Kimberly Reed
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Kim Reed has completed Act 2 Draft 1 The Desert Songs of Ana Victoria
What I learned in this lesson is that the action needs to mesh with the psychological motivations of each character, otherwise the script will not have enough urgency and depth.
INT. MANNY’S HOUSE – AFTER THE WEDDING
MANNY CARRIES ANA VICTORIA OVER THE THRESHOLD INSIDE HIS HOUSE. THEIR DINING ROOM IS FULL OF THE SEARCH PROJECT MATERIALS, LISTS OF ORGANIZATIONS, PLACES THAT HELP IMMIGRANTS SETTLE IN, ADOPTION SERVICES, GOVERNEMENT HELP NUMBERS.
MANNY SETS ANA VICTORIA DOWN. SHE RUNS INTO THE BEDROOM AND CHANGES INTO A COMFORTABLE ROBE. MANNY TAKES OFF HIS JACKET AND SHOES. HE DID NOT INTEND TO GET DISTRACTED, BUT HE STARTS TO SORT THROUGH THE PROJECT MATERIALS. ANA VICTORIA REJOINS HIM. THEY ARE BOTH OBSESSED WITH THE SEARCH FOR CARMINA AND GAEL.
MANNY
Oh, I have three leads up north! I made hotel reservations. I think we should drive and see the country. That way you will not be asked for identification on the train.
ANA VICTORIA
Ah yes, identification. I will try not to worry.
MANNY
You are worried about going to Chicago. I haven’t even told you about the leads.
ANA VICTORIA
I wonder how Gael and Carmina…. …will feel about the snow and cold winds. I never saw snow. I saw it on television, but the frozen ice must be very cold.
MANNY
You are afraid. But we will be outside that much. The children are living with adults somewhere. Paid a lot of money for them.
ANA VICTORIA STARTS TO CRY.
ANA VICTORIA
My children are living with people who do not know them or what they are like. It’s hard for me to imagine their lives.
MANNY
Ana Victoria, you know what we have to do. You inspired me to help. Sit down. I want to go over our three leads.
ANA VICTORIA AND MANNY SIT DOWN.
MANNY
First, some informants in the Pilsen precinct reported that children were being ‘distributed’ or offered to business owners. The men offering them said they were ‘lost’ or orphaned. It is likely that your child was told that you died, or you and your husband split up and he died. That way the child can miss the parent, and even remember things, but the situation reinforces that they will never see you again. No one will question that the trip north traumatized many children, and no one will look for the lost parents. Then they put them to work.
ANA VICTORIA
Gael knows that I am not dead. He is old enough to know that I was in the truck. He and Carmina saw me in the truck. We told him that we were going to meet his father. He would be sad, but I do not know if these guys knew Alejandro’s full name. They just called him my husband, so they would not be able to answer any questions.
MANNY
Second, someone in the local chamber thinks he saw a couple in his church who adopted a girl Carmina’s age, an orphan from Mexico who they said was the child of a distant relative. We can go to that church and see if they attend with a child. You can identify Carmina there, or we can cross it off our list.
ANA VICTORIA
Did they know they were stealing my daughter?
MANNY
The couple may not know you are alive. If the traffickers told them that Carmina is an orphan, they may feel good about giving her a home. I don’t know. We can learn more about them from the guy from the chamber who talks to the police. Maybe confront them?
ANA VICTORIA
I want to go to that church and watch for Carmina.
MANNY
We cannot take her from them if we see them. This will be hard for you. We have to go to the police and get their help establishing how the child was adopted to prove that she was not adopted. We have to be careful. They could retaliate and tell people you are threatening, illegal, a nut who has no proof she is the girl’s mother.
ANA VICTORIA
How can I prove anything? I have no paperwork. I have to go back to Mexico to get their birth records.
MANNY
At least we can follow the lead. If we see her, you will know how to locate the couple who are taking care of her.
ANA VICTORIA
Tell their priest.
MANNY
No, let’s wait until we are sure. Maybe they knew. They could make trouble for us. When we are ready, we can move quickly.
ANA VICTORIA
I keep imagining her with some boring couple. I wonder what kind of business they own.
MANNY
I don’t know. I am hungry.
ANA VICTORIA
What about the third lead?
MANNY
Are you hungry?
ANA VICTORIA
I ate at our wedding reception. Ron did some great chicken on the grill for us. Didn’t you eat?
MANNY
It was lovely. Everyone was great.
ANA VICTORIA
Third lead?
MANNY
One of my colleagues at the police department knows that there is an investigation of trafficking in Chicago, trafficking of women and young boys for brothels, for sex. Gael is probably not being used that way, but we don’t know what happened to him. If they placed Gael the way they placed Carmina, it would make them vulnerable because he was old enough to identify them and think about how they lied to him. He could id them to the police. So, his life may be in danger. He is probably still alive. He may not be trafficked for sex, but that is the worst case scenario. The police plan to bust the sex traffickers. They located a brothel in St. Charles, a suburb of Chicago. They are following the guys who brought women to the place. It is just a matter of time before they kick in the door and end them.
ANA VICTORIA
The trafficker said they were going to take me to their brothel. That I would meet men with money there. They talked about it like it was an opportunity for me to make money. Oh, God, please protect Gael from those monsters.
MANNY
Every lead will take time to investigate, work with people who are in Chicago.
MANNY GETS UP AND HUGS AV.
MANNY
Can I have a snack now?
ANA VICTORIA
Now I am hungry. For justice!
ANA VICTORIA SMACKS THE TABLE.
MANNY
And love?
ANA VICTORIA
You got it. I love you.
EXT. CHICAGO STREETS – DAY
ANA VICTORIA
No one will admit they know anyone who is using children from Mexico in their businesses. I must look foolish walking in off the street and asking questions.
MANNY
We need to wake up my police friends and follow them. It is against the federal wage and hours laws to employ anyone under age 17 in industry. The state laws in Illinois are against child labor too.
ANA VICTORIA
So I just asked half a dozen Mexicans if they are breaking the law, without any other authority to back me up?
MANNY
Yes, but it could have opened conversation. You never know.
ANA VICTORIA
I am keeping my eyes open for under-age workers. I just can’t see through this place. I just arrived and I don’t know anyone. I don’t even see a boy we could follow.
A SHOPKEEPER WHO THEY SPOKE WITH EARLIER PASSES THEM ON THE SIDEWALK ON THE INSIDE. ANA MARIA IS ON THE INSIDE AND MANNY IS ON THE STREET SIDE.
SHOPKEEPER
Don’t stop walking. I wanted to tell you something. You should look for the automobiles. The trade is cars, trucks, parts. I heard there was a new boy there somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t know their names. But they run up and down 18<sup>th</sup> street on their way to an empty lot where they have a business. I don’t know anything. But if you keep asking the same questions, they will find out and they do not like to be found out.
THE SHOPKEEPER SPEEDS UP AND LEAVES ANA VICTORIA AND MANNY MOVING SLOWLY ON THE SIDEWALK.
ANA VICTORIA
I think we have a new lead.
MANNY
It paid to ask. I have messages.
MANNY LISTENS TO HIS CELL PHONE MESSAGES.
MANNY
Okay, my friend says they had to go through with the bust on the brothel. They caught five people involved in that location. There were no children in this one. There were no boys.
ANA VICTORIA
That is a relief. They said they sold my children. I was the only one they wanted to bring to the brothel.
MANNY
I don’t want to think about what that means. I am glad they can rescue other women where were trapped there.
ANA VICTORIA
Are there other places, other than St Charles?
MANNY
My friend just told me about this one bust. I don’t know. Do you think he was just trying to give me something, to ease my mind?
ANA VICTORIA
Chicago is a big city. That place was out in the suburbs. There are other sex clubs here. But I need to believe that Gael is not trapped there. Working, yes. Maybe adopted like Carmina, yes. The other is too hard to keep in my mind.
MANNY
Do you want to go to the settlement and aid organizations now? We have time to visit at least two before everything closes at 5.
ANA VICTORIA
I think can be more honest there.
MANNY
I am texting a note for the log about the auto business that the shopkeeper mentioned. We don’t have time to visit all these organizations. We can add her tip to the list.
ANA VICTORIA IS NOT LISTENING. SHE IS LOOKING AT SOME YOUNG MEN WALKING INTO A RESTAURANT.
ANA VICTORIA
Oh, I saw an older boy who looks like Gael. But he is much older than Gael. My mind is playing tricks now. Let’s go.
THEY GET INTO MANNY’S SUV AND DRIVE OFF.
