Chelsea Hernandez is a Mexican-American filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. She is an eight-time Emmy winning director, producer, and editor for her work on the PBS documentary series “Arts in Context.” Her short documentary work includes “See the Dirt,” which won Best Short Documentary at the 2012 Austin Film Festival, and “An Uncertain Future,” which was the Texas Short Jury Winner at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival. She is a fellow of the Firelight Media Doc Lab and the Tribeca/A+E Edit Storylab and All Access. “Building the American Dream” is her first feature documentary.
“Building the American Dream” will premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival on March 10.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
CH: The film uncovers the harsh working conditions in the Texas construction industry through the eyes of three immigrant families. It’s an intimate look at how a family turns their grief from losing a son to heatstroke on the job into a fight for a rest break law in Dallas. An electrician couple from El Salvador are robbed of their wages and a DACA recipient stands up to inform workers of safety precautions after losing his father from a roofing accident.
This a film about the workers who build the “American Dream” from which they are often excluded. It’s a film that sheds light on a growing movement of immigrant workers calling for equality and justice in one of the deadliest industries in the country.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
CH: Growing up in Austin, Texas I became numb to the vast expansion of my hometown, but in 2009 I began to think differently. Three Latino workers fell to their death from a scaffold collapse, something that could have been prevented. At that moment I began to take notice more of construction workers around town, catching a glimpse of their faces connecting human lives with each new high-rise that filled the skyline.
Later I learned that Texas was the most dangerous state to work in construction and nearly half of the million-person workforce was undocumented. I knew a film needed to be made to uncover the unjust working conditions and to do that I needed to follow the lives of those workers who risk their lives every day to make the economy churn.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
CH: I want people to come out of the theater with an understanding that immigrants build our cities and towns and they deserve to be protected on the job just like anyone else. Protection not only by providing a safe working environment, but also a pathway to citizenship so the fear of deportation is not a daily burden they have to carry.
I also hope people are upset after watching the film, and that they realize some government officials put business over people, and that’s not how democracy works.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
CH: The biggest challenge in making the film was editing down 500 hours of footage shot over five years into 72 minutes. We met so many great workers along the way with tremendously empowering stories that we filmed but couldn’t fit everyone in the film. It was really hard to cut out so much because we grew so close to people, but ultimately, we needed to make a film that could engage audiences while also informing them of a timely issue of worker exploitation.
We hope to release short stories in the future of some of those workers in a labor web series, uncovering other issues in construction that was not able to be told in the feature film.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
CH: This film was entirely funded by grants and a crowdfunding campaign. We are grateful for the Ford Foundation who came on very early to help us cover production costs. This allowed me to work full time on the film, [permitting] me and a crew to closely follow the main protagonists of the film. Their trust and confidence in me as a storyteller allowed other funders to trust in us also, including Latino Public Broadcasting, Firelight Media, and Tribeca All Access.
We did do a crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark in the development phase and entered the Untold Story contest at the same time. It helped us build an international audience, gaining donors but also followers. We won the contest and received a monetary prize from Seed & Spark and Adaptive that doubled our funds raised.
I have also been a part of invaluable mentorships with the Firelight Media Doc Lab and the Bay Area Video Coalition National Mediamaker Fellowship. This allowed me to get feedback through production and post-production, enabled networking opportunities, and allowed me to practice my film pitch for potential donors.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
CH: I hosted a kids show for half of my childhood on the local NBC and WB affiliates in Austin. I always loved meeting new people and learning new things. I would interview people and travel. I always thought it was cheesy back then, but I look at it now as a stepping stone to what I truly love to do, which is to make documentary films.
Issues of the day affect real people, and when we share intimate stories of people through documentary storytelling, it can impact audiences in ways that a news headlines cannot. It’s also important to record stories of our world for the sake of history. I am thankful to live in this current generation where technology allows us to record and share stories abundantly. Our ancestors’ stories have been buried and rewritten for centuries. It’s time to uncover, reflect, and record new histories with the tools we have today so future generations know the truth and can pass it on.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
CH: Best advice: “Surround yourself with people who believe in you.” I feel lucky to have a film team that I truly enjoy working with, who are honest and passionate about the story and issues presented in “Building the American Dream.” This being my first feature, I second guessed myself so many times. But my film team, mentors, and filmmaker colleagues brought new meanings, deep thoughts, and helpful feedback that helped me move forward. I couldn’t have done this without the incredible support of fellowships like Firelight, BAVC, and Tribeca.
Worst advice, which can be good advice in certain instances: “Film everything.” I took this to heart, which was good at times, because I caught intimate moments that I may not have been able to film if I just came to shoot with someone for only three days. Also, filming everything allowed workers to get used to me being in a room with a camera. I became that “fly on the wall” so to speak. But it was also a lot of traveling and coordinating that was ultimately not fully necessary and could have saved me some time or moved out post-production timeline up sooner.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
CH: I know this is so cliché, but don’t take no for an answer. So many great documentary films are applying for the same pool of grant money. Whether we like it or not, we are going to get rejection after rejection. It can be soul-sucking at times but don’t give up.
I applied to Tribeca Film Institute four times and was rejected every time, but I kept trying. Finally, I think they may have noticed a story was actually brewing and invited me to participate in the A&E Edit Storylab. It was a three-day editing workshop and mentorship that came at the perfect time for the film. From there we won a Tribeca All Access grant.
Think of rejection as practicing towards perfection. We get swept away by these uncommon stories of people awarded on their first try, and that does happen, but it’s not the majority of cases. So, keep working at your grant proposals, your video samples, and get feedback from the grant you were denied. Fill your tool belt with all the necessary tools necessary to eventually win that grant.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
CH: “Wendy and Lucy” by Kelly Reichardt. It is so beautiful. It’s a film speaking about homelessness from the perspective of a woman and her dog. It’s truly heartbreaking and true to real life. It’s a film that speaks to my desire to go into filmmaking in the first place—uncovering a larger issue through an individual’s story can be powerful and captivating.
W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
I am a member of the Brown Girls Doc Mafia group and have noticed that it has blossomed tremendously over the past year. There is strength in numbers and this group has helped me to feel more confident about addressing issues of uneasiness on set when I feel it.
It has also inspired me to start a group in Texas for Latinas in Film to create a safe space to speak about issues we deal with daily and on set, and also build community around females of color in film. I think the needle is moving slightly, but there’s still more work to do. As we saw with the recent Oscar best picture win, Hollywood is still stuck in the past.
