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The Do List

It's Your Last Chance to See the Archival Footage of ‘Mission Love’ at the Roxie

Alan Chazaro
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a Latina woman holds a child in a San Francisco park, circa 1970s
A woman holds a child in the San Francisco Mission during a community event in the early 1970s, in a still from the program 'Mission Love.' (Roxie Theater)

“Brown people from the Mission, this is our little history here,” says Ray Balberan of Mission Media Archives, in the trailer for Mission Love, while holding an original can of 16mm footage.

The Chicano filmmaker’s latest project opened at the Roxie Theater on Jan. 27, and will have one final screening on Sunday, Feb. 18.

A compilation of four short films — which includes the work of Latinx filmmakers and community activists Vero Majano, Debra Koffler and Loriz “Ginger” Godines — serves as a time capsule into the early 1970s, when, in the words of Balberan, “young people took to the streets in the struggle to gain access to the broadcast airwaves to serve the community, share our own views, and create systematic change around issues like empowerment, poverty, youth employment, police brutality, and racial discrimination.”

The short films utilize footage taken between 1972 to 1973 that appear in each of the four shorts: The Family; Mission Streets; Back on the Streets; and Mission Coalition Organization Demonstration and Press Conference.

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The sepia-toned, black and white, grainy-color footage from each film creates a mixtape-like montage of iconic institutions and community members from a bygone era. During a time of social upheaval, including the Vietnam War in a post-Civil Rights America, the films focus on the fabric of family, community and rebellious youth movements that held the Mission together — in ways that propelled progress with poetry, protests and public music gatherings.

Among the more hyperlocal issues, the final short film “Mission Coalition Organization Demonstration and Press Conference” follows protestors’ reaction to the sudden cancellation of KQED’s Mission and 24th Street program. Having originally premiered in 1970, the program provided training for neighborhood residents in film and television. An issue of censorship is said to have caused the cancellation, which initially featured Balberan’s Mission Mediarts as part of the show’s production.

In many ways, Mission Love is a reclamation — what may once have been censored is now essential viewing.

‘Mission Love’ will be shown for the final time at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., SF) on Sun., Feb. 18 at 6 p.m. Tickets available here.

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