Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life). 1994. USA. Written and directed by Allison Anders. With Angel Aviles, Seidy López, Jacob Vargas. 35mm print courtesy of the Allison Anders Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. 92 min.
“You don’t ever throw down with your homegirl over a guy.” Told in chapters from different perspectives, Allison Anders’s Mi Vida Loca chronicles the lives and loves of gang members in LA’s Echo Park neighborhood. Centering on a pair of cholas—childhood friends Mona and Marivel (aka “Sad Girl” and “Mousie”)—who turn rivals after having the same man’s baby, the film tells multiple stories about the intertwined lives of gang members and their neighborhood conflicts. Anders gives an honest, loving portrayal of these characters, many played by nonactors, and the generational changes affecting Echo Park. In fact, members of the Echo Park Locas served as consultants throughout the production, helping to make Mi Vida Loca a strikingly authentic portrait of 1990s East Los Angeles.
On March 15, Marya E. Gates will be signing copies of her new book, Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words in the Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Lauder lobby between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm.