In the summer of 2008, Carlos Aguilar put on a purple cap and gown and headed out for what should have been an entirely joyous occasion.
With a 4.0 GPA, he was salutatorian of his class at Bell High School — no small feat for someone who’d come to the U.S. in ninth grade, without speaking English. Aguilar was also an aspiring director, and he’d been admitted to the top-ranked school of film/video at CalArts. In spite of these accomplishments, his graduation ceremony was bittersweet.
Aguilar’s aunt and cousins were there to support him, but his brother and his parents were in Mexico City, about 2,000 miles away.
When he looked to the future, he felt disheartened. Aguilar is an undocumented immigrant and, at the time, he didn’t qualify for federal or state financial aid. It was up to him to cover his college expenses, and he couldn’t afford to pay for any university.
“I don't think anyone could have given me any word of encouragement,” he said.
Today, Aguilar is a respected member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. And when he looks back on his career, he can say that: “Every little thing I did eventually opened the door for something else.”
But, for several years, Aguilar was an exhausted undocumented film student, helping his coworkers clean out the fryer during the night shift. For a long time, he said, “I was unclear as to what the future held, and I was not feeling particularly positive about it.”
“When you're in that moment,” he added, “you have a lot of doubt, and you don't really know what's the right choice.”
Aguilar didn’t know it then, but he would soon be en route to becoming a prolific film critic, with bylines in outlets like Rolling Stone, Variety, and the New York Times.
That journey was nourished by his upbringing in Mexico City and Southeast L.A., then propelled by a film production program at Pasadena City College.
Aguilar’s childhood was marked by books and movies. He grew up in the Gustavo A. Madero borough of Mexico City, a working class neighborhood that’s home to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where millions of people flock every year to pay their respects. Aguilar said he was never among the faithful.
Money was tight, he told LAist, but there were always secondhand books in the family’s studio apartment. His mom, Esther Arriaga, is an avid reader, and she instilled a love of books in her son.
At school, Aguilar read voraciously and drew the attention of Maestra Alejandra, a substitute teacher and librarian. She encouraged Aguilar to sign up for writing and oratory contests, which bolstered his confidence in his ability. In fifth grade, his classroom teacher encouraged him to write a play. Aguilar did so. Then, with the help of his classmates, he brought it to life.
“It was always in me to write stories, to create things,” he said. The play, he recalled, was about a man whose boat capsized. The man survived the tragedy, only to find himself on an island that was run by rats.
“It was silly and weird,” he said. Aguilar and his classmates used sawdust to create an island in the middle of the classroom, and all but one of them dressed up as a rodent. Looking back, he’s amazed that he was given the time and space to put on the show.
At home, he and his little brother, Daniel, put on similar performances, complete with costumes, voice changes, and music. In place of supporting actors, they used stuffed animals.
“A lot of people who are into film or who eventually become filmmakers [tend to] have all these memories of, like, ‘When I was a kid, my dad gave me a camera, and we made these movies,’” he said. “This was our version of that. We didn't have a camera — we didn't know anyone who had a camera.”
Aguilar’s parents couldn’t afford luxuries like video games, so when it was his birthday or when he got good grades, he was often treated to a film. By middle school, he was in love. Anytime he managed to save up a few pesos, he added to his bootleg DVD collection. On Fridays, he plopped down to watch a local critic review upcoming films on TV.
On one of those Fridays, the critic reviewed Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, a French romantic comedy centered around a shy, quirky waitress.
The critic “praised the movie as something very unique,” Aguilar said.
Until middle school, Aguilar had mostly watched animated films and Hollywood blockbusters. “Amélie,” he said, had “a different sensibility.” He began to think of cinema as “an art form that could do something different.”
During one of his many trips to the movies, Aguilar stumbled on a contest: If he guessed the winners of the five most popular Oscar categories (best picture, best actor, etc.) that spring, he could get a year of free movies.
Because he was under 18, Aguilar gave the answers to his mom and asked her to submit the entry. They won and, for 365 days, they had unlimited access to every Cinépolis branch in the city.
Sometimes he used the pass multiple times a day, at different theaters. And he routinely made the trek to Cinépolis Diana, to see art house films.
“There were times when I had seen everything that was playing,” he said.
After his year of free movies, Aguilar immigrated to the U.S. alone. An aunt in the city of Cudahy offered to take him in. Aguilar was 13. He started at Crenshaw High School in South L.A. a week later.
“I remember being scared,” he told LAist. At the same time, he added, “I didn't realize the scope of what it meant ... being an immigrant in this country, leaving your family behind, not being able to return.”
“There was not a lot of time for me to, like, even process it,” he said. “And maybe that was for the best, you know? Maybe there was less time to be sad.”
Always a star student in Mexico City, Aguilar suddenly found himself struggling to communicate in L.A. He pushed himself to learn English quickly. He signed up for extra tutoring after school and enrolled at Bell High School as a 10th grader.
“Eventually, I started making friends and got over my fear of speaking English,” he added. And, eventually, Cudahy, Bell, and the rest of Southeast L.A. became home. He and his friends frequented single-screen theaters on Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park.
Those theaters were not pretty, he told LAist. But they were cheap, perfect for teenagers on a budget.
