City To Country Magazine July/Aug 2016 July/Aug | Page 12

CELEBRITIES

followed by Hollywood movies, like The Big Short and
Margin Call, aiming their spotlight on the financial
industry and the government. Lost in all of this was the
perspective of the everyday people who lost everything.
Odin Ozdil’s movie, California Winter, poignantly
exposes the living consequences suffered by the people
caught in the banking grinder.
Emmy Award-winning actor, A Martinez, currently
appearing in the Netflix TV show, Longmire, co-stars
in California Winter. He says, “The 2008-2009 crisis
led to a lot of people getting financially slaughtered.”
He continues, “Odin had heard a lot of people, in the
aftermath, talking about how they had lost their homes,
and it was obvious that this was a story that needed to
be told.” The movie stars Elizabeth Dominguez as Clara
Morales, a young and quite naive real estate agent. Her
family’s finances are precarious, and just before her mom
passes away, Clara suggests they refinance their house
with one of the new, easily obtainable, adjustable-rate
mortgages. The banker tells Clara and her dad, Miguel
(A Martinez), not to worry, because in a couple of years
when the rates rise, the bank will refinance their current
loan to one with a low, fixed rate. With their personal
financial crisis at an end, the movie then shifts its focus
to the relationship between father and daughter. When
the crisis hits, nobody is prepared, and Clara helplessly
watches as her acquaintances, customers, and friends
begin to lose their homes. The plot deepens when the
loan comes due on Miguel, and they realize the money
isn’t there to cover the balloon payment.
Many middle-class and upper middle-class people were
financially wounded or destroyed when the bubble
burst, but it was working-class minorities that were
hardest hit. Martinez says, “Mortgage companies cold
called people and asked them, ‘How would you like
to save a giant amount of money on your mortgage
every month?’ They would say, ‘We’ll put free money
in your pocket right now.’” With the banks promising
to refinance the moment the loan became due, millions
of people jumped at the chance to ease some of their
financial burden. Martinez continues, “You can say
of these people that their eyes were too big, and they
should have known better. However, the bank’s promise
that when these loans matured and the interest rates
jacked-up they’d refinance was a lie, and it was told as

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