Just by writing this poem, I am contradicting every definition you█ve ever forced upon me.

Narrator: Teenagers in the US... are increasingly turning to poetry... to understand the complex world around them.

Coming up on “Our Time”: Filmmaker Nyla Melvin uses spoken word to evoke her feelings about gun violence in America.

Lillian Lugo explores memory through visual metaphors.

And then, Eva Brzeski looks deeply into the faces of her “Fellow Americans” in a love letter to our fractured nation.

Poetry and filmmaking.

Next, on “Our Time.” [upbeat music] Why don't people understand me?

I'm tired of running so fast.

I want to be heard.

Why are people afraid?

I'm ready for change.

♪ I hear you.

I see you.

- My time... - My time... Our time is now.

Major funding for this program is provided by: The Lindsay-Brisbin Family Fund The Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf Betsy and Warren Dean and the H. Chase Stone Charitable Trust.

Additional funding is provided by: Diversus Health Arts in Society The Equity in Arts Learning for Colorado Youth Grant.

The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation The Bee Vradenburg Foundation and the CALM Foundation.

[foreboding music] Reporter: Another deadly school shooting in the country.

Police radio: Hold the perimeter we█re under fire!

Reporter: Police say the accused gunman had driven 200 miles to kill black people.

News report: There is growing outrage tonight after an unarmed African-American teenager was shot and killed by police in the Saint Louis suburb Sherif: If we can't protect our children in schools, then who can we protect?

♪ Nyla: There is a seven-year-old girl covered in cotton pastel lilies to her knees.

And it's 8:14.

But she can't let go of her mother's hand, conducting an orchestra of tremors twisting her hollow tummy.

A child should not be afraid to go to school.

Her mother suggests she takes another sick day.

A parent should not have to worry that their absence is unsafe.

This is not okay.

♪ 21 Texan families avoid the dinner table, Terrified to face the empty seat.

How are you supposed to mourn the death of your child... when you seem to float in the hope of everyone denying reality?

♪ Gun violence is a very... controversial topic.

Even right now, and... it█s always just be something really on my mind.

Especially during 2020 when all the Black Lives Matter movement had started.

Back men are five times more likely to more likely to be shot than their white peers, than their white peers.

It's kind of sad to sit there and think about “Am I going to lose another person to gun violence?” “Am I going to have to lose my brother to gun violence?” Because no one wants to do anything.

[mournful strings] What is it about black skin that seems to tempt metal?

From shackles and plantations to handcuffs and prison cells, Black people in this nation are no strangers to the cold kiss of a bullet.

Video after video, Black bodies falling like dominoes.

If a black person gets shot and no one is around to hear their body hit the ground, would they still make the evening news?

Would they still make a sound?

Would they still matter?

Reporter: But here are conflicting reports about what led up to the shooting.

Gunshots and wails echo in my head like the chorus of a song we all know.

This national anthem has never been more than the soundtrack to a massacre.

We spend our entire lives chasing our tombstones.

Sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers mention on t-shirts the only things we have left to eulogize.

♪ I am living defiance.

I am the American Dream█s worst nightmare: A black girl with an opinion and a heart that's still beating.

Just by writing this poem I am contradicting every definition you've ever forced upon me.

I was supposed to be the angry, ghetto, over-aggressive black girl.

I was never supposed to wake the hell up.

Like this skin, this hair, this voice.

Too loud, too smart, too much to say.

I never knew how to speak my mind or express my emotion and thoughts.

So I guess I will still keep writing these poems till I break Chanting: Black Lives Matter!

Nyla: Like, let me hand you my scars and slap a bow on this (...) and see how high it scores.

Because we all know that's how it goes.

(police siren) I bleed, and I bleed, and I bleed, I█ll make it pretty, I'll write a poem and make it presentable for you.

Doesn't oppression make the loveliest art?

[optimistic piano] I've had experience with the aftermath of A tragedy.

I want my poetry to be heard And for your families to be able to sit down and have the talk about it.

And for all these leaders and politicians to sit back and to really think about what's really going on in the world.

♪ And I'm only 15, So maybe this isn't my place to say But am I wrong to think that this is about something bigger?

How much more blood will it take for the stain to be permanent?

♪ The Youth Documentary Academy empowers young filmmakers to identify and craft their own stories through intensive training and mentorship in the art of documentary film.

[birds chirping] I am so hopelessly, helplessly grounded.

But the sky is beautiful.

Maybe I am too.

Maybe I was.

I wonder if it's changed, the sky.

How many of your stars shine on with no life?

How many of mine have?

It's all so hopelessly real.

I believe that memory is a very underappreciated and under interrogated part of our lives.

When I remember, the sounds, the sensory experience of it is usually very hazy.

I describe it as more of a... muti-exposure picture.

(birds chirping) [droning music] I miss you.

I love you I█lll never see you again.

Every year, you get dimmer.

Every time, you're out of reach.

I'll stargaze from my room, You shine brightest there.

Or the school, but it's too late for that.

♪ Lillian: And we can... We can chat about stuff.

It█s not just like... - Okay.

“What is your favorite color?” What color are my curtains?

Orange, orange, orange, orange.

How do you feel... looking at the night sky, or pictures of space?

A star can explode, and be exploded for a very long time, and we will still see it.

