Local business owner and Nut Kreations founder Mina Feuerhaken is a Crown College alumna of UC Santa Cruz. Since the store’s opening, it has stirred up a buzz in the community and university.

Feuerhaken is a fourth-generation pistachio farmer who wanted to combine her passion for business with a healthy lifestyle.

“Living in a town that focuses on natural food and a healthy, active lifestyle inspired me to dream into wanting more for my body and soul,” Feuerhaken said. “The professors, students and people I met shared the same life struggles.”

Establishing a successful business as a young and aspiring entrepreneur like Feuerhaken is a challenge that she said takes time and research.

“Research as much as possible,” Feuerhaken said. “You have to jump ahead and find a location, explore your ideas and understand the competition. Know that the first years may be tough. Be prepared to change some aspects. Something may seem exciting, but be flexible and don’t be disappointed to change some things. I got to a point where I had to do this. There is no way in really knowing unless you try.”

Feuerhaken graduated a year early from UCSC in 2006 with a degree in business management economics with an emphasis in accounting. Like many other students, she decided to try out internships related to her degree, but found it difficult to decide what type of career was best.

“I took the ‘normal’ route once I graduated, and I tried to do what most people did by going from one internship to a job, but I was not happy,” Feuerhaken said. “I changed my mind a lot and I realized it was okay to try different things.”

In establishing her own business, Feuerhaken said that taking things slow is no easy task, but it is the best option for students on the verge of graduation.

“I rushed to graduate,” Feuerhaken said. “There are so many internships and honestly, there is no rush. Just absorb all you can.”

Feuerhaken attributes much of her success to people she met at UCSC who fostered the environment she desired in a career.

“UCSC and my professors helped build a great base for me,” Feuerhaken said. “It motivated me to create my own business. It was a space that helped me with dealing with numbers and financial statements. I truly am thankful for the environment that was so helpful, positive, and beautiful.”

Although the future is unknown for Nut Kreations, their plans to expand may be just around the corner.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in franchise,” Feuerhaken said.“It’s definitely in the picture, but just not sure when. I have to say this store is my baby, and like any other baby, you have to nourish it, love it and wait for it to grow. I would like to focus on wholesale more at the moment.”

The Santa Monica-based lawyer and 1971 Cowell graduate will serve first as an alumni regent designate beginning July 1, 2012, followed by a 12-month term as a full, voting member of the board.

UCSC alum Kenneth Feingold has been appointed to the UC Board of Regents. Photo courtesy of news.ucsc.edu

Feingold will be the first UC Santa Cruz graduate to serve on the board in seven years.

“I am honored to have been chosen to serve as a Regent by the UCSC Alumni Association Council,” Feingold is quoted in the release. “This is a difficult time for the State of California and the University of California. I pledge to work as an alumni regent to keep our institution strong and responsive to the needs of the students, the faculty and our state.”

Feingold will serve the first year as a regent designate and secretary of the Alumni Associations of the University of California (AAUC). He will attend all meetings and participate in policy discussions but without voting rights. Beginning July 1, 2013, he will serve as president of the AAUC and become a full-voting member of the board.

“Ken is a dear friend of UCSC with a long record of service to the campus that has focused on the needs of students,” Blumenthal wrote in the Dec. 13 release. “He joins the board at a critical time, and I look forward to his participation as the university grapples with budget and advocacy issues.”
Read the full text of the press release at news.ucsc.edu

This is a breaking news story. City on a Hill Press will continue to report on this story as more information becomes available.

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

When it comes to raising money, the UC Santa Cruz swimming and diving team has one special donor who always keeps the team afloat: The UCSC swimming and diving alumni.

On Saturday, the UCSC swimming and diving team reunited with its former athletes at the East Field House Pool in an alumni meet. The alumni came to show support for their former team, both emotionally and financially. Many of these alumni traveled from places far and wide to show their Banana Slug love.

“We got people coming from Washington, D.C. and Seattle,” said Eugene Lee, a swimmer from the class of 2008. “I personally come back twice a year [outside of the alumni swim] to hang out with the team.”

