Teens dig deep into their hearts to make a film

LYNN – Alyssa Peguero has a little filmmaking experience, but she never worked on a film with nine other young women until this week.?Putting our ideas together is so much fun. I feel lucky I get to do it,” said the English High School student.The teenagers spent this week in St. Stephen?s Episcopal Church writing and filming what will be a several-minute-long film exploring their lives and their concerns. Boston media production worker and Salem resident Paulina Villarroel Cruz is guiding the girls through the filmmaking process.?We?re using film as a way to tell a story. We asked the teens to think of a challenge in their lives,” Villarroel Cruz said.Peguero picked race as the topic she wanted to explore, while Kenyan-born Peabody High School student Vyonna Mugo focused on acceptance and peer pressure. Under Villarroel Cruz? direction, the young women wrote narratives personalizing the topics they picked. The film team picked three of the narratives to work from and spent part of this week incorporating all of their ideas and experiences into a documentary plot.Although some of the teens worship together with their families at St. Stephen?s, most of the girls come from different high schools or got involved with St. Stephen?s Oasis Film Institute through downtown-based youth program Raw Art Works.KIPP Academy student Kayla McCellon said she is surprised 10 people her age could combine their experiences into a single theme.?We all have our own opinions, but this way we are voicing them and putting them out there,” she said.Once shooting wraps up this week, Villarroel Cruz said the teens will edit their footage under her direction and the film will move from a rough cut to final product scheduled for mid-September screenings at St. Stephen?s.The girls? faces and names will not be included in the film; instead, the scenes will dramatically depict experiences mirroring family loss, race relations and shared experiences, Villarroel Cruz said, of “falling down and getting back up.”?The focus will be, ?This is what is going on in our lives in Lynn,?” she said.She helped make another youth-oriented film at St. Stephen?s five years ago titled, “I Am Lynn,” focusing on high school students rejecting stereotypical images of the city. Villarroel Cruz and The Rev. Sarah van Gulden, St. Stephen?s assistant rector, met last February to talk about making another film.?We came out with a theme for teens of ?our lives matter,?” Villarroel Cruz said.Villarroel Cruz said the teens quickly shouldered the challenge of combining social justice themes with personal experiences. Mugo said hearing other teens? stories this week motivated her to help make a film depicting their shared concerns and common experiences.?You learn you are not alone,” she said.