Grandma Can Make Movies too

By Christopher Smith

Tania Cypriano was in her aunt’s house several years ago looking through the lens of a video camera surveying the inside of the house from the rooms to the furniture until the lens settled on her grandma with a video camera videotaping her as well; realizing what has become today a successful independent film.

Edited and produced by Director Tania Cypriano Grandma Has a Video Camera is a documentary made up of the home videos of her Grandmother Elda immigrating to the US at the age of 70, to help care for Tania’s pregnant aunt and leading the lives they lived. This documentary has been screened at New York University, University of Michigan, Columbia University, and also has been nominated for the Best Undistributed Film 2007 by Village Voice/ LA Weekly Poll.

“What I hope that the film can accomplish…help people look at immigrants as people, not just as an issue…knowing more about how immigrants live in this country and the things that they experience and they go through,” said Cypriano when commenting on what she wanted to portray through her film.

The Screening

This film is the third being screened for the 7^th Annual College of Liberal Arts Foreign Film Series. This year’s theme is “Re-Imagining Brazil” an effort to spread awareness and interest of Latin American countries that speak other languages other than Spanish. Tania Cypriano was the guest speaker for the night and answered questions after the movie screening.

The film’s story begins in 1970 when Cypriano leaves Brazil for America to take courses in English and decides that she wants to stay. Her aunt Marina is in the US as well and becomes pregnant and is left a single mother. Tania’s grandmother Elda then comes to America to take care of Marina’s daughter Luana while Marina works full time jobs to make money. With the money she makes Marina buys Elda a video camera to record Luana growing up since she would be too busy working to be around all the time for her daughter. After that the magic happens.

The film spans 20 years and follows the lives of these women and the rest of their Brazilian families that follow after them to the US to take advantage of the “Land of Prosperity”. Capturing the essence of an immigrant family in the US the film also sheds light on the issue of assimilation. As the movie goes on the conflict of this issue gradually can be seen increasing. This is a major point of the movie Cypriano wanted to get across.

Moments for Discussion

The screening was followed by a brief 20 minute discussion between the Towson community audience and the director herself about how they felt about the film and the issues surrounding immigration in the US.  One young male Salvadorian native stated that he could relate to the film from personal experience of moving to the US seven years ago.

While another older Caucasian male shared his experience of shoveling snow during the winter making $40 an hour while working next to Guatemalans that were making seven dollars an hour, with some saying that they had to have money sent to them from their country which differs from the situation Cypriano’s family was in. Multiple viewers alluded to her doing a follow up documentary on the family.

“Right now I’m working as an Associate Producer and Editor on other people’s films but I have a big project that we have started on the web called Kids Travel and it’s a series about traveling from the point of view of kids,” Cypriano said on current films and projects.

Brazil is part of Latin America

After the discussion Professor Lee Ramsdell one of the individuals who heads up the film festival thanked the audience for coming and invited everyone to come back April 23^rd to view another Brazilian themed screening. “We wanted to have a Brazilian film festival with several films but we wanted to have some documentary films also, this film also touches on the immigration issue and women’s issues also and we were taken by that,” Ramsdell said.

One of the main reasons for this year’s Brazil theme and raising awareness and interest among students is to take Portuguese class. “We say were Latin American studies, but up to this point we only focus on Spanish speaking countries. And there is this huge country called Brazil where they don’t speak Spanish.”  Ramsdell said.

Grandma says hi

Before everyone left Ms.Cypriano apologized for leaving during the movie and not watching a large sum of the film with us. She said that her mother called and wanted to say hi. “She loves it…She is very happy because I think that it is something that she truly feels that she hopes to have for someone in the family and now she is leaving this as a story of the family,” Cypriano said on the subject of her Grandmother.