The UCSC swimming and diving team enjoyed the presence of their alumni. As a meet, it was less about competition and more about the enjoyment each swimmer and diver gets from the sport.

“It is so fun to see them come back,” swim team co-captain Emi Yamaguchi said. “It’s cool to hear their stories, and it’s so sweet they’re giving back to us.”

Lee, who is now a public accountant at Grant Thornton in San Jose, said he misses the team atmosphere and the outdoor exercise he got with the team. Lee gave a donation to the team in addition to coming out for the alumni meet.

“I wouldn’t give this money to the school,” Lee said. “I gave this money to the swim team because that’s what’s important to me.”

The money generated by the alumni can be a staggering amount. Swim team coach Kim Munsch is very appreciative of the money he now gets from his alumni.

“We got around $10,000 from our alumni,” Munsch said. “They give what they can.”

UCSC NCAA sports teams traditionally have trouble raising funds. Just transporting all 75 swimmers and divers to a competition is a logistical challenge for Munsch. In addition, Munsch noted how having no Division III schools around UCSC forces Munsch to bring in Division I programs his team has trouble competing with. Munsch mentioned the number of scholarships for some teams as particularly galling. He doesn’t expect his team to compete with the likes of No. 1 ranked Stanford or No. 20, San Jose State.

“They have 13 full rides,” Munsch said. “I’m being pragmatic about our team’s performance.”

Munsch noted that since UCSC swimming and diving is an all walk-on team, it transforms the team’s culture. A walk-on is a student who joins the team without having been actively recruited. He feels the pressure isn’t as much about winning as much as it is beating your best performance.

“Everyone is here working with the team because they want to do this,” Munsch said. “They’re willing to put in 20 hours a week, and those who don’t wish to put in the hours don’t last on this team.”

Munsch understands swimming to be a race against yourself. The swimmer, he said, is not interested in competing against anyone but the clock.

“We’ve had people finish in sixth and be totally stoked about it because of their time,” Munsch said. “By contrast, the person in first may be bummed out because it was just an average time.”

Co-captain Emi Yamaguchi said she currently is not trying to get a faster time. Yamaguchi is interested in the tests she faces this weekend versus San Jose State on Friday at the East Pool, and at the Mills College Invite on Saturday in Oakland. Yamaguchi will compete in the 200-meter butterfly stroke race.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Yamaguchi said. “I just want to see where I am at.”

Yamaguchi noted that the alumni do give the team more than monetary support. For her, the alumni provide a team support other students can’t give.

“I look forward to giving back.”

UCSC alumna Julia Sweig speaks for a crowd of community members on foreign policy between Latin America and the United States. Since graduating from Porter in 1986, Sweig has become a distinguished scholar and worked at the Council on Foreign Relations. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Julia Sweig was all smiles when Provost Helen Shapiro handed her a Colleges Nine and Ten mug at the end of her speech on Latin America and foreign policy. Sweig, a Porter graduate of 1986, visited campus to address students after having been honored as a UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Alumni of 2011.

After graduating as a Latin American studies student before the major was even in place at UCSC, Sweig became a senior fellow and task force director for the Council on Foreign Relations. She took time off from her post at the major Washington think-tank to share her expertise with the crowd of Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) and politics majors and faculty members crowded into the Namaste Lounge.

While she currently works at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sweig said she found “a different sort of activism” during her time at UCSC.

“When I was a student at UCSC, my focus was on using my scholarship to pursue policy-related activism,” Sweig said to the assembled crowd.

Sweig went on to crunch decades of Latin American history and U.S. foreign policy into her 45-minute speech and ensuing Q&A session.

“This was a period in history when Henry Kissinger said defying the American order was done at Latin America’s peril,” Sweig said, recounting the turbulent period in Latin American history that was the 1980s, characterized as it was by hyperinflation and military dictatorships.

Sweig interrupted her speech on occasion to offer brief personal stories. For example, when in Cuba in the mid-’80s, Sweig shared a hotel with revolutionaries.

