“CHUJ BOYS OF SUMMER”
Alum Max Walker-Silverman’s Chuj Boys of Summer is featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, as a part of a series celebrating exceptional student filmmakers.
The short, which was the alum’s thesis film funded by the Jeff Lima Production Award, follows a teen migrant named Yakin. He is from Guatemala and only speaks Chuj — the language of his Indigenous people. Gradually, we see him settle into life in Telluride, a small town in Colorado. Walker-Silverman says "it's a coming-of-age story, told through the perspective of immigrants who have to be family breadwinners while still going through adolescence."
The film uses nonprofessional actors, many of whom are Indigenous Guatemalans who migrated to the U.S. and now live in Telluride. Walker-Silverman co-wrote the movie with his friend Marcos Ordoñez Ixwalanhkej Mendoza, who is Chuj and originally from Guatemala.
"For some movies, there's a really clear line between writing and casting and directing," Walker-Silverman says. "That's really not the case here, because writing was me and my co-writer sitting down and telling stories, details, things that he cared about, that they cared about, that they would want to be in this film... That's the way to give control and to give agency to the people who it's really about," he says. "So it makes everyone involved entirely a writer, a director themselves."
Stream the film and listen to his interview at NPR.