Carlos is a former Mexican aristocrat, now-undocumented college student living in Orange County. He longs for the privileged life he once had in Guadalajara and keeps his immigrant status a secret in fear of being grouped with “those other Mexicans,” as his relatives would put it. A spring-break trip to Rosarito with Austin, his politically incorrect American sidekick, provides the perfect opportunity to head south of the border, go out with a bang, and bid farewell to the struggles of a life he never wanted.
A “Backwards Immigrant Story”
Back in the early 2000s, while I was living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant, my uncle offered me a job in Mazatlán, México. I didn’t take that job, but I always wondered what it would have been like to leave my family behind to pursue that opportunity. Carlos, the protagonist of Alta California, gets to go on that journey.
As with many no-budget films, the making of this movie was as eventful as the movie itself. From the production crew being held up at gunpoint, to our only mode of transportation breaking down in the middle of the desert during an unexpected flash flood, getting this movie to the finish line is something we are very proud of.
Shot all over California and the Northern Baja Peninsula, Alta California is a bilingual dramedy primarily about privilege. Latinos in the United States are often portrayed as the victims of discrimination, but this movie explores the social divide within the Latin community itself. Carlos goes back to a more modest, rural Mexico he’s never known before, meets the people he has looked down on all his life, and rediscovers his own culture and sense of self in a treacherous journey he never saw coming.