“There was a lot of rum flowing. That was Havana in 1984,” said Sweig, to the amusement of those assembled.

On a more solemn note, Sweig described how her involvement with the Council on Foreign Relations helped change the language of U.S. foreign policy.

“Even as recently as 2004, a group of ‘elites,’ using that word to describe their obvious [Latin American] counterparts, was like shining a light on the elephant in the room,” Sweig said, describing how American politicians shied away from using the term to describe Latin American high-powered military and political personnel. “Now in today’s dialogues, we see that word all the time, and I know where they got it from.”

Sweig also spoke of the necessity to recognize the greater prominence of Latin American states in today’s world.

“The greater voice that Latin Americans have now would have been unrecognizable to my professors,” Sweig said. “The fundamental agenda for Latin Americans now is social inclusion. There’s still massive inequality, but there’s more democratic access as well.”

Sweig also took time to answer students’ questions, which ranged from queries on future U.S. foreign policy to how Brazil was going to handle hosting both the Olympics and the World Cup. After firing off answers on how the United States tended to “use Latin America as a proving ground for counterinsurgency tactics,” and that “the ball hasn’t rolled very far forward” with regard to U.S. attitudes towards Cuba, Sweig casually mentioned that she’d be taking her family to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Peter Hunter, a founder of Team Krinoid and designer of “Syz: E.G.,” shows off the multi-touch technology that allows players to simultaneously control both how their spaceship flies and the direction in which it fires. Photo by Toby Silverman.

You are zipping through the cosmos in the Syzygy, a hyper-advanced starship boasting an array of weapons, all manned by seasoned specialists. You jet past asteroids and stardust with relative ease, engaging in friendly banter with your crew, until suddenly you’re ambushed by a fleet of enemy fighters. What was once an empty starscape is suddenly filled with cascading laser beams of every color of the rainbow. Only your commanding expertise and lightning-fast reflexes can save you from a gruesome death in the vast vacuum that surrounds you.

Thus begins “Syz E.G.,” the first installment in a series of space shooters produced by Team Krinoid, an independent game development studio founded by three UC Santa Cruz alumni. In addition to a fully voiced cast of characters and an invariably slick soundtrack, “Syz E.G.” boasts a number of other distinctions that set it apart from your typical iPad game, like an innovative multi-touch targeting system and a compelling story.

“Most iPad games are ‘sit here’ or ‘touch that,’” said John Peters, CEO of Team Krinoid. “But I feel that the platform has much more potential than that.”

Work on “Syz E.G.” began in the summer of 2010. It was then that Peters moved in with fellow students (and avid gamers) Peter Hunter and Max Weinberg. The trio soon discovered they shared an interest in gaming, and between them they had the skills necessary to begin developing a game of their own. By the time the school year started, the team already had a solid foundation upon which to build. In the interest of time management, Peters made the game his senior project, allowing the team to recruit seven other programming students and expedite the process.

“A team of that size helped balance things,” Hunter said. “We had one team member working on Lynn’s shields for three months.”

By the end of the school year, the group had produced a polished, innovative and wildly entertaining mobile game, one that ultimately won them the grand prize at the UCSC 2011 Sammy Awards, a prize awarded for the best games created by students in the program. Since graduating, Peters, Hunter and Weinberg have spent their time establishing Team Krinoid as a legitimate game development studio, allowing them to market the game and pay their fellow programmers royalties. After jumping through all the legal hoops necessary to form a company, “Syz E.G.” was released on the iTunes app store at the end of September, and has since yielded a steady stream of sales.

Team Krinoid has already begun work on their next venture, a side-scrolling platformer called “Bunny Run,” which they plan to release on every mobile gaming device they can. They are simultaneously working to make “Syz E.G.” compatible with Blackberry’s Playbook.

“Mobile gaming is becoming a much more influential part of the gaming industry,” Weinberg said. “We want to make the games that we want to play. If there’s a game we want to play that doesn’t exist yet, we’ll make it.”

Photo by Morgan Grana.