INT. CHICAGO ORGANIZATIONS – DAY
TE 3
AID ORGANIZATION MANAGER
Yes, we see underage immigrants and refugees here all the time. The public focusses on the adults because they are going to work, but there is less attention to the children. The city does care about them. But neglect is a big problem in the United States, for the children who are born here. Working parents take more than one job to survive, and kids get left at home alone. Chicago has programs for immigrant kids to make progress in their language skills and education. There are no detention centers like the ones in Texas.
ANA VICTORIA
Yes, we are looking for two children who were known to our church family back home. One was a little girl, four years old, who is very gentle, but she does not say much. The other is a boy, about seven to eight years old, difficult to control. His eyes shine.
AID ORGANIZATION MANAGER
OK, I am making a note to look for a boy about eight years old, and a girl about four years old, from?
ANA VICTORIA
They came in through Nogales. Their mother lives in AZ now. She is a domestic there.
AID ORGANIZATION MANAGER
Is she a relative of yours? I mean, why is your church involved instead of the mother?
THE AID WORKER LOOKS SKEPTICAL ABOUT ANA VICTORIA’S INTENTIONS. PAUSE.
ANA VICTORIA
She is a recent immigrant who lost her paperwork. She can’t prove they are her children. Manny is retired and I worked for him before marrying him, so we have time to help while we are visiting Chicago.
AID ORGANIZATION MANAGER
That is good of you two to make inquiries. I can leave this information on our bulletin board with your telephone number. Someone may know something. But today, it is getting harder to see the new Mexicans because there are so many coming in from the south, Honduras, Guatemala, Columbia, the new wave from Venezuela. Newcomers may mix with these groups.
ANA VICTORIA
Do they go to Pilsen and La Villeta where the Mexicans do business?
AID ORGANIZATION WORKER
They go all over the city. There are shelters…
ANA VICTORIA
These two children would not be in a shelter. They were driven north by two men who said they were going to live with an older couple who was childless.
AID ORGANIZATION WORKER
Then I will never see them. The only moment when anyone might ask questions is when they register for school. The parents have to have their birthdays and identification. But its not hard to get your kids in the door here. We want children to go to school.
ANA VICTORIA
If they put the boy to work?
AID ORGANIZATION WORKER
An eight year old boy? Young, but he could work in a restaurant or with a cleaning service. Those hires are out the back door, hidden from the public. Guys will bring kids in with a contract service. The owners of the business they clean may not even know they are there.
ANA VICTORIA
I don’t know how to find them.
ANA VICTORIA LOOKS LOST. THE MANAGER HANDS HER A KLEENEX.
AID ORGANIZATION WORKER
There are thousands of contractors out there who may use new immigrants of all ages. Your friend from church may have to accept that her son and daughter are part of a much larger story about coming north and getting lost and fitting in.
INT. HOTEL ROOM – EVENING
MANNY
We spoke to so many people today. Someone will know something.
ANA VICTORIA
We must keep going. I don’t want to go back home without them.
MANNY
We eliminated the brothel lead. That is good. We have a new lead about some people who deal in cars and trucks in Pilsen. We will look into it. But I am tired after three days here. I think we should go home and rest. Come back when we have better ideas or more confirmation from new leads.
ANA VICTORIA
I can’t leave my children here.
MANNY
No one has seen them. We don’t know if they are in Chicago. They could have dropped them off anywhere.
ANA VICTORIA
No, they are here. I feel it. I am their mother. I feel it!
MANNY
To help others, you should first help yourself to stay strong. If we exhaust everything on the first trip, it will be harder to come back.
ANA VICTORIA
Let’s go over every place we visited and everything we heard. Then I will feel more confident that we did our job. We may be close to finding the children. I don’t want to miss anything that would lead me to them.
MANNY MAKES HOTEL COFFEE IN THE SMALL COFFEE MAKER. HE HADS AV A CUP.
ANA VICTORIA
This coffee is awful, Chicago hotel coffee. It tastes like boiled paper.
MANNY
Let’s take a shower and get some rest.
INT. CHICAGO HOTEL ROOM – MORNING
ANA VICTORIA
I just can’t leave without finding my children.
MANNY
We have leads. We can come back. If we waste all our money all at once we will not be able to go on. Let’s check out and spend a few hours in Pilsen. We’ll get the good flan and coffee. We can watch the street.
ANA VICTORIA
We can look for that open car lot.
MANNY
I put the description in our log list.
EXT. INSIDE SUV – MORNING
MANNY
It should be somewhere close to this stretch.
ANA VICTORIA
What is that large building?
MANNY
Don’t look. Just kidding. That is where the bodies are dissected for use. Individuals donated their body to science or for use before they die. Most of their employees are black or Mexican.
ANA VICTORIA
Oh God, donations. When the dead become the sum of their parts.
MANNY
Your children were healthy. Wait, there is a parking lot or empty lot here.
ANA VICTORIA
There is nothing in it. Just a couple some fill dirt. You could hide a truck in there.
MANNY
It is quiet here. No one would notice a meeting or transfer. But it is empty. Okay, time to find the flan.
INT. FAMOUS CAFÉ IN PILSEN – MORNING
ANA VICTORIA
This is good. I like their flan.
MANNY
Worth the trip.
ANA VICTORIA
That empty lot is haunting me. I want to keep it on our list.
MANNY
It’s in our log list. We can go back on the next trip.
THEY ENJOY THEIR COFFEE. MANNY JUST ENJOYS BEING WITH ANA VICTORIA. HE IS IN LOVE WITH HER.
INT. SUV – LATE MORNING
MANNY TURNS ON SOME MUSIC. THEY LISTEN. ANA VICTORIA’S CELL PHONE RINGS.
SHE TAKES THE CALL.
ANA VICTORIA
Yes, good morning. Yes, I think they came in on the dates I gave you from Nogales. What? Yes, the boy would be old enough to remember where he was.
Manny, the woman at the aid organization was talking to some people. They met a boy who was working with a trucker. He said his father was dead and he stayed in Nogales around the time I described. They were trying to get him to register for school, but they left and ignored the community social worker.
MANNY
That’s Gael! How many kids would have the same story related to that time?
ANA VICTORIA
She is sending me the information.
MANNY
But we have to come back. We can’t stay up here all the time.
ANA VICTORIA
He could disappear again if we don’t search quickly.
MANNY
You are right. We could lose the trail. We know he is alive. We know he is working and not in school. We know he is in or around Chicago.
THE SUV TURNS AROUND AND SPEEDS BACK TOWARD PILSEN.
END OF ACT 2
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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ACT 2 THE DESERT SONGS OF ANA VICTORIA BY KIM REED
I LEARNED THAT THERE MAY BE MORE THAN ONE HUMP IN THE ROLLER COASTER OF TRANSFORMING EVENTS.
Act 2:
INT. CHURCH – DAY
A MAN IS PRAYING. ANA VICTORIA IS CLEANING THE CHURCH. SHE WIPES DOWN THE PEWS. SHE GETS A SMALL BROOM AND STARTS TRYING TO SWEEP SAND OUT FROM UNDER THEM.
MANNY
You can use the vacuum. It’s faster. I am finished with my mediation. Why are you doing that with the small broom?
ANA VICTORIA
Sand, sand and dirt. In every small crack. Around the legs of the seats. Can’t you feel it? I tell you, I can taste it.
MANNY
The floors look very clean. The whole place looks cleaner that usual. Why are working so hard here? They can’t pay you that much.
ANA VICTORIA
Sand, sand and dirt. All over. Over again. I’ve got to get it out.
MANNY
You married? I haven’t seen you in services before. You must have children to care for.
AV
My husband is dead. My children are lost. They were stolen. I asked to clean this church.
MANNY
A volunteer? Are you Ana, the woman they found in the desert?
AV
Yes, my name is Ana Victoria. They found me in the desert. Covered in dirt and sand. I clean now. Houses, any space. I volunteer to clean this church.
MANNY
We would not ask you to do that unless you wanted to. You are doing a good job.
AV
The brush is as good as the vacuum. The cracks hold it. The broom gets in there and pulls it out.
MANNY
You are from Mexico. Michaochoan?
ANA
People always ask me where I am from. Anyone can see I am Mexacana.
MANNY
Stop cleaning. Would you like to pray with me for a few minutes. It would help me speak to God.
ANA
There is a lot to do.
MANNY HOLDS UP A HAND, INVITING AV TO TAKE HIS HAND AND SIT BESIDE HIM.
MANNY
My name is Manuel Guerrero.
AV PUTS DOWN THE SMALL BROOM. SHE TAKES HIS HAND AND SITS. THEY PRAY QUIETLY, EACH ENGULFED IN HIS AND HER OWN CONVERSATION WITH THE LORD. SOMEONE SLAMS A DOOR. IT BREAKS THEIR MEDITATION. THEY BOTH LOOK UP AT ONCE. WHEN THEY SEE EACH OTHER, THEY LAUGH.
