About the Filmmakers

Rita Hargrave – Director/Producer/Writer
Rita is dancer, dancer teacher and dance historian and geriatric psychiatrist.  She is the founder of salsaroots.com,  San Francisco Bay Area based website devoted to the Afro-Cuban, Afro-Puerto Rican and African American roots of salsa dancing. This is her first feature film.

Reginald D. Brown – Co-director, Co-producer/Writer
Reginald D. Brown is a Director member of the Directors Guild of America, Inc. and an accomplished Television Writer in the Writers Guild of America, west. His Reginald Brown Productions is a Signatory Company with the Directors Guild of America, Inc and SAG/AFTRA.

Currently, he is serving as a Co-writer and Co-Director on The Last Mambo, A historical documentary about the evolution of Latin Jazz and Salsa Dance Fanatics in the San Francisco Bay area.

Reginald is the Writer/Producer/Director of A Profile in Courage: Linda L. Smith, a documentary about the CEO and founder of Four-D College, the only African American owned Vocational Nursing School in the State of California.  It is Based on Ms. Smith’s 3 Volume Journal, “Love Letters To The Lord.” 

Reginald produced and directed the Award Winning Witness to a Dream, a feature documentary about Universal Publishing Music Executive Tom Sturges and the Los Angeles based Foshay Learning Center Choir.

Paul Kealoha Blake – Producer/Videographer/Editor
Paul is  a Hawaiian storyteller, independent producer and co-founder of East Bay Media Center, a 501(c)3 Non-profit Corporation established in Berkeley, California in 1980. The. By providing technical and educational media needs to communities in the East Bay, In 1991, Paul with co-founder Mel Valpour launched the Berkeley Video and Film Festival.  Paul is a tireless educator and Media advocate for community involvement, especially for marginalized youth and minorities. He has an extensive history in the production and promotion of documentary films.

Wayne Wallace – Associate Producer/Trombonist/Composer/Arranger
Five-time Grammy nominee, WAYNE WALLACE, is one of the most respected exponents of African American-Latin music in the world today. He is known for the use of traditional forms and styles in combination with contemporary music, and has earned recognition with his recent placement in the Downbeat Critics Polls under the trombone and producer categories.  Mr. Wallace is an accomplished arranger, educator, and composer with compositions for film and television. He has also received grants from the Creative Work Fund, the National Endowments for the Arts,the Lila Wallace Foundation, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Mr. Wallace has performed, recorded and studied with acknowledged masters of the Afro-Latin and jazz idioms such as Aretha Franklin, Bobby Hutcherson, Earth Wind and Fire, Pete Escovedo, Santana, Julian Priester, Conjunto Libre, Whitney Houston,Tito Puente, Steve Turre, John Lee Hooker, Con-funk-shun, Francisco Aguabella, Manny Oquendo and Libre, Max Roach, the Count Basie Orchestra and Orestes Vilató.

Jesse “Chuy” Varela – Special Consultant
Chuy is the music director at KCSM FM 91, the Bay Area’s jazz station, and has written for the SF Chronicle, Latin Beat, Jazz Times and numerous other publications. 

Michael DeLorenzo – Narrator
Michael DeLorenzo is a multi-talented veteran of the entertainment industry. Born and raised in Bronx, New York, he began performing as a young dancer with Tina Ramirez's Ballet Hispanico. Michael has received scholarships from the School of American Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, and the New York School of Ballet. He danced alongside Rudolph Nureyev with the National Ballet of Canada, as well as with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the American Ballet Theatre. Due to a serious knee injury while dancing, Michael was forced to leave the world of professional ballet. He took the circumstance as an opportunity to jump into the world of acting. Michael is an alumnus of the Lincoln Square Academy and the Manhattan-based High School of the Performing Arts, made famous in the film and television series Fame.

Michael is a multi-talented musician. He is a vocalist, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. Michael’s songs appear in various soundtracks and his debut music album was titled Rescue Me. Michael is currently in the studio creating new music for his next upcoming album. michaeldelorenzo.com

Manuel Tsingaris - Editor
Manuel has been an editor for over twenty years consistently bringing an intuitive sense of story telling and a deft aesthetic style to films that are placed in his hands. A believer in the writer's adage, "you get to the head through the heart", to Manuel, the story is paramount. This was recognized in 2014 after editing the feature documentary Alive Inside when it was honored with the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Sundance.Other recent works include, The Latino Americans, a 6-hour PBS mini-series retelling US history through a Latin lens which won a Peabody Award, and the award winning documentary, Purgatorio, a poetic fable exploring the beauty and brutality of the US/Mexico Border. Most recently, Dogtown Redemption, a film about the homeless recycling community in West Oakland, was featured nationwide on PBS/Independent Lens.

Additional Editors
Carl Pfirman
Quinn Costello
Erik Rosenbluth

Camera/Audio
Paul Kealoha Blake
Larry Gerald
Carlos Betancourt
Snitow and Kaufman Productions
Ian Leyda

Animation
David Murray

Archival Research
Elizabeth Pepin Silva
The Rights Workshop

Music Licensing and Clearance
Elizabeth Pepin Silva
The Rights Workshop

Photographers
Ray Avery@CSesso
David Belove
Tom Ehrlich
Patrick Hickey
Larry Gerald
Ian Leyda
Peter Maiden
Bruce Polansky
Debra Zeller

Archival Photographic/Film Collections
Harrod Blank
Jose Barroso
Budget Films
Bobi Cespedes
Ceci Chevere
Critical Past
Footage
El Tecolote
Pete Escovedo
Frank Espada
Getty Images
Roger Glenn
Patrick Hickey
Ruben Hurtado
istock  Photos
Steve Jackson Jr.
E.F. Joseph
David Johnson
Wesley Johnson
KQED Archives
La Peña Cultural Center
LaWanna Taylor
Library of Congress
Henry Medina
Oakland Museum of California
Oddball Films
Photofest
Plazacuba
Photofest
Pond 5
Pinderhughes Family
Elizabeth Pepin Silva
Walter Wagner
Wayne Wallace
Wolfgang’s Vault
Orestes Vilato

Videoclips

Les Blank
Plazacuba
Ceci Chevere Collection
Carlos Betancourt
Arturo Riera
Daytrotter
Arturo Riera Collection
Archives.org
Critical Past.com
Patrick Hickey

Sound Design
Gary Mankin

Transcription
Purple Lynx

Reproduction Services
Digital Roots Studio
ScanArt

Marketing, Design & Film Poster
Sheryl Lynn Thomas

Website
Fantabulous Ink
Sheryl Lynn Thomas