Movie inspired by fallen Dalton soldier an emotional experience for family

Enrique Lopez sat quietly in the darkened room, watching the flickering images.

They told the story of a man, like Enrique's younger brother Juan, who made the decision to come to America and join the military in hopes of a better life for his family.

And like Juan, a 2001 graduate of Southeast High School who was killed in Iraq, the man in the movie is killed in service to his adopted country, leaving a widow behind.

Enrique had learned of this film, "Una Causa Noble" - "A Noble Cause" – from an Internet Web site of his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato, Mexico. He had longed to see it and wanted to know who made it. He contacted people he knew in the media to try to help him locate the filmmakers but was unsuccessful.

But last Thursday, the filmmakers came to him.

The husband and wife team of Miles Merritt, the movie's director, and Gail Kempler, the executive producer and an editor of the film, had been hoping to meet the family of Juan Lopez, who inspired their movie, but they weren't sure it would ever happen.

Thursday night, through the graciousness of the staff at the Dalton-Whitfield Library, Merritt and Kempler, from Santa Fe, N.M., were able to show Enrique and Juan's sister, Araceli, along with several other family members, their 26-minute movie that seeks to illuminate a host of issues that arise when a Mexican male leaves his homeland to fight for – and in some cases die for – his new country.

The evening was emotional for both parties.

The soft-spoken Enrique, 14 years older than Juan, one of four Marines killed in an ambush in Ramadi, a town west of Baghdad, on June 21, 2004, said the movie was difficult to watch. The anniversary of his brother's death coincides each year with his daughter Gaby's birthday (she is now 7).

The movie "brings everything else back to two years ago. Everything comes back, all the emotions," Enrique said quietly, remembering how he and Juan would stay in contact through e-mail, the last such communication six days before his brother's death.

But Enrique said Merritt and Kempler, who presented him with a DVD of the film, did a "wonderful job." He said he recognized several locations used in the film, which was shot in Guanajuato last year.

"There's a lot of parts (in the movie) we feel like are a part of my brother's history," he said. "We try to keep everything from Mexico to here. The way you see how they had the pictures with the candles, my sister has had it in her home like that, all my family like that all the time."

The meeting was emotional for the filmmakers, too.

Merritt said when they first began to develop the idea for the story, "I don't think we ever really considered the potential opportunity of getting to meet the family or show it to them."

Kempler said having edited the film with her husband, "I've seen it about a thousand times, and I don't think I've ever been more emotional watching it than I was tonight watching it with the family."

They had learned about Juan Lopez from a newspaper story, "about this young Mexican soldier who was killed in Iraq," Merritt said. "We had just finished our first short film in Mexico and we were looking for ideas for a new one and we read this story and it moved us, not only because for the first time it informed us how many Mexicans are going to fight in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the irony was that at his funeral (in Mexico) somebody from the U.S. embassy showed up to deliver the posthumous citizenship papers to his widow (Sandra)."

Merritt and Kempler – she is an Atlanta native, their company is M/K Productions – originally thought to do a documentary on Juan Lopez' life, and they would have had a rich subject. "Educators at Southeast remember him as a hard-working yet charismatic student who demonstrated intelligence and maturity," The Daily Citizen wrote in an editorial shortly after his death, and he received the National Defense Service Medal and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon.

They decided to "take the essence of his story" and create a fictional story, Merritt said, "since there were so many other Mexicans who were joining the U.S. military in order to get accelerated citizenship ..."

In doing research for the film, the filmmakers came across a speech from President Bush in Ripley, W.Va., on the Fourth of July, 2002. The president's words open the film:

"Thousands of our men and women in uniform were born in other countries, and now spend each day in honorable service to their adopted land. Many of them are still waiting for the chance to become American citizens .... These men and women love our country. They show it in their daily devotion to duty. Out of respect for their brave service in this time of war I have signed an executive order allowing them an immediate opportunity to petition for citizenship in the United States of America."

"That's when we realized that Mexicans were able to get accelerated citizenship by joining" the military, Kempler said.

"All foreign nationals," Merritt added.

They were struck by the fact so many soldiers from Mexico were being killed and wounded in service to America, especially since that country did not support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

And they were troubled by another fact: "There are currently numerous towns and villages in Mexico where the men have all left," Merritt said. "You go through these towns and there are only women and children living there because the men have all left to pursue the American dream."

So they decided to tell "Una Causa Noble" (www.unacausanoble.com) "from the point of view of the women who are left behind and sometimes have to make these heartrending choices about what to do."

That point was not lost on Enrique, having just watched the film.

"My mom, when that happened (Juan's death), she was the strongest woman in the entire family," he said. "More than anybody else in the family, she really surprised me how strong she was when that happened, because it was her little boy."

"Una Causa Noble" has been shown at several film festivals, including most recently at the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) International Film Festival (www.fliff.com), where it was well received.

"In a year of important movies reflecting the precarious position of our lives, country and ideals, 'Una Causa Noble' wakes us up like a slap," said Gregory von Hausch, the film festival's president and CEO. "This personal story reminds us of two global problems, war and the plight of immigrants. This is one of the most moving films of our festival."

Merritt said he hopes eventually to secure a television deal to get the movie shown nationally. But he said if that occurs, the network most likely would own exclusive rights and it could no longer be shown at film festivals, "which we enjoy because of the question and answer with the audience afterward. The amount of dialogue this film generates has really amazed us."

Enrique said he had been excited ever since learning the filmmakers wanted to meet with him.

Of the DVD, he said, "I'm going to take it to Mexico (at Christmas) and show it to my parents and the rest of the family."

As the filmmakers and the Lopez family were going their separate ways Thursday night, Merritt and Kempler were still somewhat in awe of the meeting actually having occurred.

"I hope they feel that in some small way the movie is a fitting tribute to preserve Juan's memory," Merritt said. "It's hard to put into words how meaningful this is to us to actually meet his family. We hope that Juan's story now gets out there to a lot more people and so hopefully he will continue to be remembered, not only by his immediate family, but by audiences who learn about his story through our film."

Local News

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

Site Map

Contact Us