New Film on Cesar Chavez in the Works!

I received an email from director Dieter Heisig about a new biographical film on Cesar Chavez in production right now! Finally! Here is the press release:

Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott of the late 1960s will be the subjects of a new feature film to be produced by German production company MN Visionen. “This is a long overdue project on one of America’s great heros – the man who fought for the underdog, and who first popularized the famous phrase in the recent US presidential election: ‘Yes, we can!’,” said MN Visionen head Dieter Heisig. During the 1960s and 70s, Cesar Chavez – an American migrant worker and union organizer – helped create and lead the United Farm Workers Union. Using methods of non-violence protest inspired by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, Chavez and the movement labored against phenomenal odds under the slogan “Si, se puede!”. His fasts and the famous March on Sacramento in 1966 were honored by many, including Robert F. Kennedy, while the Grape Boycott received international attention. The completed screenplay for this powerful film is based on the contemporary biography Cesar Chavez: Man of the Migrants by Jeanne Pitrone. It tells the story of a man and a movement dedicated to gaining the same civil rights for migrant workers as for all other American workers. It is estimated that well over a million U.S. citizens are still employed today as migrant workers under bleak conditions, many of them children.

MN Visionen is a newly formed independent German production company. Company head Dieter Heisig has worked as a producer and publicist for countless film, music and television productions in Germany, France and Austria.

For more information on the directer, go here (for those who read German).