With a month to go before US elections, Mexican filmmakers speak out against Trump

Just a month before the presidential elections in the United States, Mexican filmmakers are mobilizing to prevent Donald Trump from moving into the Oval Office for the next four years. Actor and director Diego Luna has urged Latinos to register to vote on November 8 against the Republican candidate. “I hope this will be the election when the Latin American community comes out, registers, votes and makes it clear that its voice counts,” he told EFE news agency in Paris. He also confessed that he was in a “panic” over how much support the Republican candidate’s positions have received.

Trump’s popularity among Latinos has been on the decline, especially among women, because of his sexist remarks

Luna is the latest in a long list of filmmakers to speak out against the property magnate. They include director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who maintains a long and contentious feud with the New York millionaire and wrote an op-ed against him for EL PAÍS; screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga; director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki; and actors Eugenio Derbez, Gael García Bernal, Ana de la Reguera, Demián Bichir, Salma Hayek and Jacquie Bracamontes, among others. In July, more than 121 Hollywood stars signed a manifesto denouncing the GOP candidate’s racism. According to Latino Decisions, a research center that focuses on Latino political opinion, Trump’s popularity among Latinos has been on the decline, especially among women, because of his sexist remarks.

The Mexican filmmaker also said he hopes the response in the United States will prove that there is “that whole other sector of the population that has enough common sense to understand how dangerous it is for rhetoric like Trump’s to keep gaining ground.” Luna also urged people to take action abroad and avoid events like the recent meeting between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City, which he said “validates the rhetoric.”

Luna calls for a response from “all those sane people who believe that we must celebrate diversity, that we must see ourselves as part of something larger and that borders do not define [humanity].”

The director did not just call on Americans to take action. He also pointed out that Brexit and the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe “are revealing a level of hate and tremendous racism.” “The world is going crazy and it seems like those of us who are not crazy do not have a voice. I hope that there will be a strong reaction because that’s what is needed to face a guy like Trump,” he concluded.

English version by Dyane Jean François.