Escuela (School) (School)

Escuela

(School)

A documentary by Hannah Weyer

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SYNOPSIS

There are over 800,000 students enrolled in migrant education programs in the United States and, of those, only 45-50% ever finish high school. ESCUELA, the sequel to Hannah Weyer’s critically acclaimed documentary LA BODA, personalizes these glaring statistics through the honest portrait of a teenage Mexican-American farm worker, Liliana Luis.

ESCUELA is a clear-eyed view into the lives of contemporary Mexican American migrants and their struggles to educate their children while obtaining employment. Centered around the life of Liliana, a daughter entering her first year of high school, Hannah Weyer follows the back-and-forth movement of the family between their home in Texas near the borderlands and the California agricultural fields. Despite the best efforts of the school systems to accommodate students like Liliana, the social and emotional life of this young woman is constantly in flux. This is an important work revealing the difficulties of girl life on the border in a way that no textbook could. - Joe Austin, Popular Culture Studies, Bowling Green University

PRESS

"Escuela's calm, candle-like vigilance is remarkably illuminating and deeply affecting. More important, it opens viewers to the lives of people some of us may never come in contact with, and makes us care. "

Belinda Acosta The Austin Chronicle

"In her 2000 documentary La Boda...Hannah Weyer skillfully opened a window onto a family of Texas migrant workers...It did not overtly pull on heartstrings. In fact what was remarkable about the Luis family was the way in which it handled its plight without bitterness or self-pity....Weyer takes us back inside the Luis household, this time to focus on Elizabeth's younger sister and the impact the family's poverty is having on her education."

Mike McDaniel Houston Chronicle

”Speaking as a veteran migrant educator, the film accurately depicts the plight of highly mobile migrant teenagers who strive to finish high school in spite of the many challenges they face.”

Pamela G. Wrigley National Migrant Education Hotline

"Director Hannah Weyer's haunting "Escuela,"...lays out the problems of such a peripatetic life through the eyes of Liliana Luis. Rather than make sweeping statements, the hour long film simply and effectively presents Luis' experience, as her Mexican American family bounces between Texas and California."

Scott Sandell Los Angeles Times

"Classroom shuffle. In 'Escuela,' documentary filmmaker Hannah Weyer evocatively tracks the complicated high school life of teenager Liliana Luis."

Mike Duffy Detroit Free Press

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

A 2003 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Selected DVD for Young Adults

Dallas Video Festival
Manchester Film Festival
Chicago Latino Film Festival
Cine Accion San Francisco International Latino Film Festival
Cine Las Americas Festival
Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival
Atlanta Film Festival
Mujerfest Texas
Broadcast Nationally on P.O.V.
San Antonio Cine Festival - Special Jury Prize
South by Southwest - Special Jury Prize
Double Take Documentary Film Festival - MTV/News/Docs Award
Tulipanes Latino Film and Arts Festival
CineSol Latino Film Festival
LadyFest East

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Hannah Weyer

Hannah Weyer is an American filmmaker living in New York who has written, directed and produced narrative and documentary films. Her films have screened at the Human Rights Watch, Sundance and the New York Film Festivals and have won recognitions, including awards from LoCarno, Sundance, Doubletake Documentary and South by Southwest Film Festivals. Her documentaries aired on PBS as part of the POV-American Documentary series and screenwriting credits include work that has premiered on HBO, including Life Support (2007), directed by Nelson George, and which earned a Golden Globe award for its lead actress, Queen Latifah. Most recently, she completed a novel set in Far Rockaway, Queens entitled "On the Come Up” which will be published by Nan Talese/Knoff in July, 2013.

Weyer received her Master’s degree in Film from New York University in 1994. Her short film, The Salesman and Other Adventures won awards at the Sundance, Locarno, Melbourne, and Claremont-Ferrand Film Festivals. It was broadcast on Canal+ France, Canal+ Spain, Italy's EDB, Channel 4 in England, and here in the US on PBS.

In 2000, Weyer produced and directed La Boda, an hour long documentary which screened at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival and the New York and Los Angeles Latino Film Festivals. La Boda first aired nationally as part of the PBS program, POV-American Documentary, and then again as an "encore performance" during the series’ 2001 line-up.

Weyer then went on to complete, La Escuela which premiered on POV-American Documentary during its 2002 season. La Escuela received Special Jury Prizes from the San Antonio Film Festival and the South by Southwest Film Festival and was awarded the MTV News/Doc Award at the Doubletake Documentary Film Festival. It was selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) as one of 2003’s top 10 Documentaries for Young Adults.

Weyer frequently collaborates with writer/director Jim Mckay (Girls Town, Our Song, Everyday People). Along with Mckay she co-wrote the film, Angel Rodriguez (2005) which premiered on HBO. She also co-wrote the HBO film, Life Support (2007), directed by Nelson George.