Callan Hajosy is a recent UC Santa Cruz graduate and Merrill College affiliate who studied environmental studies and economics. Next month she will be embarking on a five-month open-ended trip to Tanzania as a representative of the non-profit organization One Heart Source, which helps educate people about HIV/AIDS.

CHP: Can you tell me a little bit about the organization you work for?
Hajosy: I work for One Heart Source (OHS), a non-profit NGO that is based in Arusha, Tanzania. We run educational programs trying to break the generational cycle of transmission of HIV/AIDS.

CHP: How did you get involved with the organization?
Hajosy: Forty-one schools nationwide are involved. I got involved because a good friend of mine from high school was one of the first volunteers to go over there. He worked there for two years, told me about it, and I went last year. I was a volunteer there for eight weeks and then they asked me to go back as a program manager. That was after I graduated.

CHP: What pulled you into it and made you interested?
Hajosy: I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. I was already going after school [to South Africa and Tanzania] and then I heard about [OHS], read their website and was just hooked on it. I thought it would be a really great way to travel and help and get involved.

CHP: Where will you be going in a month and what will you be doing there?
Hajosy: I will be going to the village of Mateves, which is in Arusha, Tanzania, and I will be there for five months just running the summer programs. We also have programs in Zanzibar, so I’ll be running back and forth. We [volunteers] teach classes about three times a week, or however long they want us, and we also do community outreach programs and community teachings. There’s an orphanage there, so we work there also. We teach about HIV/AIDS awareness, protection and empowerment.

CHP: Do you have any future plans?
Hajosy: I don’t know, I have a one-way ticket right now, so it could end up being a while. Hopefully I stay involved. What I do right now when I’m not in Tanzania is recruit UCSC students and help them go through the application process, and also help them with pre-fieldwork. Right now I have five volunteers. I am so excited — I had my first dream of being back in Tanzania last night and I was like, “It’s time! It’s coming!” It’s definitely an adventure.

Photo courtesy of Shannon Corr.

Drummer Eric Kuhn and guitarist Robin Landy are returning to the road as Bay Area instrumental group Silian Rail. The two will be touring to support the deluxe vinyl release of their second album, “Parhelion.” Santa Cruz’s own Caffé Pergolesi will be hosting their April 14 performance at 7:30 p.m.

The band has a history reminiscent of a quirky indie movie, one that would perhaps be perfectly scored by their music. Kuhn and Landy first met as pre-teens in North Carolina.

“We were both dating each other’s best friends at the time, but then we lost touch completely for years and years,” Kuhn said.

After leaving North Carolina to attend college at UC Santa Cruz in 2001, Kuhn honed his musical talents the Santa Cruz way.

“I did a lot of street performing downtown and on Pacific,” Kuhn said. “My friends and I would all go to the sidewalk and play percussion pieces.”

It wasn’t until several years later that Kuhn and Landy would cross paths again.

“I moved in randomly with one of Eric’s friends,” Landy said. “We ran into each other for the first time in years at his birthday, actually.”

A short time later they decided to form Silian Rail. The decision to create an instrumental band came naturally, because, as Landy said, “neither of us can really sing.”

This musical format has its drawbacks. The use of a vocalist and song lyrics allows musicians to easily express different emotions, stories and beliefs, along with innumerable other topics. A good instrumental band has to convey the same subject matter without the luxury of a singer. Silian Rail tackles this challenge with enthusiasm and skill that are in equal parts invigorating and impressive.

The creativity found in their music is also reflected in their name.

“The name doesn’t mean anything,” Landy said. “It’s actually the name of a font from the movie ‘American Psycho,’ when they’re comparing business cards.”

This sense of whimsy has made the band a good fit for notable do-it-yourself, Oakland-based record label Parks and Records. The label is known for its eco-friendly approach to music production and for launching the careers of bands like the Velvet Teens and Xiu Xiu.

“We both relate to [Parks and Records’] mission statement for sure. That was a big motivating factor for us in working with them,” Kuhn said. “We’re both environmentally aware people and feel concerned for the impact people have on their natural environment. It was cool having a label that was about something, as opposed to just the process of putting out music.”

