Filmmaker tells tales of Mexican Yucatan history

by Yvonne Teems
Staff Writer

Jesse Lerner has immersed himself in the art of filmmaking and has returned to the surface dripping with titles such as filmmaker, media arts curator, writer and professor.

Lerner will speak and show “An American Egypt” at 7 p.m. Sunday at The Ridges Auditorium as part of the Athens International Film and Video Festival.

As a filmmaker, Lerner has investigated Mexican culture as well as U.S.-Mexican relations.

“I think in terms of the art world, he's made significant contributions about bringing to the table Latino sensibility and Latino questions,” said Ruth Bradley, director of the Athens Center for Film and Video and Lerner's friend.

Lerner could not be reached for comment.

Bradley said ideas about U.S.-Mexican relations in history, culture, people and art are expressed in Lerner's film, ••An American Egypt••. The film investigates the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula's history through diaries and essays of North Americans who have traveled to the area.

“He's an artist, and he's interrogating (North Americans’) preconceptions about Mexico and about our relationship to the south,” Bradley said. “He's using film and video to reinvestigate how we define ourselves and how we define our neighbors.”

Lerner also delves into the role of teacher in his assistant professorship at Pitzer College, a Claremont College near Los Angeles, Calif. Colleague EricOtto, assistant director for media studies at Pitzer College, said Lerner’s students appreciate his ideas and gain an interest in the stories of those disenfranchised in the mass media.        

“He's popular with the students,” Otto responded in an e-mail message.

In telling these stories, colleague and filmmaker Ruben Ortiz Torres said

Lerner instills confidence in film subjects, respecting and identifying with them.

“It's very clear he is able to develop the trust of the people he interviews, and these people come from very different backgrounds and political points of view and different positions,” he said.

Ortiz Torres said Lerner's documentaries address issues of fair portrayal of cultures.

“He's interested in fair representation of history and questioning the representation of history,” he said. “I think that's a unique contribution.”