It still travels, it still moves We still get to witness it.

Everything does that.

We might, you know, momentary in the grand scale of things, but... We are also... Infinite.

Do you believe that, um... A location iteself can hold some form of memory?

As much as I am a very... Philosophical and, you know... Poetic person... I am also a scientist.

And, you know, you get the laws of thermal dynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

And so, if it is not within us, it is somewhere else.

We impact our surroundings, and our stories and our environment.

A place does not forget.

It never does.

[ominous drone] Lillian: I really value my room.

Sometimes I will talk to it kind of as just like an entity.

I need to express myself through the environment that I'm in to really feel connected to it.

That's another way for me to be remembered.

I'm going to have to leave that for my dorm room.

And then, my parents are selling that house.

So I won█t... be returning to that room.

Every little thumbtack hole, from a poster I put up... Every indented part of the carpet... will probably just be covered up and cleaned out.

I don't like that thought.

Like, I wish that I could just... Keep it.

Keep it closer to me.

Keep it more real, more stable.

I hope that I can replicate that kind of environment no matter where I am.

[(birds chirping] I remember the Red Rocks concert I went to.

It was my first actual concert, my first actual concert, and it was, massive.

And it was massive and there were all these awesome light effects and everything.

But I took so many pictures and videos that at points, it felt like I was more just kind of looking through this screen instead of just like listening to the music.

[ominous music] My sense of self is built off of all the memories that I have.

And so, I have... a fear of losing my memories.

♪ It's really a powerless feeling.

And most of all, I'm just scared of forgetting myself.

Do you have a favorite memory... between us two?

- I do.

You introduced me to some of your favorite bands, and some of your music.

And I had never seen anybody play bass before.

The way your hands worked on the..the strings... and the way it fit against your body as if it was a part of you.

I pick up traits and things from other people... And to this day... I “air-guitar” up here.

And it is a mimicry of the way that... your hands moved on that first night when you played your bass for me.

and that is about five years ago now.

That was... One of my favorites, I have to say.

One of my favorites, I have to say.

Well, (...), yeah, I didn█t know that.

(laughing) I mean, I... I remember... Vaguely, that day...but... - You played me Freefall.

And it was my first time hearing that song.

And you sang the song while you played it.

- Yeah.

It█s... It█s concerning.

Because I█m not good at remembering things.

(sniffle) Um... Things are slipping from me.

If it█s any consolation, it happens to me too.

I didn█t remember that day, until you reminded me of it.

And I had to... Had to try to retrieve it.

Yeah!

- So... At your filing cabinet.

- Believe me, it happens to the best of us.

By just living as I am, I'm building a past self for my future self to reflect on.

I want to be remembered as my most raw.

I do not wish to be currated any longer.

I love being imperfect.

But you're here, right?

In my reflection, In my eyes, In my body, In my light.

I'll never forget you.

can't.

Let me gaze a little longer.

Don't go so soon.

I'm still hopelessly, helplessly grounded.

Wanting for your light.

Here I lay grasping at stars.

Honestly, it was kind of hard, like opening up to the camera and basically reading my poetry because I've always kept it to myself Poetry was just always an outlet for me.

In my film, I really tried to go all into these poetic elements It's just as expressive as narrative film... In my eyes.

I really felt that the kind of fuzziness and haziness of an old camcorder really kind of reflects how I view my memories I was trying to probe the audience for them to reflect on similar spaces they may have occupied earlier in their life.

I want my film to really just impact communities and have politicians and leaders talk about putting more gun laws in place I honestly don't know if it's going to change within my lifetime only because America is so separated by race and all these other things, But hopefully later on in life they will change.

At the core of it, this film is... A way for me to process my feelings.

If I should have one goal with this, it's that I inspire the same kind of self-reflection in the audience.

Even if you walk away from this film thinking, “I don't know what I just watched,” You're still thinking about it.

So that's that's my goal accomplished.

Your voice matters and you can make an impact on the world and in the community just by sitting down and talking to adults or friends or anyone about what you're really passionate about and what you want changed.

Poetry is a way of accessing a deeper level of emotion that is not constrained by prose or storytelling.

as an instructor and use documentary academy.

It was so extraordinary to me to see how the process of making these films was so transformative for the students, I thought, wow, if they can do that, maybe I can do that.

I made a film called Fellow American because I was so distressed by the polarization in our country.

and it led me down a path of filmmaking, you know, that I maybe never would have dared to to attempt if I hadn't had seen that, example in so many kids, and seeing how the process of telling these stories would really impacted them, I can't believe this is happening to my country.

I'm angry at people who don█t share my views.

I feel small and tight and dark inside.

Who are these people who don't think like me?

I set out in search of my fellow Americans from every walk of life, And across every divide.

Where are all the people who are not like me?

I thought I'd find them everywhere.

But the closer I look, the less difference I find.

Major funding for this program is provided by: The Lindsay-Brisbin Family Fund The Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust Steve and Mary Anne Walldorf Betsy and Warren Dean and the H. Chase Stone Charitable Trust.

Additional funding is provided by: Diversus Health Arts in Society The Equity in Arts Learning for Colorado Youth Grant.

The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation The Bee Vradenburg Foundation and the CALM Foundation.

For more information, additional resources, or to watch Our Time films, please visit: www.youthdocumentary.org.