Parks and Records helped Silian Rail produce the limited edition orange vinyl version of their critically praised second album, “Parhelion,” which triggered the band’s decision go on tour.

Kuhn spoke of the fond memories he has of UCSC and his history with the venue hosting the show.

“UCSC provides a really unique educational opportunity, and we’re really excited to be coming back to Santa Cruz as a town,” Kuhn said. “It’s a place that’s very supportive of music and very open-minded, which is always refreshing. I love Caffé Pergolesi. I used to hang out in there all the time.”

Hiram Coffee, the booking agent for Caffé Pergolesi, offered a similar review.

“We love [Silian Rail] — they’re the sweetest people ever. I saw them play for the first time at a house show in Davis and they were great,” he said. “I’ve seen them play a couple times since and it’s just absolutely amazing.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Alumni Awarded for Journalism

UC Santa Cruz alumni Dana Priest and Richard Harris were recently given awards for their work in investigative journalism. Long Island University awarded Priest, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, with her second George Polk Award for National Reporting. In Washington, D.C., the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) presented Harris, a Crown College alumnus, with a 2010 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award.

Harris, a National Public Radio science correspondent and UCSC graduate in biology, accepted his award on Feb. 19. His investigation of the BP oil spill prompted the formation of a federal panel to examine the Gulf of Mexico.

Senior editor Janet Raloff of Science News said Harris’ reporting on the Gulf oil spill is “important and ground-breaking.”

Kavli Science Journalism Award winners receive $3,000 and a plaque at the AAAS Annual Meeting.

Priest, a former Merrill student and City on a Hill Press alumna, received the award with fellow Washington Post reporter William M. Arkin for their story “Top Secret America.” The report uncovered the vast and growing network of national security and intelligence systems after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

2010 George Polk winners will receive their awards at a luncheon at The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan on April 7.

Priest and Arkin found counter-terrorism and homeland security involvement in over 10,000 locations across the United States, where some 854,000 people have top-secret security clearances to work on issues for 1,271 government organizations and almost 2,000 private companies.

Both Priest and Harris previously received UC Santa Cruz Alumni Achievement Awards. Priest received her UCSC AA award in 2008, Harris in 2010.

Priest said that formal experience is not essential to success as a professional journalism and offered advice to aspiring journalists.

“I still have never taken a class in journalism,” Priest said. “My advice would be to get out of the office or behind your desk or behind your computer and go immerse yourself in somebody’s world where you would ordinarily never be.”

$1 Million Donation to Baskin School of Engineering

Philanthropists Jack and Peggy Downes Baskin have donated $1 million to the School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz to create a graduate student support fund, Chancellor George Blumenthal announced at the UCSC’s annual fundraising gala on Saturday.

“This new gift establishes the Jack Baskin and Peggy Downes Baskin Fellowships — the largest fund for graduate-student support in the history of the campus,” Blumenthal said at the benefit dinner.

The nearly 350 attendees raised an additional $160,000 plus to directly aid undergraduate student scholarships.

Jack Baskin has a long history of contributions to UCSC. He gave his first donation of $1 million to open a computer engineering program in 1983. Baskin’s support for the School of Engineering now amounts to more than $9 million.

Student Regent Responds to Sexual Battery Charge

UC student regent Jesse Cheng was arrested on Nov. 4 based on the accusation that he committed sexual battery. Charges were not filed, but his case was forwarded to the Orange County District Attorney for investigation. Cheng issued a statement on Feb. 21, detailing his point of view.

As reported by the Daily Cal, the Orange County D.A. rejected this case due to lack of “corroborating evidence.”

The UC Irvine student was accused by his ex-girlfriend, who claimed the act took place in October of last year. So far, her claims have not been substantiated by evidence, Cheng said.

“I think overall, about the case, it’s important — I’m innocent,” Cheng said. “The D.A. never filed any charges. I’m innocent.”

Cheng’s ex-girlfriend, whom Cheng dated for about a year, offered evidence to the police. However, none of that evidence proved him guilty, so he remains innocent, Cheng said.