MANNY
We got through. I think that was a sign we can talk to one another.
AV
Why would you need to talk to someone when you are trying to pray?
MANNY
I prayed. Now God wants me to talk to you.
AV
I need to finish. I have houses to do tomorrow so I cannot come back here until the end of the week.
MANNY
I could help you. Then we can make coffee in the parish hall and talk.
AV
Then I want you to help me move some of the furniture so I can get under there better.
MANNY
That’s what men are for, when you need to move the furniture.
ANA VICTORIA AND MANNY MOVE SOME FURNITURE. AV SWEEPS GRAINS OF SAND FROM THE SMALL CORNERS AND CRACKS IN THE WOODEN LEGS. MANNY IS AWARE OF AV BUT DOES NOT IMPOSE MORE CONVERSATION ON HER AS THEY WORK.
AV
That is so much better. Got all of it out of there. We can put this broom away and make coffee.
MANNY AND AV GO TO THE PARISH HALL WHERE THERE IS A KITCHEN BAR WITH A COFFEE MAKER. MANNY INSISTS THAT ANA VICTORIA SITS. MANNY TAKES OVER AND LOADS THE COFFEE MAKER.
MANNY
I wish we had Mexican chocolate. I know a place where we can get good chocolate and panderia cookies.
AV
I am grateful for what I have. I don’t have any money for sweets.
MANNY
Was that your first crossing into the United States?
AV
I didn’t want to go to the United States. I wanted to stay in my home in Mexico and raise my children. It’s a long story.
MANNY
My parents were from Mexico. They met working in Chicago.
AV
Chicago? I want to go there. I think that is where they took my children. But if you are from Chicago, why are you in Arizona?
MANNY
I am retired. I retired from the Chicago Police Department. I like the dry desert air. Chicago is very damp. I was tired of the cold winters. This desert climate is better for me.
AV
You look rested.
MANNY POURS ANA VICTORIA A CUP OF COFFEE. SHE NODS YES TO CREAMER BUT NO TO SUGAR.
MANNY
I have a cactus and rock garden. You can come over and see it sometime.
AV
Does your wife help you garden?
MANNY
My wife died two years ago. She had a stroke and a blood vessel burst in her head. We did not realize what happened until it was too late.
AV
My husband died in the desert. They said it was from heat stroke. He went out to look at the border. He said he was meeting someone. Then they brought back his corpse. He is buried on the edge of Nogales. Have you ever been to Nogales?
MANNY
No, I have only been to Mexico on vacation a few times. What is it like?
AV
Its farm country, big farms that hire refugees and migrants. There is a train that carries refugees from the south that they call The Beast. It is packed and stinks worse than animal pens. The young men terrorize everyone on the train. The sounds are horrible. I had to try to hold my children close to me. My husband was still alive with us, or we would have been hurt.
MANNY
The Beast? I saw a news story about that train. It is very dangerous. You did not have a automobile or a way to pay for a bus.
AV
My husband was wanted by bad men in our town. He thought that no one would look for him on a train full of refugees. It’s funny. My husband was also a police officer. I wish he had made it so we could retire together. I lost him. I lost my children. I feel so guilty to survive here without them.
MANNY
They are alive?
AV
Yes. Gael is seven. Carmina is four years old.
MANNY
What happened?
AV
Two men came to give us a ride across the border. They made me give the children a sedative with water and we put them in some hay in the truck bed. They insisted I sit in the cab with them. They started to molest me. They joked that they were going bring me to a brothel. They sold my children to people in Chicago. My Carmina is a beautiful girl. The driver said an older couple would pay him fifty thousand dollars for her. He did not say much about what would happen to my son. When I fought them off, the door to the truck flew open and I was thrown out into the desert.
MANNY
Ana, that is a terrifying way to come to the United States. You were lucky they found you in the morning. By midday you would fry out there.
AV
I make sure that church is clean. I get the sand out of everything.
MANNY
Thank you for giving back.
AV
I don’t feel religious about it. I learned English in school in Mexico. My husband Alejandro and I used to practice our English helping visitors and listening to American cable programs. At the church I meet people to have conversations and improve.
MANNY
You speak well. But you should take time off after what happened to you.
AV
No, down time would be a mistake. I need to get my children back. I won’t stop thinking about them. Its too painful to think about those men selling my children. I am resting and working and practicing English. So I can go to Chicago to find them.
MANNY
Yes, you must search for them. Look, I can help you. I have some connections back in Chicago. I know the neighborhoods and where we could ask who has new adopted kids.
AV
Nothing more important to me.
MANNY
I can start by checking to see if they were entered into the system. You heard about the children’s detention center? They keep records and even search for missing relatives in the states.
AV
I don’t know how to look for them. I’m illegal. I can’t call the police and ask for help. Can you help me?
MANNY
I’m retired. I am not doing anything down here. Why not? Come to my house after church on Sunday. I can show you maps of Chicago. I can help you create a strategy, so you don’t get lost.
AV
You make good coffee? Or maybe you could make us some Mexican chocolater? Okay. I need to learn more.
MANNY TAKES A PAPER TOWEL AND FINDS A PEN. HE WRITES DOWN HIS NAME, ADDRESS AND CELL NUMBER FOR ANA VICTORIA.
MANNY
Your friends know who I am. They can vouch for me.
ANA VICTORIA ACCEPTS THE PAPER TOWEL. SHE REALIZES THAT MANNY IS LONELY. HE IS LOOKING AT HER.
ANA VICTORIA
Now I will finish upstairs. She takes the coffee cups and washes them out.
MANNY
I hope to see you on Sunday.
ANA VICTORIA BEGINS TO SING THE SONG SHE SANG IN THE DESERT, THE SONG THAT REMINDS HER OF HER FAMILY.
TE
INT. MANNY’S HOUSE – SUNDAY AFTERNOON
MANNY LET’S ANA VICTORIA INTO THE FRONT DOOR. ON A TABLE IN A DINING ROOM THERE ARE A STACK OF MAPS AND A COMPUTER.
MANNY
I have these old paper maps of Illinois and the City of Chicago. I worked on the west side of the city for years.
MANY SPREADS OPEN AN OLDER PAPER STREET MAP OF CHICAGO.
AV
Oh, the city curls along the lake. I read that Lake Michigan is beautiful.
MANNY
It is. The lake is blue in the summer. In winter ice pillows up along the shoreline and makes noise.
AV
Where do we start to look?
MANNY
This areas on the southwest side is called La Villeta. It is a Mexican village inside the city of Chicago. This was the site of the old stockyards that closed in the 1970s. Then if we go east down here, we find Pilsen. The Mexican Museum of Art is located there. It is one of the older communities of Mexicans in Chicago. Then if we look closer to the old southside ports on the lake, we find Mexican families there too, and in Blue Island just outside the city.
ANA VICTORIA
I did not know there were so many Mexicans up there.
MANNY
Mexicans are the largest ethnic group in the country now. After Los Angeles and Texas, Chicago attracts people because there are jobs.
ANA VICTORIA GET EXCITED AND PACES AROUND THE TABLE LOOKING AT THE MAP. SHE BENDS OVER AND RE-EXAMINES THE AREAS MANY POINTED OUT. SHE TAPS HER FINGER ON THE PAPER AS IF TRYING TO FEEL SOMETHING, SOME ENERGY OR DIRECTION.
ANA VICTORIA
How should we start?
MANNY
First, we are going to call organizations in these communities that help Mexicans. You can’t ask the police for help, but I can. I am looking for two children who were rumored to be kidnapped in Mexico. People here are concerned. I am following up to see if I can find more information. I can check to see if they were picked up by the patrol too. No one has to see you or talk to you directly, so you will be safe.
ANA VICTORIA
I have no money to pay for this.
MANNY
I thought about you and those two children all week. This gives me a chance to investigate again, to put my police skills to good use. I can also look up old friends in the department and ask for their help. On behalf of my church group in Arizona, keeping your name out of it.
ANA VICTORIA
That may make you a target.
MANNY
It may take time to find any leads. The two men who took you and your children are probably long gone. We are looking for two children. When new children appear in a center or school or church, other people notice. Community people notice. I am retired, but I was a cop. I know how to ask questions.
ANA VICTORIA
I am ready to go.
MANNY
We should take a week to plan, make reservations, make those calls, and wait for people to answer. We may discover that we have to go to Colorado or Los Angeles instead of Chicago. We can’t jump in a minute, or we could lose leads.
ANA VICTORIA
Oh, Manny, how can I stand to wait!
