ABSTRACT
The many Puerto Rican film and video makers, picking up the camera was equivalent to "picking up the gun" in defense of civil and human rights in the United States after the Civil Rights Movement. The third generation of Puerto Ricans, who reached their late teens during the volatile and empowering Civil Rights Movement, affirmed their cultural and political identity with the emergence of new community and political organizations in New York. In 1972 Realidades, a local television series on WNET/Channel 13 was created through community pressure. It provided the focus and center for Puerto Rican involvement in the broadcast industry and later in the independent film and video field. Pedro Rivera, a history student from San Juan, Puerto Rico, was referred by members of Sandino Films in Puerto Rico to Jaime Barrios, a Chilean filmmaker and cofounder of Young Filmmakers Foundation. Missing from the compendium of Puerto Rican filmmakers are several important non-Puerto Rican contributors.
