ML - Michigan Avenue

2014 - Issue 6 - October

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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"I didn't think I needed to go to film school," declares Carlos Jiménez Flores, a 46 -year-old director and poet, who lives in Albany Park. Instead, as an undergrad at Northeastern Illinois University, he studied what he felt would help him as a storyteller: sociology to learn about groups and human resource development to learn about individuals. His coming-of-age film Mi Princesa, which he wrote and directed, follows a young man who leaves Chicago to find his roots in Puerto Rico. It could serve as the filmmaker's launching pad: Shot in Chicago and Puerto Rico, Mi Princesa was screened at this year's Chicago Latino Film Festival and will air on WTTW in 2015. I knew I wanted to be a film director when: I was 11 years old. I was a student in Chicago Public Schools, and our teacher would show us a film every Friday. I was the kid who operated the projector, and I knew I was gonna get into movies. I make films because: I want to impact the future. In movies and television, Puerto Ricans are lazy or thieves or gangbangers or drug dealers. Mi Princesa gives people a window to see how rich this culture is. Favorite Chicago bar: Suite 25 in Logan Square. The Chicago inf luence: I embody what Chicago and the Midwest are all about: blue-collar, hard-working, grinding. Most inf luential film director: Alfred Hitchcock. Up ne xt: Motel 666 and The Thin Place, both horror films, will be released next year. CARLOS JIMÉNEZ FLORES THIS POET/DIRECTOR UPENDS CLICHÉD DEPICTIONS OF PUERTO RICANS IN CINEMA. Leather jacket ($2,600), sweater ($360), jeans ($380), and lace-ups ($595), Porsche Design. The Shops at North Bridge, 312-321-0911; porschedesign.com

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