Roots to Reel
Filmmaker Sal Baldenegro draws on his Chicano and Yaqui heritage to illuminate overlooked histories and expand the possibilities of documentary and narrative storytelling.
Photo provided by Sal Baldenegro
For Sal Baldenegro ’06, his journey as a storyteller begins in the Sonoran Desert. “It’s a special place. I’m always recommending people take advantage of the many ways to get involved in the local communities here.”
It isn’t just the historical, sun-drenched landscape of the Southwest that informs much of Baldenegro’s work, but his background as a Chicano and Yaqui writer, too. With a degree from the University of Arizona’s School of Theatre, Film & Television, Baldenegro draws on these facets of his upbringing to use storytelling as a tool for transformation. Plus, he says, “Everything I learned in Professor [Yuri] Makino’s Directing for the Screen course.”
In his documentary commissioned for the PBS “Nova” series, “Harvesting the Future,” Baldenegro sheds light on traditional Tohono O’odham methods of harvesting rainwater and how they could help in the fight against the climate crisis. His work, however, tends not to settle on just one topic or field. Other ventures include a conspiracy thriller, “Frequency,” about a New York City professor who must battle a tech billionaire to stop his plan for world domination.
“Filmmaking can seem glamorous, but it’s mostly a lot of very long days (and nights),” he says. “My degree gave me a strong foundation, though. It really gave me the tools that I needed to develop my own creative process.”