by Emili Ema Sedlar
February 27, 2018 Film media has its exceptional ways of presenting a story and introduce characters that are major, thus serve as a great lesson, whether the film is fiction or nonfiction. However, when diving into a specific field of documentary filmmaking, the storytellers have a very difficult task of presenting not only the significant narrators of the story, but the background, which sometimes may not be simple and self-explanatory. Through their own moments and perspectives, filmmakers, especially those that are passionate about the subject they’re presenting, have the capacity to show through their own eyes an emotional story involving only one person and its world that is not ideal, but rather fragile. Brenda Avila, a documentary filmmaker, has made a film called Life, Deferred, a story that centers a little girl Vanessa, who is aware of her own identity as being trapped in a politically complicated system. Her story and words are all what the audience should focus on, since she is the little girl that has an important message to everyone, thus Avila is an outstanding filmmaker who perfectly crafted this story into an important political and social statement.
Q. Your film projects a unique story about a girl from Mexico who has been living in the US for years, has dreams of going to college and becoming a doctor. However the story does not stop just there. It shines a light on the DACA generation and the way it has impacted many minors in the US. What exactly drew you to make this film from an individual perspective? Why Vanessa’s story?
A. Soon after moving to the US from Mexico as a young adult, I began working as a Heritage Spanish teacher at a Middle School in Albuquerque, NM. This is where I first met Vanessa and several of her peers who were children raised in America by their immigrant, Latin American families. This was a big eye-opener compared to my own immigration story, which was fairly privileged and unlikely. Growing up in Mexico we didn’t talk about migrants very much and all I knew about them was through media depictions and second-hand accounts. My Albuquerque students absolutely schooled me as I became more involved and welcomed in their community. I wish everyone on both sides of the border realized the intricate connections we all have to our immigrant communities and took the time to get to personally know and develop meaningful relationships in these communities. We all get told that hard work pays off, but luck and privilege have a heavy hand at making us or breaking us. When I realized the potential for Vanessa and her family to be all they could be and fulfill their dreams and had limits already set out for them, I knew I couldn’t just do nothing. I wanted others to be schooled the way I was schooled and feel compelled to use any power they have to make sure those limits don’t stop anyone from making the most out of life. This story is told from my perspective as an educator and as a fellow immigrant who didn’t have to endure what most immigrants do by no merit of my own except sheer luck.
Q. Have you met other people that were part of the DACA generations except for Vanessa? If yes, what was it like to hear their stories and concerns?
A. I have many friends and former students who are part of the DACA generation. Unfortunately, not all of them were eligible for DACA due to reasons that have little to do with the morality of their character. I’ve learned that immigration laws are so complicated and arbitrary, so case-by-case the stories vary so much from person to person. While DACA was a huge step, it’s easy to see how this is also very stressful to recipients and families alike. To give all your information to the government so that one of your kids gets a shot at coming out the shadows without any guarantees because DACA could go away any time. For children to know that they carry this weight on their shoulders, this responsibility for their family’s safety and dreams to be fulfilled. To know that no matter what you do, your parents or other siblings will face the fear of deportation for years to come and perhaps for their whole lives, no matter what you do.
Q. The film is 23 minutes long, and it shows the incredible life of young Vanessa, who in the time span of the film has talked about her family, dreams, fears and hopes. What have you learned the most by making this film and from Vanessa?
A. I’ve learned so much! The list would go on forever. But one of the key things I learned in this long process is that, for a coming-of-age story like Vanessa’s, you cannot separate the person from their family and their community as you document their experiences. She is the result of her family and their hard work and sacrifices. She is the result of and the cause for an entire cultural shift in this country. Some people might say that she is the result of two cultures but to me it’s more like the time and place she lives in is very real and nuanced and blended many times. Culture is not something she can compartmentalize and neither should the rest of us when we think about our neighbors and their right to live the lives they have worked so hard for.
Q. Vanessa not only talks about the struggle of being an immigrant in the US, but also mentions how her parents feel and their own concerns about the fear. How important do you believe it is to balance these two topics within a film, in such a way to balance a conversation between the social and political and personal struggle?
