Documentary film by Madera teens wins at Portland Film Festival

When four teenage cousins from Madera learned their grandfather in Mexico was gravely ill, they journeyed back to their family’s ancestral village in Oaxaca for the first time in their lives. But before leaving, they recorded video letters from their parents, who are farmworkers that have been separated from their homeland for more than 15 years. The teens ultimately combined those video letters with footage from their trip to make the documentary “First Time Home,” which this month won the Rising Voices Award from the Portland Film Festival. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with two of the cousins who made the journey, co-directors Esmeralda Ventura and Noemi Librado Sanchez.