“Me and my friends had a joke that, the moment you walked in, they would give you a bucket and a stick. And the more rats you killed, the more popcorn you got,” he said on the Órale Boyle Heights podcast.
In 11th grade, Aguilar joined an afterschool filmmaking program sponsored by CalArts. It gave students access to MiniDV Camcorders. For Aguilar, that was significant: It was the first time he got to work with a video camera.
With the help of his classmates, Aguilar made music videos with a little animation, along with short films. He entered small, local film festivals and won some awards.
“It was very validating to me that these shorts I was making, without any sort of prior knowledge, were being recognized,” he said. Even so, he had no intention of applying to film school.
“I didn't want to have to explain my situation as an undocumented person,” Aguilar said.
In 2001, California lawmakers signed Assembly Bill 540 into law, giving undocumented students access to in-state tuition. Aguilar had a job at a fast food restaurant in Huntington Park. He resolved to pay his way through as much college as possible.
The California Dream Act Application enables students interested in California colleges, universities, and career education programs to gain access to state financial aid. (It’s unrelated to the federal DACA program.)
You can find more information on state-based financial aid here.
He researched film production programs at local community colleges. A few months after graduating high school, he enrolled at Pasadena City College.
Doing so allowed him “to hold on to the dream of studying filmmaking, even though it was kind of an absurd dream,” he said.
For Aguilar, going to community college was also about taking back some agency. “Being undocumented, you don't have control over a lot of things in your life,” he added.
Because he worked full-time while going to school, it took Aguilar about four years to complete his community college coursework. During those years, he took a bus from Atlantic and Florence in Cudahy, all the way to Colorado and Fairfax in Pasadena. Then, he took another bus to campus. After school, he boarded another bus to his restaurant job. He did homework in transit.
Pasadena City College was the first time Aguilar wasn’t surrounded by people of Latin American descent. His classmates were friendly, he said, but he always kept a certain distance.
“Anyone that's undocumented can understand the hesitation that you have in sharing that part of you,” he said.
It was also tough to make friends at a campus where most students are commuters. But, with time, he became part of a close-knit group of film students, and he reveled in the chance to be among people who shared his interests.
He learned about the Criterion Collection. He learned terms to describe what’s going on in a movie. He had the chance to continue working on shorts. (When he looks at them now, he sometimes cringes, he said. “But, at the time, I was very proud.”)
In the spring of 2012, Aguilar started getting close to completing his required coursework. “I was very much depressed and adrift,” he said. “I didn't know what I would do. Finishing community college was kind of like the end of the line.”
At that point, Aguilar had been working at the fast food restaurant for years. Part of him feared he’d work there forever.
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association offers a scholarship for aspiring film critics who are enrolled at local community colleges.
The association hasn't posted a call for applications yet for 2024. You can learn more about past recipients here.
In August 2012, Aguilar started a blog to write about movies called “Selective Vision.”
“I would go to the movies by myself or with friends and pay for my ticket. And then I’d go back home and write a review for no one, because no one was reading that — not even my friends,” he said.
“I don't know what was the driving force that kept me doing these things,” he told LAist. “I didn't know that it could become something ... There was really no clear sign that it could work out, or that I would be able to make a living doing anything related to film.”
While scrolling through Craigslist one day, Aguilar spotted an ad for a film writing gig. He submitted his blog posts as writing samples and landed the job. It didn’t pay anything, but it opened the door to screenings before films were released. Aguilar had never had his name on a list.
After that, Aguilar landed a job at another website, this time based in Iceland. That, too, was unpaid.
“I’m definitely not gonna sit here and advocate for people to do unpaid work,” he said. But it was through that unpaid labor that he got invited to screenings and access to an editor. He also started to become better-known in the industry. “I made a little bit of a name for myself writing for these tiny websites,” Aguilar added.
When the U.S. began accepting applications for DACA in 2012, Aguilar wasted no time. With a writing portfolio and the ability to work legally, he landed a job at IndieWire.
Aguilar used his IndieWire clips to apply for the Roger Ebert fellowship, and, in 2014, he became one of six young film critics selected for the program.
That winter, they flew out to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. The experience, Aguilar said, was “almost like a film critic quinceañera.”
The experience was a turning point, he said. After the trip, “it really felt like I should dedicate more time to [criticism] and see what became of it.”
Aguilar knows some things are out of his hands. As a DACA recipient, for instance, he can only travel if he’s granted advance parole, and he isn’t guaranteed re-entry. And last year, a federal judge ruled that DACA is unlawful. The ruling blocks new, first-time applications. Current recipients, like Aguilar, can continue to renew their work authorizations. Still, there’s still no clear path on how to create a legal framework for those who are currently protected under the program.
Since migrating to L.A. County in the early 2000s, Aguilar hasn’t returned to the place he once called home. Like the faithful who visit the basilica each year, he’d like to make a pilgrimage to Mexico City. He’d like to reconnect with old friends. Pay his respects at the sites where his grandmothers and father have been laid to rest. Walk around and see what’s changed over time.
And then he wants to go to other places. As an ardent Studio Ghibli fan, Aguilar would someday like to visit Japan. He’d also love to take his mom to France. She really liked Amélie, too.
