Arizona PBS to Host Community Screening and Panel Discussion of Latino-Centered Vietnam War Film at Cronkite School

Join Arizona PBS for a community screening of "On Two Fronts: Latinos and Vietnam" on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus on Saturday, Sept. 12, from 3-5 p.m.

PHOENIX – (Sept. 2, 2015)

Join Arizona PBS next week for a sneak-preview screening of “On Two Fronts: Latinos & Vietnam,” a film examining the Latino experience during a war that placed its heaviest burden on working-class youth.

Arizona PBS is hosting a community screening of the film on Saturday, Sept. 12, from 3-5 p.m. at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in the First Amendment Forum on the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus (555 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004).

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion, featuring the film’s director and producer Mylène Moreno and documentary subjects. In addition, Arizona PBS will debut a commemorative floor map of the “Theatre of War in Southeast Asia.” To honor the service of Vietnam veterans in Arizona, veterans are invited to view the map, reflect on their experience and, if they choose, sign their names and leave behind personal messages.

“On Two Fronts” tells the stories of two siblings, Everett and Delia Alvarez, who stood on opposite sides of the Vietnam War, one as a prisoner of war and the other protesting at home. The film also explores the lives of locals from Greenlee County, Arizona, where miners’ children fought and died for their country in devastating proportions. A farmworker’s son translated his military experience into a career before resigning in protest from his post on a local draft board.

“With this film, we wanted to look back, five decades later, with the benefit of hindsight, at the Vietnam War — at its costs and consequences — and ask some difficult questions about the price of war and citizenship,” said Moreno, who is a producer and director at Souvenir Pictures, Inc.

Filmed on location throughout the American southwest and Vietnam, “On Two Fronts” combines lush photography with home movies, vivid news footage and a trove of personal photographs, with specially composed music by Chicano Batman. The film will air on Arizona PBS on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 9 p.m. This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To learn more, please visit  https://azpbs.org/ontwofronts/.

This program, produced by Souvenir Pictures Inc., is a presentation of Oregon Public Broadcasting in association with Latino Public Broadcasting, with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.