Two Mira Mesa eighth graders get to spend their summer vacations as award-winning documentarians.
On Saturday, 14-year-olds Quynh Nguyen and Emily Bui’s mini-documentary “Struggling in San Diego” about the city’s homeless crisis was awarded a second-place prize in the RFK Speak Truth to Power video contest at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
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WATCH HERE“That felt really, really good,” Nguyen said while sitting with Bui outside Challenger Middle School in Mira Mesa.
“I'm grateful that we were able to climb up that high, especially as eighth graders. But at the same time, one more spot, and we would have gone first place,” Bui said, only half-jokingly.
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SIGN UP “As a teacher, I could not be more proud of what Quynh and Emily accomplished,” said Danny Shutler, who assigned the duo the project. “That is not an easy thing for a middle schooler to do.”
“It's very complicated,” Nguyen admitted. “We cannot just stereotype people and think that they can just get help.”
“Homelessness has been a very ongoing issue here,” Bui added.
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Shutler said his students finished second out of more than 600 entries, mostly from high schoolers, at the film festival. “Struggling in San Diego” also finished first among middle schoolers at San Diego’s iVie awards.
Both girls will be freshmen at Mira Mesa High School in the fall. However, neither said film documentarian was in their future.