MANNY
There is work to do to organize our search. I made a file in Google we can share. You can access it from a cell phone or any computer with an internet connection. I created a log where we should record everything we do and everything we collect. See here it is, date, source, description. I put this map first in the list just to show you how to enter information.
ANA VICTORIA
I want to kill those men. I want to kill all those traffickers who hurt people.
MANNY
Let’s not put that in the log. We’ll share our emotions when we are together. I do have an old Chicago Police Book of Gangs from the last year I was on the force. It lists active gangs and associated groups in the city. We are not going to contact them, but we need to be aware of who is watching parts of the city.
ANA VICTORIA
I can call the Mexican community and tell them we are searching, but not that these are my children.
MANNY
You could do that.
ANA VICTORIA LOOKS AT MANNY.
ANA VICTORIA
I can’t believe you would help me go to Chicago.
MANNY
Well, my retirement is boring. After my wife died, I have been waiting for something to help me get moving. I know you still miss your Alejandro. I can feel his presence in your heart. But your children are still alive. They should be with their mother.
ANA VICTORIA
How long does it take by train to go to Chicago?
MANNY
It’s a long ride, usually overnight. It is worth driving after we find leads.
ANA VICTORIA
You care about finding my children. Others made me feel like I would never see them again. Class dismissed. But you believe we can do it.
MANNY
I know we can do it. Most police investigations are about hard work in the search for information. They call it shoe leather because the beat cops would wear out their shoes walking around and asking people if they know anything. Together…
ANA VICTORIA HUGS MANNY
ANA VICTORIA
I need love. We both need someone.
MANNY
This feels so good. But we have a lot of work to do if we are going to find your son and daughter. A lot of work…
MANNY RELENTS AND LETS ANA VICTORIA HUG HIM. THEY ARE BOTH LONELY AND DO NOT RESIST TENDERNESS. MANNY HAS TEARS IN HIS EYES BECAUSE SHE NEEDS HIM AS MUCH AS HE NEEDS SOMEONE.
INT. CHURCH – AFTERNOON LATER IN TIME
TE 2
ANA VICTORIA MARRIES MANNY. HER RESCUERS ARE WITNESSES.
MANNY CARRIES ANA VICTORIA OVER THE THRESHOLD INSIDE HIS HOUSE. THEIR DINING ROOM IS FULL OF THE SEARCH PROJECT MATERIALS, LISTS OF ORGANIZATIONS, PLACES THAT HELP IMMIGRANTS SETTLE IN, ADOPTION SERVICES, GOVERNEMENT HELP NUMBERS.
MANY SETS ANA VICTORIA DOWN.
MANNY
Oh, I have three leads up north! I made hotel reservations. I think we should drive and see the country. That way you will not be asked for identification on the train.
ANA VICTORIA SMILES. SHE AND MANNY ARE GOING TO MAKE THIS PROJECT WORK. THEY HUG AND KISS GENTLY, PASSIONATELY.
EXT. CHICAGO STREETS – DAY
Plan in action: AV and her new husband make trips to search for the children. They get some information about where the gangs who control the desert around Nogales have sold under-age migrants as laborers in the Chicago area.
INT. CHICAGO ORGANIZATIONS – DAY
TE 3
AV finds contacts in organizations that help immigrants reunite their families. They involve her in conversations about strategy and put out messages online with information about her search.
There is a panoply or people and places that are new, where all share the label of immigrant. The people they meet encourage her. She feels real hope, but there are thousands of people who lost their relatives on the trip north, generations of people who have a connection to this experience and understand loss. AV meets people with stories about the immigrant experience.
INT. HOTEL ROOM – EVENING
Midpoint Turning Point: Despite the frustration of not finding her son and daughter, AV vows to go on. Manny convinces her to rest back home with him so that she can keep up her strength and think through their next moves in the search.
INT. HOME IN AZ – DAY
Back home, she keeps in touch with the immigrant organizations, helping when she can. One day a woman calls to tell her that she thinks she knows where the traffickers left her children. AV goes out into the desert and prays. There is hope.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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Lesson 10 Act 1 Inciting Incidents The Desert Songs of Ana Victoria
Act 1: 30 pages
SCENE 1 7/10 pages
Opening:
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT
A still figure lying in the desert. An animal comes close to the figure. Ana Victoria is singing low or making noise trying to sing. A sharp sound scares it away.
ANA VICTORIA
(real moans or taped voice over singer)
Ti quiero….
(The woman is remembering what happened and dreaming.)
INT. TRUCK OR SUV – NIGHT – FLASHBACK
TE 1
AV is in a truck speeding through the desert. Sounds of the desert and the air rushing by in the night. In the front seat two men on either side of our heroine Ana Victoria.
TRAFFICKER 1
Your son is healthy.
ANA VICTORIA
His name is Gael. Yes, Gael is a strong boy.
TRAFFICKER 1
The little girl was with you on the train. Nothing happened to you?
ANA VICTORIA
Her name is Carmina.
TRAFFICKER 1
No?
ANA VICTORIA
My husband Alejandro was a strong man. We were okay. The noise on the train was horrible.
TRAFFICKER 1
This is the way to travel. Private coach. Your husband had good connections down south. Not everyone is riding with air conditioning like this. My boss says he saw photos of you and the children.
ANA VICTORIA
What photos? I don’t believe my husband showed them to you. Did someone photograph us? I don’t know how my husband made these arrangements. I don’t know anything. He was in charge of us. So we left home because he said that we had to go.
TRAFFICKER 1
Well, someone must have taken a few pictures at work. You know everyone loves to share.
(Silence)
ANA VICTORIA
You make this trip often?
TRAFFICKER 1
We are the express route. You will be in Phoenix soon.
TRAFFICKER 2
Hey, you must be happy.
ANA VICTORIA
I lost my husband this week. I am still mourning him.
TRAFFICKER 2
Very happy women must smile. Because you know we are bringing you to a place where you can have fun. We go there. Our boss goes there. You can meet a lot of men with money.
(The men are joking with her that she would be happy in a place where they have fun. At first visual the audience cannot tell that she is not a friend or familiar to them, but a woman being driven across the border by traffickers.)
ANA VICTORIA
My husband said we were going to a place where the church people leave water, to wait so they would find us and bring us in.
TRAFFICKER 1
Yes, we have a connection with that group. But we are not going there tonight. We are passing it now. We have plenty of water behind the seat. Just relax and enjoy.
(Trafficker 2 places his hand on Ana Victoria’s left thigh. Trafficker 1 sees this and places his hand on her right thigh. The two men start to molest AV.)
ANA VICTORIA
Stop. This is not the deal my husband negotiated. I want to get out and wait for the church group.
TRAFFICKER 1
You have no money to pay off your debts. Your husband is dead.
TRAFFICKER 2
Such as nice woman, so carefully kept. 2You have nice breasts. You had an easy life so far. You think you could handle working in a chicken plant for a few dollars an hour! No! You belong in a brothel where men can go on enjoying your company.
ANA VICTORIA
Stop the truck! Stop touching me!
(ANA VICTORIA starts fighting left and right. She wants the truck to stop so she can escape, but the traffickers go on.)
TRAFFICKER 2
Hey girl, you know your children are drugged in the back of this truck. You want to cause an accident. We aren’t making emergency stops.
ANA VICTORIA
You are taking me and my children to a brothel?
TRAFFICKER 1
We have a buyer for the little girl, a nice older couple in Chicago who want to raise a child. 50k in cash. We have some interest in the boy too. See, all your debt will be repaid, and we will give some of it back to you in the brothel.
(AV’s resistance escalates. It becomes difficult to drive. She kicks the man in the passenger seat and he opens the door to the truck by accident. It swings open but the driver does not stop. AV is trying to kick him out of the open door or cause the driver to stop. The men start to punch her to control her violent response. She hits back. In frustration the man in the passenger side grabs her and flings her from the truck. The truck slows down but does not stop. The lights recede into the night. AV is knocked out laying near the truck tracks.)
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT – FLASHBACK
GAEL
Mami, look, there is a lizard.
ALEJANDRO
Yes, that one won’t hurt you. But watch out for the bigger ones.
GAEL
I want to keep it. Then I can swing him by the tail.
(GAEL grabs the green lizard and starts swinging the animal.)
CARMINA
Noooooo! Bad, bad. Papi, stop Gael.
ANA VICTORIA
Let that creature go. Who’s hungry? I made some good food for you. Much better than the taste of that lizard.
(GAEL stops bothering the lizard. CARMINA looks up at her mother with interest in the food. ALEJANDRO smiles and scoops up his children, one in each arm.)
ALEJANDRO
We love you! Let’s eat!
(AL sets down his son and daughter. AV serves lunch. Someone calls AL on his cell.)
