Park takes center stage in 'Quince'

LOS ANGELES — The film "Quinceanera” was inspired by its 114-year-old star.

Echo Park, founded in 1892, is one of L.A.’s oldest neighborhoods. Before Hollywood was born, this community of 25,000 just north of downtown was the city’s filmmaking capital. For decades, it was a mostly Hispanic, working-class neighborhood. In recent years, it’s become a trendy enclave and real estate hot spot.

Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland moved from West Hollywood to Echo Park five years ago. Inspired by their neighborhood and their neighbors, the two made "Quinceanera” (the name for a traditional rite of passage for 15-year-old Hispanic girls) to pay tribute to the area’s historic architecture and rich cultural heritage, noting the ongoing gentrification that threatens both.

"There are such different realities next door to each other,” says Glatzer, 54, who experienced his first quinceanera at his neighbor’s house in 2004. "We started talking about a movie about a gentrifying neighborhood. And we thought the quinceanera would be a perfect way to structure it because it’s a coming-of-age ceremony and the neighborhood’s kind of evolving as well, not necessarily in the most positive way.”

"Quinceanera,” which took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival this year, tells the story of a girl ostracized by her family after she becomes pregnant shortly before her 15th birthday.

She forms an unlikely alliance with her cousin Carlos, a street tough exiled from his family for being gay, and her great-uncle Tomas, a kindhearted man who spends his days selling champurrado (a Mexican hot-chocolate drink) and tending his elaborate garden.

Glatzer and Westmoreland hoped to tell a universal story that reflects the people and the vibe of this little L.A. community.

"We’re the first white couple on this block, we’re the first gay couple on this block but there was no resistance,” says Westmoreland, 40.

"People were very open and friendly and we got to know our neighbors, so the movie really grew from that sense of wanting to capture Echo Park on film.”

Their neighbors were beyond cooperative.

They brought tamales for the cast and crew, including vegan varieties for one vegetarian star.

They tolerated trucks filling the streets for three weeks straight and generators running late into the night. They stayed with friends to allow their houses to be featured on film. One man even let the filmmakers paint his kitchen "a really horrible pink,” Westmoreland says.

Melvin Villalobos, who lives across the street, loaned his front porch and backyard for a few key scenes.

"We said paint the whole house if you want,” he says. "Just put it back when you’re done.”

Lifelong Echo Park resident Liz Ryan, who lives next door, didn’t just open her home to film crews, she inspired one of the its characters: a tolerant woman who understands the value of diversity and community.

"We’ve definitely seen a lot of changes in the area,” says Ryan, 31. "Change is a good thing if it brings people like Wash and Richard who have a love of culture. So many people have come here over the generations and added their little bit to Los Angeles, so it becomes this fantastic mix of things.”

Other scenes in "Quinceanera” show a tiny local church, a bench in the neighborhood park that offers views of downtown and one of the many sprawling staircases that date back generations, before cars dominated city streets.

The garden scenes were filmed at the home of the filmmakers’ friend — and gardener — landscaper Alberto Hernandez.

And then there is the reality of gentrification. Glatzer and Westmoreland made their movie in April 2005. Their house served as the crew’s headquarters and they filmed most of the central scenes at the house next door. Shortly after production wrapped, their neighbors — a family who lived there for decades — were evicted.

The house was leveled. Four condos are taking its place.

"They were really nice neighbors and they just got booted out,” Glatzer says. "I think they moved to South Central. They couldn’t afford to live around here.”

It’s happening all over the country, says actor Chalo Gonzalez, who plays the great-uncle Tio Tomas.

Many immigrants "don’t have a good education,” he says. "They don’t make very much and they can’t afford these rents.”

Westmoreland says "Quinceanera” shows the other side of a hot real-estate market. But it also shows how time shapes tradition, culture and the notion of community.

"There’s a chance, when communities are mixing, for people to learn a lot about each other and for prejudices to break down,” he says.

"Without the support of our neighbors and our community, we never could have done this.”<