The case does not affect Cheng’s standing as a UC student regent. And although UC Irvine lists dismissal from the university among the possible repercussions for committing sexual battery, Cheng will continue his studies there unless he is convicted.

Despite the ensuing threat toward Cheng’s good standing, he maintains his everyday duties as a student regent.

“Right now, I’m just continuing with my student regent work,” he said.

He said that the case is coming to an end, maintaining that he is not at fault.

“The case is over,” Cheng said. “The case is closed.”

UCSC alumna Elizabeth Gordon creates based on characters in the film industry in her online comedy show, “Dumbass Filmmakers.” Courtesy of Elizabeth Gordon.

Sunday morning. I find myself conversing with Los Angeles. I’m talking to former UC Santa Cruz theater arts graduate Elizabeth Gordon. The subject of our conversation? A new online comedy show, “Dumbass Filmmakers,” which Gordon produced, co-created and co-stars in. Elizabeth is nothing if not talkative — what was originally planned as a relatively brief discussion of her show evolved into a greater debate about the pitfalls of Hollywood and her time at UCSC. Despite being some 400 miles apart, within minutes we may as well have been undertaking the interview in a more conventional, personable, setting.

City on a Hill Press: Can you give a summary of the show?

EG: It’s basically about a group of loveable losers that want to make a movie but have no idea what they’re doing. The two main characters are Harrison Dewinter and my character Vicki Moretti. Harrison is an … artsy director who thinks he’s … brilliant and amazing. He’s written this really weird movie … that makes no sense. Vicki comes on and really doesn’t understand the movie at all. Over the course of the first season, they hold auditions. Some are really good, some really bad. The people they don’t want as actors they hire as crew. Over the course of the show, they all become close and realize what they really want to do. It’s really heartwarming. I think once people start to watch it, they’ll really start to connect to individual characters.

CHP: Who do you think will relate to the show?

EG: I think it’ll especially relate to people in the entertainment industry who’ve come across people like this. That’s actually how the series started — we’d come across these kind of people while producing other projects. It was like, “Are these people for real?” — and they are. So we introduced that into the script.

CHP: Did it always start off as a comedy program, or did it evolve into that?

EG: It was intended to be a comedy. Yet, when we started working on it and had our actors come in … we found a lot of depth with them. We found their backstory, how they’d got to that place in their lives. They say that comedy is harder then drama. You have to actually come from a real place, and a lot of comedy comes out of pain. We did a lot of in-depth work with the actors. Where they were coming from was a big deal. They’re all leaning on each other. Still, they all really want to make this movie, even if they all have their own agendas. We want them all to be multi-layered as characters. So as well as the comedy, there are some really human moments between the characters, which make them all relatable.

CHP: What websites do you plan to be hosted on?

EG: We’re going to have dumbfilmmakers.com, which is our website, and we’re definitely going to have YouTube.

CHP: Changing tact, you were producer, co-creator and the lead actress. How is it juggling all three roles?

EG: [nervous laughter] You have to be very good at staying on top of things. You have to be able to separate the jobs, but at the same time keep them all encompassed together. You have — and I hate this word — a sense of control. It consumed my life for eight months, but when you see the footage, it makes you proud. We did our jobs. We had a great team of people. I really enjoy the ride.

CHP: I see that you’ve produced theater productions. Was it a different experience?

EG: Yes. I did theater for a long time before I moved to film. It was definitely stressful at times, but I was already adept to that world, having acted for some time. When I moved into film, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is a different world.” You still use a lot of the same things as in theater — you have to know what’s going on and time elements. You also have to deal with stuff like lighting, which you don’t have the language for at that point. You have to know how to get a good crew of people together — that’s essential. At least by the webseries I knew a lot more things.

CHP: Does your character Vicky have much of you put into her, or is she a blank slate?

EG: She has some of my traits. The thing that I love about Vicky is her need for love and acceptance. She started in another play we did together [and we loved her]. The comedy comes from how she deals with people, because not everyone “gets” her. In the series she’s very organized, but has to deal with a lot of people, and gets in over her head.