ANA VICTORIA
Now who can eat the first tortilla fastest?
ALEJANDRO
No! No! What happened? Trapped. Why wasn’t I there? He told me to go home.
(AL clicks off his cell.)
ANA VICTORIA
Work?
(ALEJANDRO frantically finds his pistol and checks to see how many bullets are in the clip.)
ANA VICTORIA
No, no….
ALEJANDRO
The Captain is dead.
ANA VICTORIA
What does that mean?
ALEJANDRO
I have to go out. I have to find out what happened. This is serious Ana; the men who killed the Captain will come after me. I may send you to visit your sister while I work here.
ANA VICTORIA
What did you do? What did you do?
ALEJANDRO
We had to get closer to them. Then I made some deals, not for the money, but to get inside. At first it was easy. They want the cops to become part of their organization. I made extra money. The Captain let me in on how work with them. Then they took some of it away. Because of losses. We weren’t giving them enough information or protection.
ANA VICTORIA
Al, you are telling me you are corrupt. You belong to the cartel.
ALEJANDRO
Everything I did, I did for us. The Captain played both sides. I was just a soldier! Everyone makes money in the war.
ANA VICTORIA
I can’t believe you messed up. We have two children here who need you, need this house.
ALEJANDRO
No one knows but the cartel and the Captain is dead.
ANA VICTORIA
So where is their money? Do you have anything you could use to buy them off. Tell them it was the Captain!
ALEJANDRO
I borrowed money for the last deal. The Captain was supposed to give it back to me after he did a search and seizure, but now he is dead.
ANA VICTORIA
What are you talking about?!!! You borrowed money from the cartel to do an illegal deal that was supposed to be busted by your boss who said he would reimburse you? What the fuck are you saying?
ALEJANDRO
Stop, never say that again. You know nothing, nothing. If they think you know anything, they will kill you. I know some of these men would kill you just for fun.
ANA VICTORIA
I am so sorry to hear…..
(GAEL holds up a finger and pretends to shoot Carmina.)
ALEJANDRO
Gael! Stop threatening your sister. Eat your lunch. Can you just behave and help your mother until I get back?
GAEL
Yes.
(ALEJANDRO gets up and starts collecting his bag and his gun.)
ALEJANDRO
Stay very quiet at home tonight. Do not go out. If I don’t come back, take the savings and go to your sister’s place. Don’t ask any questions. I will come when I can get away.
ANA VICTORIA
(Moaning or humming music. Then silence.)
(A woman is dreaming. She imagines her children. Her husband, their father, loved them. He loved her. In her dream she sees her family. She sings to them. They are happy. Then something jumps in the darkness.)
INT. A ROOM IN THE SOUTH – DAY
ALEJANDRO
The men who killed the Captain want to kill me too. We were working together, making connections inside the cartel so that we could find out what was happening.
ANA VICTORIA
I don’t want to leave! My mother’s plates are here. My children need me at home.
ALEJANDRO
Our lives on in danger here now. There may not be much time. You know they control the city. We’ve been harassing some of the men who work for the cartel. With the Captain dead, they will try to stop any information and witnesses from getting out of here. There is no way to defend the station with so many men inside and outside and who knows who.
ANA VICTORIA
We can’t take the highway. What can we do?
ALEJANDRO
We’ll get on the train from the south that goes to La Frontera. No one here will look for us among all the poor people from other countries. They will assume that I am hiding. I can use some of my contacts to get us on board. Then we can get off in Nogales. There are men there who I worked with in the past. They know how to cross the border without swimming or getting cut down. They have people in the States who know how.
ANA VICTORIA
(crying)
I don’t want to leave….
ALEJANDRO
Listen to me, listen. We must get out, get to a safer place. We can only take a bag each and the children. If we stay here they will kill me and take you. I can’t protect you here.
ANA VICTORIA
We go with you. I can only pray.
ALEJANDRO
I think this will work.
ANA VICTORIA
I have to put the children’s things in something too. Gael can carry something. I could tie a change of clothes on Carmina.
ALEJANDRO
Good, be quick. I need to find out where the train is today. I’ll be back to get you and the children in an hour. We can make it another city.
GAEL
We have to take the toys with us. I can pull the plastic tub. We have to. I don’t want to play at Auntie’s house without my toys!
ANA VICTORIA
Gael, please do not fight me today. You know my sister has toys too. You will get to play with new toys.
GAEL
What are they?
ANA VICTORIA
What do you think?
CARMINA
Mama, can I sit in your lap on the train?
ANA VICTORIA
Yes, baby girl, I can hold you close. The trip will be over before you know it. You can rest on me. Oh look, your father is back already.
ALEJANDRO
Gael, I need you to be a man and help me keep your mother and sister calm. This is important. Can you do this for me? We will play soldiers together, yes?
GAEL
Carmina said she wants to sleep through the trip. I can be a good soldier. You are my commanding officer.
ALEJANDRO
If I leave you alone, you go on protecting your mother and sister.
EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS AND OPEN CAR – DAY
TE 2
(Cut to La Bestia, a train called the Beast, where hundreds of migrants are hanging off the train, riding the roof, people are pushing to get on.)
The family squeezed into a small space in a crowded car. The train is full of foreigners from south of the Mexican border, all heading north toward the United States. The family are in a corner near a hole in the wall that lets in air.)
ALEJANDRO
I couldn’t get anything at the office. I found out the train was going to slow down at this point and that was it. I didn’t have time.
ANA VICTORIA
I needed to take some things to my sister. At least let me try to call her when we stop.
ALEJANDRO
No, don’t call her yet. We can go back after we get settled and things die down. I buried, you know, our gold, you know where.
ANA VICTORIA
We may not be back there for a long time. Maybe my sister could….
ALEJANDRO
No, no one knows. The two of us need to be completely silent. Do not tell your sister where we are or where we are going or how to find our box. Others may overhear or watch to see if someone goes back to the house.
ANA VICTORIA
I am afraid of the people on this train, but I can’t let them see any emotions. The young men assault people over our heads on the roof and in every car.
ALEJANDRO
The army taught me how to fight off these punks. I don’t think they will try anything.
ANA VICTORIA
I am trying to pretend I am asleep. For the children’s sake, I don’t want to talk to anyone on this trip.
ANA STANDS UP TO STRETCH
ANA VICTORIA
Al, there are dead bodies piled by the door. Two bodies, waiting for the train to stop
ALEJANDRO
Come here to me. Just rest your face on my chest. I love your Ana. Our love will carry us to a new home.
(Sounds of horror, of women crying because they are being raped by men on the train. Her husband stands watch over his family. The children are afraid, but they sleep next to their mother.)
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ACT I TURNING POINT MIDWAY SCENES THE DESERT SONGS OF ANA VICTORIA
GOAL 10 -13 PAGES MIDWAY ACT 1
INT. GUEST HOUSE – DAY
TE 3
(AV and AL find a guest house that will rent them a large room.)
ANA VICTORIA
This place charges like its Miami. God, we smell like we’re at heaven’s gate.
ALEJANDRO
I will take care of it. Just sit and rest with the children.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I let you have a cot. One of the children can sleep there. If you are interested, there are jobs picking asparagus at a local farm. The truck comes in and picks people up and brings them back to town. There are also strawberries, but they aren’t coming this week.
ALEJANDRO
We are not looking for fieldwork.
(GUEST HOUSE OWNER takes his credit card. She gives him a card to sign that records his permanent address. He fills in fake information and smears it lightly with his finger.)
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
Well, our local desert attracts many. I like to share information with newcomers. Laundry is extra. It looks like everyone needs to settle in. If you leave your clothes in the basket, we can get them back to you by the end of the day. I’ll take a credit card. Don’t try to use the shower outside of the posted hours. We turn off the valve. It should remain closed. Should I leave the charges on this card/ Do you want to leave a second number, or any cash to put in the safe?
ALEJANDRO
The card should be enough for a couple of days. I don’t need the safe. A meal, water, laundry, shower. Yes, okay. Please make sure my wife and children get a bottle of water too. I have some directions to meet someone on business. He pulls a tiny sheet of folded paper out of his pocket. What is the best way to this place?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
No one would advise a man to walk into the desert alone. Are you walking?
ALEJANDRO
Yes.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
You don’t want a ride?
ALEJANDRO
I’m okay. I am meeting someone who works out on a farm.
GUEST HOUSE WOMAN
You have a connection already? But I know who hires. They prefer people who have a reference here. Just ask if your ‘connection’ doesn’t get you a job.
ALEJANDRO
Thank you. I am just looking around.
(The GUEST HOUSE WOMAN takes a pencil and draws on the back of the paper.)
