The Documentary Film and Video Happening is pleased to announce that Hannah Weyer, the director of Escuela (School) and La Boda (The Wedding), is this year’s featured filmmaker. “Hannah Weyer’s creative process and deeply engaging documentary work epitomizes the values of collaboration, education, and outreach that the Center for Documentary Studies strives for in its programming,” says Dawn Dreyer, Happening director and public programs coordinator at CDS. “Happening participants will be able to learn from Hannah’s relationship with her subjects, her immersion in the communities she documents, and her ability to construct compelling stories from her footage.”

“One of my motivations as a filmmaker is to be a part of a collaborative creative process that helps me learn about communities outside of my own and in turn share those experiences with others,” says Weyer. Her relationship with the Luis family, whose lives she documents in both La Boda (2000) and Escuela (2002), began in 1997 and continues to this day. Speaking of Escuela, Weyer explains, “My approach to filming this story was to be as observational and conversational as possible, and that was made possible by the close relationship I had with the Luis family. I would go and stay with them for extended periods of time without a crew, and with only a small Hi-8 camera and a mounted microphone. I felt this process of filming and the personal relationship we shared allowed Liliana and her family to share their stories with openness.”

Elizabeth Luis de Guerrero, a member of the Luis family and the focus of Weyer's film La Boda, will also be attending this year's Happening. Guerrero is currently living in Austin, Texas, with her husband and attending St. Edward's College in a special program for migrant farmworkers. Guerrero will join in the conversations following the screening of Weyer's documentaries. Weyer constructs compelling narratives from intimate moments of family life; Guerrero's presence will provide an opportunity for the audience to engage in a conversation with both filmmaker and subject, hearing from both sides the impact of this complicated and ultimately fruitful relationship. Weyer will also be teaching a seminar on Saturday, November 15, about the editing process as it relates to aesthetics, traditional narrative restraints, and financing and to the relationship between the filmmaker and her subjects.

Weyer received her master’s degree in film from New York University upon completion of her 1994 award-winning thesis film The Salesman and Other Adventures. The short screened at more than twenty film festivals internationally and won awards at the Sundance, Locarno, Melbourne, Claremont-Ferrand, and Tokyo Film festivals. It was broadcast internationally in France, Spain, Italy, and England, and in the United States on PBS. Weyer was a recipient of both the 1994 Princess Grace Award and the 1995 IFP/East-Independent Film Channel Award. Her first feature, Arresting Gena, was developed at the 1995 Sundance Writers and Directors Lab and went on to premiere at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and in Europe at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival. The film was distributed in the United States through the Fuel Film Tour. Before studying film, Weyer traveled and studied abroad in Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. As a volunteer for a nonprofit organization, Amigos de las Americas, she dispensed vaccinations to children and young mothers at schools and clinics throughout the rural regions of Paraguay.

Hannah Weyer. Photo by Robert Zash.

Escuela

For vivacious Liliana Luis, the protagonist of Escuela, entering her freshman year of high school is immeasurably complicated by the fact that her Mexican-American family makes its living following the harvests from Texas to California. Each year, the Luises travel between their permanent home in Texas to temporary camps in California, a series of upheavals that occur in the middle of the school year. Bright, curious, and energetic—with a burgeoning interest in boys—Liliana must play constant catch-up in her studies as she switches schools. She also has to deal with a recurring “new kid” experience while navigating the treacherous social terrain of teenage cliques, first loves, and social acceptance. Compounding the already exhausting trials of adolescence, these obstacles create an added dimension of discomfort for Liliana as she struggles to bridge the gap between the harsh reality of field labor and the middle-class gloss of American high school life.

Many migrant workers are, in fact, long-time citizens who work as family units in the fields. Their children, born in the United States, often join them in the fields—leaving little time to pursue their education and a path to a better life. An entire system of educational support has emerged to facilitate the movement of migrant worker families across the Western United States. But bureaucracy does little to shield Liliana and teens like her from the social and educational dislocations of the migrant economy or the jarring contrasts between the middle-class culture of high school and the stark realities of migrant life.

Escuela has won a number of awards, including the MTV>News:Docs:Prize at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, a special jury award at South by Southwest, and the jury prize at the San Antonio Cinefestival. In addition to festival screenings, Escuela made its national television debut on P.O.V., public television’s annual award-winning showcase for independent nonfiction films. Weyer has also developed teacher training materials and a classroom study guide for use with Escuela. “I hope that viewers will learn about the pressures and challenges migrant students face in order to get a decent education,” says Weyer. “I also hope that educators working with migrant students can use the film as a jumping off point for discussions and actions that will ultimately better the students’ experiences.”

Still from Escuela.

Still from La Boda.