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# ‘90404 Changing’ produced on a shoestring says filmmaker
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/90404-changing-produced-on-a-shoestring-says-filmmaker/
- Published: 2007-02-16T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:04:37.000Z
- Author: Kevin Herrera
- Tags: Entertainment, Venice, #archive-import

Barnard began writing the screenplay for “90404 Changing” in 2001 and began filming a year later with the help of friends, family and co-stars Shabaka Henley (“Collateral,”“The Terminal”) and Sahagun, an accomplished theater actress and professor at UCLA, where she teaches Chicano Studies. The two, who are a couple, also served as producers on the project with Barnard. They estimate the film was produced for less than $100,000 and contend it would not have been possible without students from UCLA and other volunteers who worked for little or no pay.

Sahagun was the ideal choice to play the film’s lead, according to Barnard, since she used to live in Santa Monica as a child but was forced to move to Venice when the freeway displaced her and her family.

“In this city, we have people from all over the place and we talk a lot about maintaining that cultural diversity,” Sahagun said. “But if we don’t take care of this history, then we are not (protecting diversity). We are just living in a vacuum with no sense of identity.”

The film includes interviews with the Casillas family, Father Mike Gutierrez of St. Anne’s, barbers from Cuttin’ It Up III barber shop and others with roots in Santa Monica. In between the interviews, there are dramatic scenes with Sahagun’s and Shabaka Henley’s characters detailing their struggles to make the film and come to grips with their past... and present.

Barnard credits Sahagun for bringing a personal dimension to the film, including her own experiences at St. Anne’s or buying produce at Casillas Market with her father.

Barnard has held numerous test screenings, including a public screening for cast, crew and residents of Santa Monica at the Main Library earlier this month. However, Saturday’s fete will mark the first time the film will be shown to an audience of mostly strangers and on the big screen.

“It will be much more challenging because it will be in front of people who don’t know us and will be able to provide really honest, unbiased opinions about the film, and it will be in a real theater,” Barnard said. “It will be interesting to see what happens, but I’m not nervous. I’ve been working on this for the last five years... you just have to deal with it”

Barnard and Sahagun hope to host several more screenings throughout Santa Monica, with an emphasis on the schools, and then hold a discussion afterwards about the effects of development.

Barnard and Sahagun said they are realistic that the film will not be able to stop development in the city, and neither of them believe it should. However, it is their hope that the debate can continue, with the film providing another point of view that can spark discussion.

“If it makes people think a bit more about priorities, if it makes anybody about to rush in and develop something in the community think twice, then that’s all we can hope for,” Barnard said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 16, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021607.pdf?ref=smdp.com)