The College of the Desert Foundation held a special screening of the film “Invisible Valley” at the Palm Springs Cultural Center on Dec. 4. COD students were granted free admission to the event.
Before the screening, former Palm Springs Mayor and current member of the Board of Directors for the COD Foundation, Robert Moon, held a Q&A with the director, writer and editor of the film, Aaron Maurer and Mary Ingebrand-Pohlad, the executive producer, who was also featured in the film.
The theater was full. Many COD students were in attendance, as well as members of the COD Foundation Board of Directors and the Interim COD President, Laura Hope. In addition to Moon, many elected officials were also in attendance, including Jan Pye, Mary Jane Sanchez and Shayra Hernandez, who works for the office of Representative Raul Ruiz. At the end of the event, Hernandez, who is a former immigrant farm worker herself, presented certificates to Maurer and Ingebrand-Pohlad on behalf of Congressman Ruiz.
QR codes were posted on the screen before and after the screening to donate to EDGE/pLEDGE and the Dreamer Resource Center at COD. After the event, Scholarship Administrative Specialist for the COD Foundation, Juli Maxwell, handed out stickers of different fruits grown and picked here in the Coachella Valley. The back of the stickers had a question: What would our Valley look like without the hands that harvest its abundance? There was also a QR code on the back of the stickers that takes you to a donation site.
“Invisible Valley” tells the story of a community in contrast. The film focuses on undocumented farm workers, “Snowbirds,” and musical festival attendees all in the Coachella Valley. The film takes place over the course of a year, and shows the different lives people live throughout the different seasons, and how they interact with one another.
The title “Invisible Valley” is metaphoric in nature, and represents the communities that might be invisible to each other.
“There were some people when we sort of premiered the movie that thought maybe the title ‘Invisible Valley’ just was talking about the communities out in Mecca, the farm working communities. But you know, from our perspective, ‘Invisible Valley’ really sort of like meant that there were invisible valleys on the sides of the valley that were kind of invisible from each other,” Maurer said.
“There are sort of metaphorical invisible valleys all throughout our country. The fact that so many groups of people can form an opinion about another group of people without knowing them really, there’s so much empathy we sort of lose in the gap. And I think we were trying to challenge that most of all,” he continued.
The film focuses on the community within our community. The production crew of “Invisible Valley” spent years making the film. They filmed hundreds of hours of footage, and in doing so immersed themselves in the Coachella Valley and Hispanic community.
“We all have the same hopes and dreams for our children, and for me, immersing myself in the Hispanic culture, I have never seen a group that is more family oriented, faith based, and hardworking. I think that was a huge turning point for me,” Ingebrand-Pohlad said.
Maurer’s advice to current students or recent graduates looking to go into filmmaking is to just go out there and do it. “It’s never been easier to film things,” he said.
He advises to look inward. Things within your community or the place that you grew up in might seem normal or boring to you, but they’re not to other people. Find the beauty in the mundane.
“Be curious about the things that you maybe take for granted. The things that you’re so used to you don’t necessarily see as unique,” Maurer said.
Along with documenting what might seem normal to you, document as much as you can.
“Documenting anything and everything that you think is interesting…There’s so much interest that can be gathered from the little things in the world,” he said.
“Invisible Valley” has won titles at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
