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Feb. 12, 2015 – Director Richard Ray Perez will screen his documentary “Cesar’s Last Fast” on Thursday, February 19 in the Tillotson Room of the Tippie Alumni Center at Allegheny College. Perez will follow the 5:30 p.m. screening with a talk.

The public is invited to this free event in Allegheny College’s Year of Voting Rights and Democratic Participation, which celebrates the 50th anniversary in 2015 of the Voting Rights Act and explores the state of voting rights, broadly defined, in the world today.

A multi-platform feature film, “Cesar’s Last Fast” explores the private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind Cesar Chavez’s struggle for the humane treatment of America’s farm workers, as well as the impact Chavez’s legacy has on today’s generation of organizers fighting for the rights of farm workers.

An official selection of the 2014 Sundance Festival, the documentary is built around powerful, never-before-seen footage of Chavez’s 1988 “Fast for Life,” a 36-day act of what he described as penance for not having done enough to stop growers from spraying pesticides on farm workers.

Richard Ray Perez also is the executive producer for the documentary series “In Their Boots,” a series about the impact the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are having on communities across America. He also produced and directed the seminal political documentary “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election,” and he was the co-executive producer of “The Freedom Files, Season II,” a nine-episode documentary series about the impact civil liberties violations have on the daily lives of real people.

More information on the Year of Voting Rights and Democratic Participation, the academic centerpiece of the college’s bicentennial celebration, can be found at www.allegheny.edu/200.