- Hi, I'm Robert Chang.
The Associate Producer of America ReFramed.
I'd like to say hi to filmmakers Anayansi Prado
and Heather Courtney.
Thank you for joining us today for this conversation.
So, can you tell us about yourselves?
- My name is Anayansi Prado.
I'm one of the co-directors and producers for The Unafraid.
I have been making documentaries
for close to 20 years now.
The majority of my work focuses on
documenting the immigrant experience.
Particularly that of undocumented immigrants.
- Hi, I'm Heather Courtney.
I am also a co-director and producer of The Unafraid.
I have about 20 years of experience
making documentary films as a director and producer.
Sometimes camera person, sometimes editor.
The issues I've covered have ranged from
immigration to teenage soldiers from my small hometown
in rural Michigan.
This is my first collaboration as a co-director.
- Can you tell us a little bit about your film?
- So, The Unafraid is a feature-length documentary
in which we follow the lives of three documented students
in the state of Georgia.
- [Heather] Sylvia, Alejandro and Aldo.
Over the course of four years
we followed them as they fought for their right
to education as part as the movement in Georgia,
but we also followed their day to day struggles as teenagers
trying to figure out what to do with their lives,
and we also followed the struggles and the triumphs
of their families and their community as well.
- Our original idea for the film was actually
to follow dreamers in different states.
For example, Heather had done some research
and contacted people in her home state
of Michigan, also in Texas.
I contacted folks here in LA and in other states,
and then I went to do a presentation of one of my films
at Wellesley College and the professor who invited me
told me about Freedom University.
I don't know if you're aware of SB44,
it's a bill introduced for instate tuition,
for DACA recipients such as yourself
and we just want to try and lobby
and call your representative.
- Freedom University at the time was very much
an underground movement
and she knew the professors who had found
that the Freedom University, that program
and I was immediately fascinated by it.
In our research we hadn't come across the fact
that there were states like Georgia
who were banning undocumented student
from even applying to school,
and so we became very interested
and it wasn't a month, we were down in Georgia,
meeting the students.
- [Robert] And how did you meet
the three main subjects of your film?
Alejandro, Sylvia and Aldo?
- Well, like Anayansi said,
we met them, initially two of them, Sylvia and Alejandro
on our very first trip to Georgia,
which we thought was just gonna be
a research and development trip,
but then we just started filming.
They were willing to be filmed
and they were just amazing.
Alejandro we met through the contacts at Freedom University.
We went to his house the very first day
that we arrived in Georgia and within 20 minutes
we were interviewing him.
And we have this hour long interview with him
and we kinda just knew from that interview,
like, this is somebody that we wanna keep following.
And then Sylvia we met on that trip as well
through Freedom University.
We went to her house initially and talked to her
and did an interview with her.
We also met her mom and her two sisters
that day as well, and they were also willing
to be on camera that first day.
We were very lucky in that regard
to meet them right away that way
because it often doesn't happen
and you have to look for a long time
to find the right people.
And then Aldo we met on our second trip there,
when we went on a trip with Freedom University.
- It was really important for us
to find characters that were complimenting,
but yet contrasting, but at the same time
they were very different.
You had Aldo who's an only child,
but then you have Sylvia who has this large family,
then you have Sylvia having different issues
as a female compared to the boys.
So it was important for us to find these nuances
that told different aspects of their stories,
but also knowing that they all had the same purpose
and they were all willing to access higher education.
- So, what is your citizenship status?
You have a work permit, but your status-
- It's unlawful.
- Unlawful citizen. - Yeah.
- So you're undocumented, which means that
you will have international fees assessed
and you would not be eligible for federal assistance
because of the type of student you are.
- So, I was just wondering also more particularly
about how did you work out in terms of the collaboration?
'Cause I'm also very interested in sort of the things
that you felt like you were able to accomplish together
that you may not have been able
to accomplish by yourselves, and so I was wondering
if there are specific examples,
or were there creative differences that you had
over the course of the last six years of your project.
- It was very useful to work in a team
in that both Heather and I have a style
in which we don't really use a large crew
and we try not to be very invasive,
so having somebody else to help with the camera
or to help with directing was very useful
and we probably spent the first year of production
doing trips together.
So, neither Heather or I live in Georgia,
so we will travel together to go film,
but after a year we actually thought that it will be
good to switch out and so we will take turns
going down to Georgia and filming,
and so that was really helpful in that one of us
could be concentrating on fundraising
or working on the ground while the other one
is out shooting.
And then in terms of creative differences,
I'm not quite sure that we ever had
some major creative differences.
I think we both came in with this large vision
that we both agreed with 100%.
We will probably have disagreements on tiny, little details,
but in terms of the vision of the film
and what we wanted for it to say
and the style and the approach that we wanted,
which was to be personal,
to go beyond the issues, to show family, community.
That had always been in place for us
and we were always on the same page in those terms.
- I think what also really helped us get through
some of the more challenging moments
or when we had disagreements was the fact
that we were very deeply committed to the people in the film
and to the issues in the film and so that commitment
really helped get us through any kind of
smaller disagreements we had.
- I bring to you Senate Bill 44
and this provides that students who have what's called
a DACA, those students would be considered
for instate tuition.
- Given the current political climate,
how do you see this film is adding to the conversation?
- Well, one thing in all of my filmmaking,
what I try to do is have the audience member
or the viewer, see in the people on the screen
something of themselves.
Make a connection with them no matter how different
their lives may be, and so by delving into the personal
day to day lives of Alejandro, Sylvia and Aldo
and their families, I really hope
that an audience member or a viewer
will make connection with them,
will care about them and will care
about what happens to them.
So that's one thing that I definitely want
audiences to take away from it.
- Yes, I have a very similar style to Heather
in that I want people to find themselves
in that mother, or that daughter,
or that grandmother and connect on that human level.
I think also what I would like for people to take away
is to see the tangible realities
of what the laws that are in place
do in peoples' lives and how
they either improve, like in the case of DACA you can see
how having DACA improves the lives of the students,
but then you can also see how laws
like not being able to get a driver's license
if you're undocumented, or not having...
Not qualifying for instate tuition,
how that can diminish your quality of life
and how it affects people, not just on an emotional level,
but it affects them also like mentally and emotionally.
And so you get to see firsthand what are the impact
of the decisions that are being made
that are either helping or persecuting
the undocumented immigrant community in the U.S. today.
- [Alejandro] Up, up with education!
- [All] Down, down with segregation!
- [Alejandro] Up, up with education!
- [All] Down, down with segregation!
(speaking Spanish)
- Undocumented!
- [All] Unafraid!
- [Alejandro] Undocumented!
- [All] Unafraid!
- Undocumented!
- [All] Unafraid
- It's been really, really insightful
to hear from the both of you.
- Thank you.
This was fun.
- All right, thanks so much.
(calming music)