in 1974
Screenplay and production staff Although numerous books, magazine articles, and scholarly studies have been written about Cesar Chavez,
Chavez is the first feature film about the labor leader. Keir Pearson, who wrote the
Academy Award–nominated screenplay for the 2004 film
Hotel Rwanda, wrote
Chavez. Many writers and producers had tried for years to obtain the rights to Chavez's life story, but failed. Huerta has expressed her happiness that Dawson took the role. John Malkovich became involved with
Chavez through his role as producer.
Diego Luna convinced him to take the role of an abusive grape-grower. Malkovich agreed to the role because he admired Luna's previous film, and wished to take part in telling an important story about fairness. Actor
Gabriel Mann plays another abusive agricultural producer. Mann says he took the role because he felt it was a timely story that spoke to what happens when workers lack union protections.
Production locations and notes Most of
Chavez was shot in Mexico. In part, Mexico offered much lower production costs, and was where most of the producers lived and worked. But many rural and urban parts of Mexico still look as California did in the 1960s, which proved critical in obtaining a sense of visual realism for the film. A portion of the picture was filmed in Cananea. The city, which is ethnically diverse, was able to provide a large number of
Anglo-looking actors to portray non-Hispanic Americans. Additional locations around Hermosillo were also used. Workers in Hermosillo's numerous Chinese restaurants were recruited to portray the
Filipino agricultural workers whom Chavez also sought to organize. The city's
Art Deco public library served as the headquarters of one of the large agricultural companies that Chavez dealt with, and a field outside Hermosillo served as a farm near
Delano, California. Scenes in grape fields were filmed in vineyards in the Mexican state of
Sonora, where grape-growers still drape grape vines over wooden crosses, as Californians did in the 1960s. The production built shacks in the Sonoran grape fields to replicate the housing of migrant workers in California in the 1960s. The shooting in the Sonoran grape fields was difficult. The production was afflicted with dust storms and a tremendous number of insects. It was also terribly hot, and several actors collapsed on the set from
dehydration. Historical accuracy was important to the filmmakers. In addition to choosing locations which looked like California in the 1960s, actors were taught to speak in a
Chicano dialect typical of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dialect coach Claudia Vazquez says that dialect is very different from the Spanish and Spanish-inflected English spoken by many Mexican Americans in California today. The film has a production budget of $10 million, nearly all of which came from Mexican investors. == Reception ==