GUEST HOUSE WOMAN
Just like a tourist.
FADE.
INT. GUEST HOUSE ROOM – AFTERNOON
ANA VICTORIA
It feels good to let the children sleep in. They both are ill after the trip. I need to stay with them and let them sleep. They are dehydrated.
(AV looks at her children, worried.)
ALEJANDRO
I am going out to the desert to meet someone who can show me the border. It’s only 40 miles north but The roads are watched. There are trucks that go to and from the farms. Their employees know the trails. They sometimes just take deliveries straight across the desert. I could hitch a ride and walk the last few miles to see it.
ANA VICTORIA
To save time and money?
ALEJANDRO
That is what I was told. I promised to pay to get us on a truck that will follow an old trail, but I can see if we could just go. The driver will let us off at a place where a church group leaves food and water for border crossers. These men have information about when the group plans to go out. The money is gone. I still owe them more.
ANA VICTORIA
Are you sure you can trust your informant? How much did you agree to pay?
ALEJANDRO
We made it this far. I had to pay for the train, food, water. We don’t want to stay here long, so I want to get moving while people still remember me. Don’t accept any rides from the manager of this place. She feeds people to the farms. They don’t care who you are. This sun can kill you. Just wait for me. I should be back tonight or no later than tomorrow morning.
ANA VICTORIA cries.
ALEJANDRO
You are my good girl. I will be right back in a few hours.
EXT. GUEST HOUSE YARD
(As ALEJANDRO leaves, he does not notice that he is being watched.)
INT. GUEST HOUSE – MORNING
TE 4
ANA VICTORIA
Your father is out there somewhere. I want to get out of here. I didn’t like this woman’s mole. Gael, eat the left over tortillas.
GAEL
I miss your mole. I did eat the tortillas. Carmina did not want to eat hers, so I ate it.
CARMINA
-baby talking to herself-
ANA VICTORIA
I don’t want to leave you here alone to go out and find him.
GAEL
Lay down, you need to rest too. There is more water in the bottle.
ANA VICTORIA
Thank you, Gael. Can you watch Carmina for a few minutes? Don’t let her fall on the floor.
(AV leaves the room.)
EXT. GUEST HOUSE YARD – MORNING
There is some commotion outside.
ANA VICTORIA
What is going on?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I am sorry. Your husband was found dead in the desert by the police. The truck is coming down main street. The police called me to ask if he was staying here.
ANA VICTORIA
Oh, no!
ENTER A LOCAL POLICE OFFICER. THE GUEST HOUSE OWNER POINTS AT ANA VICTORIA WHO IS MUTE WITH SHOCK AND FEAR OF THE OFFICER.
OFFICER
Senora, could you come outside and identify this body? I took his identification for the records.
OFFICER HANDS ANA VICTORIA ALEJANDRO’S BACKPACK. ANA VICTORIA FOLLOWS THE OFFICER OUTSIDE. THERE IS A TRUCK WAITING WITH ALEJANDRO’S BODY. She nods yes, it is her husband.
AV RETURNS TO THE GUEST HOUSE OWNER WITH THE OFFICER.
OFFICER
This was quick, so you don’t have to go down to the morgue and leave the children. Are both of the children by the deceased?
ANA VICTORIA knods yes.
Gael and Carmina.
OFFICER
We have tried to do things here to accommodate the large number of visitors who arrive in Nogales every day. The older offices are overwhelmed with people seeking help or information. So the owner here can help you with funeral arrangements. As I mentioned at the identification, it looks like he had a heart attack from heat stroke in the desert. It’s not a suspicious case. Even experienced people can misjudge the effects of the heat.
ANA VICTORIA
He said that he wanted to see the border I don’t know who he was meeting out there.
OFFICER
Was he trying to cross by himself? Did he plan to meet someone?
OFFICER looks at ANA VICTORIA hard, to see if she is hiding information.
ANA VICTORIA
He said he was catching a ride with a local. He made some arrangements to talk to people. I don’t know who he spoke with.
OFFICER
Was your husband leaving you in Nogales? When you start the 40 mile walk north, you can’t come back.
He must have known someone with connections.
ANA VICTORIA
Alejandro was completely in charge. I just trusted my husband. We intended to go north together. He was meeting someone, a connection, and he wanted to see the border.
OFFICER
Who did he speak with? Did you see anyone? Did you make the deal with him?
ANA VICTORIA
No, he preferred that his wife stay home. I never met anyone or even heard anything on the phone.
OFFICER
Your husband could have been making a delivery. Drugs? Did he do drugs? Did you ever see drugs in his possession?
ANA VICTORIA
No, Alejandro did not use drugs. He did not sell drugs. I never saw drugs in his possession. He was a good Catholic. He was a good husband. He loved his children.
OFFICER
I want to tell you something. I know children. Many children die because their parents wanted to go to the United States. One or the other or both want to cross that border more than they want to go on raising a child. And I hate every dead child in our graveyard because their souls cannot rest. They are far from home. Their families do not know where they are. The lines are broken. One day they feel the little body go limp. Some go on because they cannot stop to bury their own hearts.
OFFICER STOPS TO RETRIEVE A HANDKERCHIEF. HE WIPES HIS BROW. THE OFFICER SEEMS TO BE ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. ANA IS UNCERTAIN WHAT SHE CAN SAY, SO SHE WAITS FOR HIM TO SPEAK AGAIN.
THE GUEST HOUSE OWNER BRINGS HIM A COLD BEER. HE OPENS IT AND TAKES A SWALLOW.
OFFICER
Somewhere in the United States there is some bitch who dropped her child. Or a husband who pulled himself over and not the child. Or they were strong enough to survive the sun and dehydration but their babies, their toddlers, could not survive such abuse. Abuse they subjected that child to because they wanted to cross. They needed to cross. All such parents cross into hell. That is just my opinion. There are stories about those who crossed into the United States. But their children were taken away, into prison camps. Some are placed with American parents. They cannot be reunited. The US government steals your children and places them – for their own protection- in prison, and then in some stranger’s home.
ANA VICTORIA
Alejandro would never abandon us. We would never abandon our children.
OFFICER PAUSES AGAIN AND LOOKS TIRED.
OFFICER
You are from the south. People pour off that train. This is not your desert. I’m tired of foreign spirits filling the desert at night.
ANA VICTORIA
I beg your forgiveness, sir. My husband paid for his ignorance with his life.
OFFICER
Don’t try to cross the desert again. Remember what happened to your husband. Go back to wherever you came from and make peace. Or move to the other side of Mexico. But don’t kill your family.
ANA VICTORIA
My husband said that he wanted to look at the border. He did not say he was going to try to cross it. He would not leave me and the children.
OFFICER
The gangs completely own that desert. No independent crossers are welcome unless they pay first.
The Sonoran desert is beautiful, but it is hard to cross unless you have the stars and a gps. The border is being covered in razor wire that cuts into skin. There are only a few coyotes who know old trails and how to avoid or lift the hazards they placed.
OFFICER SIGHS AS HE OBSERVES ANA VICTORIA LOOKS LIKE SHE IS GOING TO COLLAPSE. HE ASKS THE OWNER FOR A BOTTLE OF WATER AND PAYS FOR IT. HE HANDS IT TO AV. SHE DRINKS IT DOWN. SHE STARTS CRYING BUT STOPS TO FINISH THE WATER. IT CALMS HER.
ANA VICTORIA
I needed that, thank you.
OFFICER
In Tijuana they try to rush the drainage ditch that used to be a river. The slum grows into the sewer pipes. They die quickly there. In Cuidad Juarez there are tunnels and even people who fly over, but everything is fixed by organized criminals. If your husband contacted professionals, they would demand cash up front. It looks like he was depending on his savings account debit card and a credit card on your trip. He was better off than many people who come here with the same hope.
ANA VICTORIA
What happens to the people who stay here? Or who can’t leave?
.
OFFICER
They go out to the asparagus fields to make their rent. They keep their plans and dream of crossing the border into the United States. But the United States of Mexico needs pickers. Fruit, strawberries. Tenders and choppers. The market will catch up with you over the cost of living. Your little boy is almost tall enough to pick. Don’t think of going out and walking the streets trying to find another husband. That is a fast way to get your throat cut.
ANA VICTORIA
My husband was employed. We have no work experience.
OFFICER
I can ask the cantina owners if they need a waitress. You can ask at the door about doing laundry. Or you could try to go back to where you came from. If you have relatives, I would try to contact them to see if they can help.
ANA VICTORIA
I wanted to call my sister.
OFFICER
I hope you find what you need. I will look in here in a couple of days.
