Severo Perez Papers

Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1941, acclaimed filmmaker Severo Perez earned his B.A. in American Literature and Contemporary History from the University of Texas. Perez moved to Los Angeles in 1972 to pursue a career in the motion picture industry. His productions have won more than 50 awards, including three CINE Golden Eagles. Perez is also an accomplished playwright and novelist.

Perez began working in theater in 1974, teaming up with legendary actress Carmen Zapata to translate and adapt the Mexican play Los desarraigados (Uprooted) for American audiences. Later, Perez became playwright-in-residence at El Teatro Campesino, where he wrote Soldierboy with his wife, Judith Perez. That play is based on Perez’s own personal story in San Antonio as the son of a returning U.S. soldier after World War II. Soldierboy has been staged around the country and appears in the 1989 anthology Necessary Theater: Six Plays About the Chicano Experience. Perez’s credits as a dramatist also include Speaking of Cats, inspired by Tejana activist Emma Tenayuca and the 1938 pecan shellers strike in San Antonio.

Perez’s 1995 film, …and the earth did not swallow him, is adapted from Tomás Rivera’s classic 1971 Chicano novel, …y no se lo tragó la tierra, and follows the lives of a South Texas family of migrant farmworkers in the 1950s. Perez’s nuanced, powerful film beautifully evokes the substance and spirit of Rivera’s work, and it has won international critical acclaim, including top honors at film festivals worldwide. Some of these honors include the Gold Medal at the 12th Annual Television Movie Awards in 1997, Jury Award at Vina del Mar (Chile) International Film Festival in 1996, Sol Award CineSol at the 1995 Latino Film Festival, Best Feature at the San Diego Independent Film Festival in 1994 and the Minneapolis Rivertown Film Festival in 1995, Best of the Fest Audience Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 1994, and Jury Award for Best Director at the Cairo International Film Festival in 1994.

In 1998, Perez finished a documentary, Willa Brown: An American Aviator, about a remarkable woman—a pioneering African American pilot who took to the air in the 1930s and defied Jim Crow laws. Her efforts led to Congress forming the renowned Tuskegee Airmen squadron. The film is currently distributed by Filmakers Library.

Perez’s other films include a documentary on artist Carmen Lomas Garza: Carmen Lomas Garza: Looking Back; a family drama about a high school girl’s desire to attend college, Dreams of Flying; a documentary about dancer-choreographer Rudy Perez, Countdown: Reflections on a Life in Dance, an adaptation of Mark Twain's The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County; a feature film on Tejano hero Juan Seguin; a documentary about immigrants in Southern California, There Goes the Neighborhood; an animated film about the history of writing, Astronauts and Jelly Beans; a drama about AIDS for young teens, Between Friends, a documentary about four retired African American men, Elders; as well as short documentaries on a wide range of subjects, including La Raza Unida’s 1960s political uprising in Crystal City, Texas. He also negotiated the deal at Universal Studios that allowed Luiz Valdez to direct the film version of Zoot Suit.

In 2012 Perez published his first novel, The Challengers Aero Club, inspired by his documentary on aviator Willa Brown and other pioneering African American pilots in the early 20th century. The book was praised by Kirkus as “an engaging, thorough novel about forgotten heroes of aviation history.”