A. Echoing on the previous answers, I believe those three things are inseparable. National conversations cannot be reduced to oversimplified generalizations that vilify entire groups of people. It is not helpful or realistic, but when you are not the one who has to live with the ramifications of those generalizations, it is easier to separate the personal from the political and exacerbate the social conditions that give place to these vilifications. It is easier to care about something when you have a personal connection to it. While we won’t all agree on everything related to immigration policy, our conversations will be at a helpful, more productive and realistic place once people get personally invested into the topic. Connecting the personal to the political and social is key to bringing the conversation to a higher level.
Q. You teach courses on Visual Culture and Human Rights, one of the most interesting topics today. In your opinion, in each of these segments, to you, what is important to talk about? How do you approach these subjects to your students?
A. I am incredibly optimistic about a generation that often gets undermined and ridiculed by us older people: Millenials. Unlike me, they were raised in the digital world and their ability to question everything is excelling compared to my own generation -those of us who got our first email address in High School or College-. They know how to put pressure to make things happen. With the increase of digital content, they have developed an acute sense of digital accountability, B.S. detection and critical thinking. They share their creativity and drive with others. While we talk about traditional practices and approaches to Visual Culture and Human Rights, I always enjoy the journey of learning from them.
Q. Visual culture and human rights go hand-in-hand these days. We see everyday upcoming documentary film directors connecting these two branches and creating through art, an essential message on the current political and social situation going on around the world. How can we further promote and educate others about the importance of visual culture in order to deliver a strong political message that many people are not aware of?
A. Ideally, schools should keep working on developing classes that teach students how to look at –and make- media critically and thoughtfully, especially social media. I have seen many educators making strides on this. However, the biggest challenge is perhaps outside of the classroom, in places where people get their information and form their ideas and opinions in an echo chamber. While it is a uniquely challenging political moment in Visual Culture and Human Rights it is also full on outreach possibilities we never had before. I am confident that the challenges and growing pains will and are already bringing new, exciting and radical approaches to get around those obstacles.
Q. You’ve made a film called Libertad a story of a transgender woman living in the United States who plans to come back to Mexico to visit her mother after 20 years apart. Could you explain how different was it to make this film from Life, Deferred?
A. Both films started with high hopes that the overall social and political situations surrounding the protagonists was going to significantly improve and we would get our happy ending. Things, however, have taken a different turn as we all know. While we still wish outcomes were more positive, I have been able to witness these two brave women emerging as lights of hope in their communities. I guess that was actually a similarity! One big difference between both films is that Vida Diferida was not meant to be a film at first but rather an end-of-the year video for the families at Vanessa’s school. It was a one-person-band production for the most part. Libertad started very intentionally as a short film with a more solid production quality and team in a timed documentary competition which led to it becoming my first feature film currently in production.
Q. You have an amazing work biography and you have made so many films that indeed need to be discussed and shown in educational institutions. What is your advice to filmmakers and those that want to dive into the world of documentary filmmaking?
A. I’ve been lucky to be a part of a wonderful social documentary collective called New Day Films for the past year. We all distribute our films in the educational sector and do all the coop work ourselves, from shipping to marketing and beyond. There are also many new and exciting ways to distribute your work online –and get paid!- via streaming platforms, such as Seed & Spark and Kanopy among many others. For those more on the journalistic side of things, the need for digital content is creating lots of different avenues to find video journalism gigs, such as Story Hunter. Like many jobs, it is also about connections, but not in an oligarchian way at all. In my personal experience, I have had so many positive experiences in the world of documentary filmmaking when it comes to making personal connections just by being present and positive. Reach out to other filmmakers and support their work. Ask for advice or mentorship opportunities and you might find a work partnership for life. People, for the most part, understand that when we lift each other up, we all win. Also, be aware that a lot of the work is self-driven so make sure you are constantly learning new things and searching for new opportunities actively.
Q. What are your future plans?
A. We are hoping to wrap up production in Oaxaca for my first documentary feature, Libertad in the summer of 2018. Vida Diferida will be touring schools around the USA for the next year in partnership with another wonderful New Day short film about DACA, Corey Ohama’s I Was Born in Mexico, but…, a creative portrait of a young woman who thought she was American but finds out as a teen that she is undocumented. I am also applying for funding to release two more stories on two of Vanessa’s peers who had very different experiences with DACA.