INT. GUESTHOUSE – AFTERNOON
ANA VICTORIA
Why did he take his backpack? Did he have something in there? Hidden money? Something he was going to sell to get us a ride.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I am sorry for your loss. We are willing to help you bury your husband. I am familiar with the arrangements. We have a cemetery run by the church. Its consecrated ground. The priest gives a nice prayer. You can hire mourners if you like. They are willing to bury your husband on credit, but this will increase your debt. I have a list of prices here. Travelers sometimes need these services in Nogales. I do not mean to insult you, but if you are not religious, or you have no money, there is a paid cremation service and a public service that burns the body with gasoline.
ANA VICTORIA
Just bury him. Bury my heart in the church yard. I can’t afford a full funeral. I will find a way to pay it off.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
Very well. All of that will exhaust the card he has on file with us. Your husband had good credit. I see you are co-owner of the account. You will need to contact your creditors and bank to update their records. I can’t take another card until you straighten that out.
ANA VICTORIA
Ask the priest to pray for him.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
The officer likes you. He bought you dinner and water. I did not mention it to the Officer. Your husband let me in on something. Did your husband tell you about his good luck? He did business with some men who do a run to Arizona. I think they work in the fruit and vegetable industry. I never met any of his contacts. Of course, this is a guest house, not a rental apartment. We have a limit on how long you can stay, so he must have made a deal to move on. They will come here looking for all of you. I am sure they will take you without your husband.
ANA VICTORIA
I have to lay down and rest. I am exhausted.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
Of course, m’am. We do have chicken for dinner later. I will comp your meal today out of respect for your loss.
ANA VICTORIA
Thank you.
Ana Victoria feels completely alone. Night if falling on the broiling desert but there is a whisp of blowing air. The air caresses her as she misses Alejandro.
Carmina is ill. AV nurses her child stroking her forehead.
GAEL
When is my father coming back?
ANA VICTORIA
Your father had to do some business out in the desert. Don’t think about him now. We may have to travel on and meet him later. Carmina, sit up so that I can change your shirt. The woman brough the laundry back.
GAEL
No train.
ANA VICTORIA
No, son. No trains. Come babies, we need to wash.
INT. GUEST HOUSE – EVENING
The guest house owner brings her some electrolyte water for the girl, and some food and water. GAEL, eats voraciously. AV eats slowly. She is still in shock and scared. The officer seemed to be a man who cared about people. But she looks at her children. They are too young to be left alone. She does not want to go out to the fields with Gael. Carmina is still not well. She is very quiet.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
Go to the church and pray for the soul of your lost husband and the recovery of your daughter. I will watch the children until you return.
ANA VICTORIA agrees and leaves.
INT. CHURCH -EVENING
CANDLELIGHT
AV kneels and prays.
ANA VICTORIA
What have we done? God, please forgive Alejandro for his deals and his corruption. Please take him into heaven. Because he loved us. He trusted other men to be predictable, but he lost his bets.
AV prays for half a minute. Someone is watching her from the other side of the church. She feels unsettled.
ANA VICTORIA
We could go back to our house. We could die at home. Little Carmina and Gael. They can’t understand anything. They were good children on that ride through hell on the Beast. Carmina may not remember anything, but Gael is old enough to remember and ask questions. I wish I could erase this trip.
Al is gone. The cartel will see he was gone. I don’t know how to deal with them. Al was a police officer. I was his housewife. How can I go on? I don’t know anyone in the United States. I miss my kitchen and my mother’s plates with the pretty design. I could die at home, but what about our children? I can’t leave them there. I can’t leave them here. Al, this was unfair.
AV imagines that heaven is listening and that her husband is there.
ANA VICTORIA
I will do whatever it takes to save them.
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LESSON 12 FINISH ACT 1
TE 5 10- 14 pages
EXT. FRONT OF GUEST HOUSE – EVENING
ANA VICTORIA RETURNS. THE GUEST HOUSE OWNER INTERCEPTS HER.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I helped the children pack. At least their clothes are clean now. I helped the bathe.
ANA VICTORIA
Why? What are you doing?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I got a call. The men who your husband arranged to give you a ride are coming in. They cannot stop long. You have to be ready when they arrive to get right in the truck and leave.
ANA VICTORIA
The police don’t know them?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
You want to cross the desert and live in the United States? You want to ride and not wear holes in your feet trying to walk? Don’t make these men wait.
ANA VICTORIA
They told you they talked to my husband? They knew his name?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
This is the deal that will take you to the United States. I let your boy have some chicken tacos from dinner. He is quite a little man when he is hungry.
ANA VICTORIA
How is Carmina? Is she feeling better?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
The Pedialyte helped her. She slept. She was alert. She even ate some food with her brother. He helped her sit up. They were no problem. But now you must hurry. When the truck arrives, you come out and get in with the driver. Don’t ask questions. They know where they are going. They will tell you more after you cross the border.
ANA VICTORIA
There is so much I don’t know about this place. The officer said it is full of foreign spirits.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
He was trying to tell you that he is tired too. He has not had a vacation in a long time. The people pour into the area from all over, not knowing anyone. There is too much theft now.
ANA VICTORIA
But, Alejandro’s burial…
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
The officer and I are friends with the priest. You just visited our church. When you are settled and it is safe, you can come back and visit him. I won’t cheat you. A good pine coffin, a burial, and a prayer. We will get everything done tomorrow morning. You will be across the border by then with your children.
ANA VICTORIA
Do I have any choice, to stay?
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
Look, his card is charged up. You must go somewhere. Why not continue with the plans you made? In many ways you are lucky.
ANA VICTORIA
But should I tell the officer?
THE GUEST HOUSE OWNER TURNS AND WALKS INTO THE HOUSE. ANA VICTORIA STANDS THERE, STUNNED. SHE RETURNS WITH THE CHILDREN AND EVERYONE’S THINGS PACKED.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I hope you don’t mind. I used his backpack for extra space. Food for the children. A rag. Clean clothes take up more room.
GAEL
This lady was nice, mommy. I got chicken tacos for our trip to meet poppy.
CARMINA
Mama!
The baby reaches out for AV who takes her in her arms and hugs her.
GUEST HOUSE OWNER
I see his lights. Thank you for staying with us. When you return to Nogales I will visit the church with you and light a candle for your husband.
A TRUCK PULLS UP. A MAN GETS OUT. HE APPROACHES ANA VICTORIA AND THE CHILDREN.
TRAFFICKER 1
Ana Victoria, Gael and Carmina, yes? I am your ride. My name is Augustin. You can call me Augie.
A second man gets out of the truck cab and places their bags in the back of the truck.
He pulls a steel water bottle out and brings it to the group.
TRAFFICKER 2
We have something to help the children sleep. It won’t harm them. That way they will be quiet and see nothing while we cross. It Is better if you offer it to them.
AV realizes that he is insisting that she give each child some of the bottle. She takes the bottle. He returns to the truck. The doors are open to air the cab out for a minute.
ANA VICTORIA
To help them sleep, yes?
TRAFFICKER 1
Yes.
ANA VICTORIA ASKS EACH CHILD TO DRINK SOME WATER BEFORE THEY LEAVE ON THE TRIP.
GAEL
Yuck, this tastes bad. Our water back home was better.
CARMINA JUST ACCEPTS HER MOTHER’S HELP TAKING A COUPLE OF SWALLOWS.
TRAFFICKER 1
We are lucky the stars are out. Nothing to kick up the dust but us.
ANA VICTORIA
Where did the woman go? I did not say goodbye.
TRAFFICKER 1
I heard her wish you a good journey. Look, the kids are sleepy. Let’s carry them to truck. I have some hay in the back for them.
THE TRAFFICKER 1 PICKS UP GAEL. ANA VICTORIA PICKS UP CARMINA. THEY PLACE THE CHILDREN IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK. TRAFFICKER 1 DIRECTS AV TO GET INTO THE CAB IN BETWEEN 2 ON THE PASSENGER SIDE. SHE GETS IN THE CAB. HE CHECKS THE BACK DOOR IS SECURE. HE GETS IN THE CAB. THE TRUCK TURNS AND LEAVES THE GUEST HOUSE YARD.
INT. TRUCK CAB – NIGHT ON A RURAL BACK ROAD
TRAFFICKER 2
You want to listen to some music? Hey, I Ana Victoria on mp3. Her name is just like yours. You sing?
ANA VICTORIA
I sing folk songs to the children. I have no stage experience. She hums and tries a line of the song playing in the cab.
TRAFFICKER 2 joins her.
TRAFFICKER 1
You could sing along with my friend. There is money to make if you are a good singer.
ANA VICTORIA
I don’t know. I never did it in public. I just miss my husband. I loved my husband.
TRAFFICKER 1
You know we all grow when we try new things.
