indigenous peoples in California and across the globe. The interview spends time on Cruz’s latest film, 2501 Migrants, which depicts the unique work of Alejandro Santiago, an indigenous artist from Oaxaca, who uses his artwork to bring attention to the migrants who have left the region and created what has been called “cultural and domestic abandonment.”