CHP: Is there any advice you should give students here?

EG: Oh yes. First I should say that I loved my time at UCSC. It taught me so much. I learned that things can change in a heartbeat. You have to be tenacious and go after what you want. You never know what’s going to pop for you. Just don’t give up. Some people do one play and it clicks instantly. Others work for 10 years before finding this. That’s what I have to say.

Illustration by Patrick Yeung.

Benjamin Bratt’s handsome, bearded face — instantly recognizable as a star of NBC’s television program “Law and Order” — visited UC Santa Cruz on April 23. But it is his brother, UCSC alumnus and director Peter Bratt, who was the focus of the event.

Both Bratts came to UCSC’s Cervantes Conference Room above the Quarry Plaza on Friday, April 23 for an open discussion of their new independent film, “La Mission.” Dozens of students filled the Cervantes Room to hear the brothers discuss the issues raised by the film.

“La Mission” stars Benjamin Bratt as streetwise single father Che Rivera. The film strives to recreate the predominately Hispanic Mission District of San Francisco as it was when the Bratts grew up there.

“Benjamin and I … always dreamed of making a film in our own backyard,” Peter Bratt said. “This is that dream realized.”

The film’s plot centers around Rivera’s violent reaction to discovering that his son is gay.

“It’s dealt with in a way that is reflective of what happens in real life within the community,” Benjamin Bratt said. “Being gay and being Latino, they’re not mutually exclusive things. It really exists, [but] we don’t like to admit it. We don’t like to talk about it.”

The Bratts have noticed both positive and negative reactions to the film.

“There have been some angry voices from the neighborhood and the cultural community about why we were airing dirty laundry, so to speak,” Benjamin Bratt said. But Bratt hopes that many leave the film with a new way of looking at gay rights.

Benjamin Bratt said he loves hearing viewers respond to the issues by saying, “‘I get it,’ or ‘I’m ready to listen.’” He said these responses are “one of the great victories of any good piece of art, changing the paradigm.”

The brothers were pleased with the audience’s reactions to the movie.

“What people seem to be emerging from the theaters with is a real sense of pride, of brown pride, which is exultant, which is celebratory,” Benjamin Bratt said. “That’s exactly what we wanted to achieve.”

Peter Bratt, who graduated from Cowell College in 1986, was met with a sense of nostalgia in returning to the campus.

He described having a “transformative life experience” at UCSC, which he attributed to a “unique spirit that’s still really alive on this particular campus.”

“This university … really emphasizes liberal arts and social justice,” Peter Bratt said, “and that’s really what motivated me to want to make films.”

A woman in the audience asked, “Can you help to affirm that to the chancellors so they — ” But the rest of her statement was lost, drowned out in jeers from the audience.

Bratt was eager to give back to the university that inspired him, so the Friday night viewing of “La Mission” at the Nickelodeon Theatre downtown served as a fundraiser for the Latin American and Latino studies department. The event was reported to have had a big turnout.

The film is also tied to UCSC through Latin American and Latino studies teacher Greg Landau, who served as music supervisor for the film. “I’ve known Peter and Benjamin for many years,” Landau said. “So when the time came to make the movie, they called me to help coordinate the music and compose some of the music to reflect the culture of the neighborhood.”

“La Mission” is debuting at the same time as Arizona is passing a controversial new law requiring law officers to demand proof of legal residency of anyone for whom there is “reasonable suspicion” of being an undocumented citizen, even as federal immigration reform is said to be right around the corner.

“From what I understand, UCSC has an increasing number of Latino students and Native American students. So I hope [the film] will be a voice heard by the student movement here on campus,” Peter Bratt said. “I also know that, even when I was here in the early 80’s, there were a lot of movement struggles in Watsonville and Beach Flats, and that’s still the case today.”

“You’re surrounded by a lot of farm worker communities that I think can relate to the material,” he added.

The Bratts made it clear that their movie is not about any one social issue. “At the end of the day, what we’re talking about … is the desire for a sense of belonging, which really means love,” said Benjamin Bratt. “We all want the same thing. We all want love.”

