S.F. poet Alejandro Murguia stars in new documentary, and the Mission gets its close-up

"The timing wasn't planned, but the contrast between Keeper of the Fire, a documentary premiering on Friday, Jan. 24, at the Brava Theater, and the current administration is impossible to ignore. As the Trump administration targets Latino immigrants and pushes a narrative of "one nation, one culture," Keeper of the Fire offers something else entirely: a vision of the Mission's poetic resistance and the communities it celebrates."

"The 12-year labor of love is a documentary about poet and activist Alejandro Murguía - founding member and first director of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, two-time American Book Award winner, and San Francisco's poet laureate emeritus (2013-2017). But the film, directed by Louis F. Dematteis, is also a portrait of the Mission - and San Francisco. Poets like Juan Felipe Herrera, Roberto Vargas, the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ernesto Cardenal, share space with archival footage from the Mission, Nicaragua, and beyond."

"Born in North Hollywood, raised in Mexico City, Murguía remembers arriving back to California as a child who spoke no English. "I came back as an immigrant," he says. "I have both the power and confidence of being native born and I understand the experience of an immigrant who arrives not knowing any English." That dual perspective-insider and outsider, native and immigrant-runs through everything Murguía creates. His work spans poetry, short stories, and anthologies of Central American and Mayan verse."

Keeper of the Fire is a 12-year documentary that profiles poet and activist Alejandro Murguía and the Mission District's cultural life. Alejandro Murguía is a founding member and first director of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, a two-time American Book Award winner, and San Francisco's poet laureate emeritus. The film, directed by Louis F. Dematteis, combines contemporary footage, archival material, and appearances by poets such as Juan Felipe Herrera, Roberto Vargas, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Ernesto Cardenal. The documentary connects local struggles in the Mission to broader international movements and frames cultural persistence as resistance to exclusionary rhetoric.

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