:A Josepha Producciones presentation. Produced by Laura Angelica Simon, Tracey Trench. Executive producer, Trench.
Directed, written, narrated by Laura Angelica Simon.
The school is overcrowded, underfunded, its teachers taxed by dealing with so many students for whom English is a second language. Thus the stage is set for bitter, divisive dissent among staff over Prop 187 --- some think removing illegal-alien children from school would only rightly improve the quality of remaining kids' education; others find prospect of becoming de facto INS officers abhorrently cruel and inappropriate. Some Latino instructors believe in adapting methods to students' existing abilities; they perceive as arrogant some Caucasian staffers' if-they-live-here-they-should-speak-our-lingo stance.
Two individuals are picked out for primary dramatic focus. One is Dianne, a white teacher considered "one of the best," yet whose vocal support for 187 induces accusations of racism. In the end, she leaves for a private-sector job. Second, highly poignant figure is helmer's prize student, Mayra, who wants to be a lawyer and already boasts the assertive intelligence to make that come true. She'll probably never get the chance, however. During course of filming, Mayra's father is killed by robbers, her family is briefly evicted from its crowded flat, she's pulled from school for weeks on end, and, at last, the undocumented clan is forced back to El Salvador.
While clearly standing on one side of various hot-button issues, docu refuses to demonize those on the opposite ideological end. Its primary goal is to reveal the vulnerability of individual lives usually grouped pell-mell as "illegals," with all that term's suggestion of criminality and U.S.-resource abuse. Whether undocumented residents should be deported or not, it becomes clear that first throwing their kids out of school fits into the cruel-and-unusual department.
Pacing is good, sound and lensing polished for this type of grassroots filmmaking.
Camera (color, video-to-16mm), Suki Medencevic; editors, Bob Demaio, Lisa Leeman; music, Vinny Golia; sound, John A. Larsen. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (competing), Jan. 19, 1997. Running time: 53 MIN
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