Writer and director Cary Fukunaga talks about his debut feature film, “Sin Nombre,” which won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at this year’s Sundance. The film opens Friday. Photo by Conner Ross.

Sitting in his socks, on an ottoman in a Ritz Carlton suite in downtown San Francisco, Cary Fukunaga speaks modestly about his film “Sin Nombre.” 

“My first film, my first script,” said the 31-year-old UC Santa Cruz alumnus. “It is what it is in its own little imperfect way. I mean, I could have kept working on it forever, but you just got to stop at some point.”

Fukunga’s efforts won him the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award for the film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Excellence in Cinematography Award. 

After graduating from UCSC in 1999 with a B.A. in history, Fukunaga went on to attend film school at New York University, where he would perfect his dual crafts of writing and directing. For his second-year project, Fukunaga focused on the real-life plight of a group of Mexican immigrants who were deserted in a locked truck and suffocated after illegally crossing the border. The short film, “Victoria Para Chino,” won more than two dozen international awards, as well as a Student Academy Award at Sundance in 2005.

“‘Victoria’ floored me,” said Rosalee Cabrera, director of the Chicano Latino Resource Center. “The way he communicates the reality of people is very harsh. You can’t watch it and not have your humanity jarred.” 

Following the success of the short, Fukunaga was asked to submit a script to the Sundance Lab. This intense workshop program led him to create “Sin Nombre,” his NYU thesis and first feature film.

“Sin Nombre,” written in Spanish, tells the story of Sayra, a Honduran girl who migrates with her uncle and father to Tapachula, Mexico. There she meets Casper, a Tapachulan gang member. Seeking a better life in the United States, the two join other immigrants as they migrate through Mexico atop trains.

To research for the film, Fukunaga traveled alongside immigrants on trains through Mexico, an experience he says he couldn’t have written or directed the film without.

“Some bandits attacked our train the first night,” Fukunaga said. “I found out much later that they killed a Guatemalan immigrant on the train and threw him off.”

Fukunaga and his cast and crew spent a total of four weeks in Mexico City and over two weeks on the road heading south to the Guatemalan border to shoot the movie. 

“It was really cool for the towns to have a film shoot come there where real immigrants were traveling, and for the crew to see that what we were doing was so close to reality,” Fukunaga said. “People confusing cast and crew for real immigrants was a funny, curious event.” 

While the film focuses on immigration, Fukunga insists that “Sin Nombre” was not made with a political agenda in mind. Instead, he said that his intent was to create empathy for both the good and bad characters in the story while sharing the experience of a journey with viewers.

“It is a human story about immigration,” said Maurice Peel, the advertising and publicity manager at the Nickelodeon Theater. “It didn’t feel like it had an imposed political message.” 

Despite his reservations about attaching any political commentary to the film, Fukunaga did voice support for the UC system’s practice of allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition under Assembly Bill 540. 

“I used to mentor kids in L.A. and there were so many issues with them not being able to get any kind of financial aid to go to school, even though they lived their entire lives in L.A.,” Fukunaga said. “They definitely weren’t Mexican anymore, and then suddenly they found they couldn’t get financial aid to go to school. Where else can they go?” 

Fukunga said his next film will probably depart from the socially conscious nature. He spoke of a desire to do something in an entirely different genre — even sci-fi.

He also hinted at the possibility of doing a musical with Zachary Condon of Beirut, describing the story as a “two guys in love with one girl — classic love triangle.” Additionally, he is currently writing an “unrequited love story” that was inspired by his life in the College Eight dorms during his first year at UCSC. 

Fukunaga, whose mother is Swedish and father is Japanese, hopes he will be able to make movies around the world. 

“I’m not opposed to doing another Spanish-language film,” said Fukunaga, whose third language is Spanish — French, which he studied at UCSC and while studying in France his third year, is his second. “I just don’t even think about the borders really. I mean, if I see a cool story taking place somewhere, I do my best to learn the language.” 

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“Sin Nombre” opens at the Nickelodeon Theater this Friday.