Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year.
The seven-day festival kicks off Saturday, March 1 with a talk and readings by a former Texas state poet laureate. Days later, a UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus will discuss his book about the scourge of housing discrimination. The next day, an artist and longtime Merced resident will share his graphic novel about an immigrant family.
To be sure, the festival also has films. Lots of films. For the first time, these include work from Central Valley creators who answered a call for submissions.
Todo Cambia runs through March 7 at locations at UC Merced and in downtown Merced. All events are free to attend.
The theme of this year’s festival is “Beyond Approval.” Yehuda Sharim, the event’s artistic director and a UC Merced professor of media and performance studies, explained:
“Sometimes, when we are in a creative process, we look for others to approve of us. Our aim is to create a space where we’re not waiting for approval. We are shaping our vision and listening to our communities. With that, we shape our sense of justice, especially when laws do not necessarily represent justice.”
Highlights of the festival (here's a full schedule, plus a form to RSVP for specific events):
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On opening night at The Mainzer in downtown Merced, ire’ne lara silva, prize-winning author of poetry and short stories, will read from recent works and talk about the power of exploring creativity without fear. The 2023 Texas state poet laureate also wrote “Venderal,” a graphic novel.
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The festival’s first call for work by Valley filmmakers attracted about 120 submissions. A quarter were selected for screenings, which will begin at 1 p.m. March 2 at the Mainzer. “They are all beautiful visions and portraits,” Sharim said, “most of them created by UC Merced students as well as students from Fresno and Sacramento.”
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In 2006, two brothers were sentenced to San Quentin Prison’s Death Row in the 1995 killing of five people at Pato’s Place, a bar in the San Joaquin Valley city of Tulare. Allegations of mishandled evidence and prosecutorial misconduct, along with the questionable motivations of the prosecution’s star witness, have haunted the case. “Reasonable Doubts,” a three-channel video experience created by Sharon Daniel, makes a case for the exoneration of one of the brothers, Timothy James Young. “Reasonable Doubts” will be shown at 1 p.m. March 3 in UC Merced’s COB2 390.
