Sundance Review: American Pachuco - The Legend of Luis Valdez

  • January 23, 2026
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On Thursday, the final Utah edition of the Sundance Film Festival kicked off 11 days of movies and events before relocating to Colorado next year. Gavin Dahl has more.

You know Sundance is underway when you bump into celebrities without even trying. Right away on Day One, I met writer director Judd Apatow. We and a couple hundred other lucky filmgoers witnessed Edward James Olmos and Lou Diamond Phillips up close and personal. The beloved actors came to Utah for the world premiere of the new documentary American Pachuco, the Legend of Luis Valdez. Documentarian David Alvarado shared brief remarks before the screening.

ALVARADO JOY CLIP: “There’s a lot of joy in this film, there’s a lot of joy in creation, in art, in storytelling, performance arts, and so I really wanted to make this film something joyful.”

He delivered. Alvarado’s film, narrated by Edward James Olmos, tells the incredible story of playwright and film director Luis Valdez. He co-founded Teatro Campesino in the 1960s, adding theatricality to successful farmworker organizing efforts led by his close friends Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Later Zuit Soot became the first smash hit of Chicano theater in the U.S. 

Valdez brought it from the grape fields of California all the way to Broadway in New York in the late 70s. Then he turned the play into a feature film starring Edward James Olmos as a Pachuco, an iconic youth subculture created by Mexican Americans in the 1930s, later victimized by white sailors and soldiers over several days of violence at a public park in East LA in 1943. 

His next film La Bamba starring Lou Diamond Phillips as the singer Richie Valens earned more than $50 million dollars at the domestic box office, making it the most successful flim ever directed by a Latino filmmaker. We learn in the documentary that Valdez faced racism even from his own crew while filming in Hollywood. American Pachuco explores belonging, identity, injustice, resistance, journalistic malpractice, representation, and what it means to call yourself Chicano.

David Alvarado brings the unmistakable messages of Luis Valdez to the screen with bravado. He artfully mixes archival footage from grape boycotts, theater performances big and small, dramatic clips from the movies, and new sit-down interviews, into a tight runtime. This film charts the ongoing cultural impact of a creative force who deserves to have his name on the biggest marquees in showbiz.

Again, director David Alvarado.

ALVARADO BELONGING CLIP: “Anybody belongs in America. Chicanos belong here too.”

The timely new documentary, American Pachuco, The Legend of Luis Valdez, will be distributed to PBS stations later this year as part of the American Masters series. For KRCL Salt Lake City and Rocky Mountain Community Radio, I’m Gavin Dahl.

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