For the past 15 years, Hannah has worked with teens in the media arts, volunteering at The Door, Scenarios USA, and Reel Works, and, along with filmmaker Jim McKay started an after school film club at a progressive high school in Brooklyn. (8/14)

Subject Areas

Border Studies Education Family Relations Globalization Immigration and Exile Latina Sociology Young Women

La Boda

In an intimate portrait of migrant life along the U.S.-Mexican border, Hannah Weyer’s new film LA BODA delves into the challenges faced by a community striving to maintain their roots in Mexico, while pursuing the “American Dream” across the border. Weyer’s camera follows Elizabeth Luis during the weeks before her marriage to Artemio Guerrero, interweaving the anticipation of the upcoming wedding with candid stories that explore the architecture of the Luis family. For 22-year-old Elizabeth, migrant life has meant shouldering responsibilities beyond those of an average young adult. Along with her seven siblings, she has contributed to the family income throughout her adolescence and young adulthood, often forced to sacrifice school for fieldwork and social life for travel as she and her family move between Texas, California and Mexico. LA BODA tells the timeless story of a young woman’s coming of age, while also confronting negative stereotypes of the migrant community with the real life biography of a Mexican-American family bridging the gap between countries and culture.

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The Learning

One hundred years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking public school system of the Philippines. Now, in a striking turnabout, American schools are recruiting Filipino teachers. THE LEARNING, from award-winning filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz (IMELDA), is the story of four Filipina women who reluctantly leave their families and schools to teach in Baltimore. With their increased salaries, they hope to transform their families' lives back in their impoverished country. This absorbing, beautifully crafted film follows these teachers as they take their place on the frontline of the No Child Left Behind Act. Across the school year's changing seasons, the film chronicles the sacrifices they make as they try to maintain a long-distance relationship with their children and families, and begin a new one with the mostly African-American students whose schooling is now entrusted to them. Their story is intensely personal, as each woman deals with the implications of her decision to come to the US, and fundamentally public, as they become part of the machinery of American education reform policy.

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Maria in Nobody's Land

MARIA IN NOBODY'S LAND is an unprecedented and intimate look at the illegal and extremely dangerous journey of three Salvadoran women to the US.

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Ni Aquí, Ni Allá (Neither Here, Nor There)

NI AQUI, NI ALLA illuminates the challenges facing an undocumented college student and her family. Blanca, a second-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, crossed the border from Mexico into the United States with her parents when she was a child. As a student under the California DREAM Act who possess DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), Blanca qualifies for financial aid and has temporary protection from deportation, though her undocumented parents, who live and work in California's agricultural Central Valley, do not. NI AQUI, NI ALLA paints an intimate portrait of an undocumented family as they support each other during a turning point in their lives and stay together through the distance. At a time in this country’s history where the debate around immigration is highly contested and demands to close the border are in the daily news, NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE paints a very human face on an issue that many use simply as partisan, political fodder. Essential viewing for Anthropology, Sociology and Multicultural and Immigration Studies.

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Maestra and Maestras Voluntarias

MAESTRA (2012) MAESTRAS VOLUNTARIAS (2022) Two films tell the courageous history of the first Volunteer Teachers in Cuba and the women who laid the groundwork for a massive National Literacy Campaign that would teach more than 707,000 Cubans how to read and write. 

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Birth on the Border

Seeking a safer future for their children, two women from Ciudad Juárez, risk harassment at the hands of Border Patrol to cross the US-Mexico border legally to give birth in El Paso, Texas.

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Don't Tell Anyone (No Le Digas a Nadie)

Since the age of 4, Angy Rivera has lived in the United States with a secret that threatens to upend her life: She is undocumented. Angy arrived with her mother, fleeing violence, poverty, and civil war in their native Colombia. For 20 years they live in the shadows, struggling to stay afloat financially and avoid deportation while battling a complex and inequitable immigration system. "Don’t tell anyone" is a phrase whispered often and branded deeply on the consciousness of all who are undocumented. Now 24, unable to pay tuition for college and facing an uncertain future, Angy joins the youth-led New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC) with whom she dons a bullhorn at pro-immigration rallies, telling all who will listen that she is "undocumented and proud." Rivera becomes an activist for undocumented youth with a popular advice blog "Ask Angy" and a YouTube channel boasting more than 27,000 views. She steps out of the shadows a second time to share her story of sexual abuse, an experience all too common among undocumented women. DON’T TELL ANYONE (NO LE DIGAS A NADIE) follows Rivera’s remarkable journey from poverty in rural Colombia to the front page of The New York Times

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OUR CATALOG

Escuela

(School)

SYNOPSIS

PRESS

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Subject Areas

RELATED LINKS

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

La Boda

The Learning

Maria in Nobody's Land

Ni Aquí, Ni Allá (Neither Here, Nor There)

Maestra and Maestras Voluntarias

Birth on the Border

Don't Tell Anyone (No Le Digas a Nadie)