ANA VICTORIA
Oh, Gael has some tacos if he wakes up and wants to eat. Are you both from Nogales?
TRAFFICKER 1
No, I live in another town. You like asparagus?
ANA VICTORIA
I never saw the farms. How can you drive so fast in the dark? You must know every curve in this trail.
TRAFFICKER 2
We are approaching. It’s better if you keep your head down when we cross. I’ll pull you back up when we are safe.
EXT. DESERT SANDS – MORNING – FLASHBACK TO END OF FIRST SCENE.
TE
EXT. DESERT – MORNING – NEAR PLACE WHERE CHURCH GROUP LEAVES WATER
Someone is pouring water from a plastic bottle on AV’s face. She is covered in dust. Someone else douses a rag and wipes Ana Victoria’s eyes, nose and mouth.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
It is a woman. She is still breathing.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
Can you hear us? We found you. Stay with us. Try to wake up.
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
Can she hear us? I think the water is helping revive her. Get a blanket.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1 GET A BLANKET FROM THE CAR AND THEY COVER AV.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Should we take her to the hospital in Phoenix?
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
Naw, I think she is coming around. She looks pretty bruised.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
I wonder if she fell of a truck or was pushed out. There is no one else in sight.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Some recent tracks heading north. Look like SUV tires, speeding, leaving deep tracks.
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
This is the United States. We don’t want you to die here.
ANA VICTORIA ROUSES. SHE TAKES THE WATER FROM THE WOMAN AND DRINKS HEAVILY.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
That’s good. But too much and you’ll vomit. Let’s get you inside and take more care of you.
The group helps get AV into their vehicle.
ANA VICTORIA
Mumbles
I need to find my children. My boy and girl. Gael and Carmina.
The group look at one another.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Were you on a truck with your children? Or in a car?
ANA VICTORIA
Yes.
ANA VICTORIA IS TRAUMATIZED, SUFFERING FROM EXHAUTION. HER SPEECH IS SLOW.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
There is no one here with you. There is no one for five miles because we do a circuit. We leave water for border crossers like you. Your children are not here.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
If they were in a vehicle, they are probably still with the group.
ANA VICTORIA
They took my children.
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
God protect them.
VOLUNTEER MAN I
Who knows where they are going. We can’t catch them and if the patrol gets to them?
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
And if the patrol catches them? They go to the center, then maybe placement after they get checked out. We can’t go in there and ask.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
M’am, if they are taken in by the border patrol or the police, your children will be fed and kept with other children their age in detention.
THE GROUP HELPS GET ANA VICTORIA TO THEIR VEHICLE. SHE LAYS DOWN IN THE BACK SEAT. THEY START THE ENGINE AND THE AC KICKS IN.
ANA VICTORIA
Camps, no. The men are going to Chicago. How can I get to Chicago?
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Well, you can’t go there now. Why did they leave you out here?
ANA VICTORIA
I fought with the men. They said they were taking me to a brothel. They threw me out of the truck. But my children
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
I understand why you did not want to go with them. We are going to take you to my home and help you rest and get clean. You are suffering from heat stroke. You need to stay indoors and drink fluids for a few days. We work with a local church that helps immigrants. Is it okay with you if we help you? If not, we can drive you to a police station.
ANA VICTORIA
Yes, I accept your hospitality. Please help me.
ANA VICTORIA DOZES OFF.
VOLUNTEER MAN 2
I don’t know. We should just take her to a doctor. She is pretty strong to survive a beating.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
I think she looks dehydrated, but it’s from more than one night. We found her soon after she was thrown out, so she was lucky. They probably don’t stop.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
I am so worried that her children were also dehydrated and trying to survive the trip.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
I can call and ask if anyone has taken in two children who we heard were in the desert last night. Did she say how old they were?
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Let her sleep. We can talk to her when we get home. We can’t get to them and neither can she.
THE CAR ARRIVES AT A RANCH HOME. THE GROUP HELPS GET AV OUT OF THE CAR. SHE IS GROGGY, BUT SHE STARTS TO WALK ON HER OWN. THEY ENTER THE HOUSE.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
What is your name?
ANA VICTORIA
ANA.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
Were you travelling alone Ana? With your children?
ANA VICTORIA
No, my husband died in the desert in Mexico.
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
We are so sorry for your loss. We are going to pray for you. We will pray for your husband’s spirit to find peace in heaven, and for the safety of your children.
ANA VICTORIA
Why would you do this for me?
VOLUNTEER MAN 1
We believe in God. We don’t like to see people die in the desert.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
Let’s get her into the bathroom. She can have some space if she revives in the cold water. Bob, could you go look in the guest room and get my extra robe out of the closet. There are some old clothes in there we could give our new friend. The pull on jeans are too big, but the elastic will hold them up.
ANA VICTORIA
Lady, If I die, I am Catholic.
VOLUNTEER WOMAN 1
My name is Louise. I live here with my husband Bob. This is our friend Ray from church. We will help you.
LOUISE AND BOB SIT ANA VICTORIA IN THE TUB. LOUISE SHUTS THE DOOR. SHE HELPS ANA UNDERSS AND RUNS SOME COOL WATER.
LOUISE EMERGES.
LOUISE
She can do it herself. She is going to recover with proper rest.
BOB
I want to know more about where those guys take the women migrants. They stole her children? I don’t like this situation she described at all.
LOUISE
I think they tried to kill her. Her torso is covered in bruises.
BOB
Ray, Louise, let’s pray now. Let’s thank God for helping us find Ana in the desert.
THE GROUP SAYS A BRIEF PRAYER.
THE SOUND OF WATER FLOWING STOPS.
END OF ACT I.
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FIRST SCENE, PROTAGONIST AND ANTAGONIST DESERT SONGS OF ANA VICTORIA
KIM REED
In this lesson I learned that action can tell you more about the character than words.
Act 1: 30 pages
SCENE 1 10 page goal/7 page draft
Opening:
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT
A still figure lying in the desert. An animal comes close to the figure. Ana Victoria is singing low or making noise trying to sing. A sharp sound scares it away.
ANA VICTORIA
(real moans or taped voice over singer)
Ti quiero….
(The woman is remembering what happened and dreaming.)
INT. TRUCK OR SUV – NIGHT – FLASHBACK
TE 1
AV is in a truck speeding through the desert. Sounds of the desert and the air rushing by in the night. In the front seat two men on either side of our heroine Ana Victoria.
TRAFFICKER 1
Your son is healthy.
ANA VICTORIA
His name is Gael. Yes, Gael is a strong boy.
TRAFFICKER 1
The little girl was with you on the train. Nothing happened to you?
ANA VICTORIA
Her name is Carmina.
TRAFFICKER 1
No?
ANA VICTORIA
My husband Alejandro was a strong man. We were okay. The noise on the train was horrible.
TRAFFICKER 1
This is the way to travel. Private coach. Your husband had good connections down south. Not everyone is riding with air conditioning like this. My boss says he saw photos of you and the children.
ANA VICTORIA
What photos? I don’t believe my husband showed them to you. Did someone photograph us? I don’t know how my husband made these arrangements. I don’t know anything. He was in charge of us. So we left home because he said that we had to go.
TRAFFICKER 1
Well, someone must have taken a few pictures at work. You know everyone loves to share.
(Silence)
ANA VICTORIA
You make this trip often?
TRAFFICKER 1
We are the express route. You will be in Phoenix soon.
TRAFFICKER 2
Hey, you must be happy.
ANA VICTORIA
I lost my husband this week. I am still mourning him.
TRAFFICKER 2
Very happy women must smile. Because you know we are bringing you to a place where you can have fun. We go there. Our boss goes there. You can meet a lot of men with money.
(The men are joking with her that she would be happy in a place where they have fun. At first visual the audience cannot tell that she is not a friend or familiar to them, but a woman being driven across the border by traffickers.)
ANA VICTORIA
My husband said we were going to a place where the church people leave water, to wait so they would find us and bring us in.
TRAFFICKER 1
Yes, we have a connection with that group. But we are not going there tonight. We are passing it now. We have plenty of water behind the seat. Just relax and enjoy.
(Trafficker 2 places his hand on Ana Victoria’s left thigh. Trafficker 1 sees this and places his hand on her right thigh. The two men start to molest AV.)
ANA VICTORIA
Stop. This is not the deal my husband negotiated. I want to get out and wait for the church group.
TRAFFICKER 1
You have no money to pay off your debts. Your husband is dead.
TRAFFICKER 2
You have nice breasts. You had an easy life so far. You think you could handle working in a chicken plant for a few dollars an hour! No! You belong in a brothel where men can go on enjoying your company.
ANA VICTORIA
Stop the truck! Stop touching me!
(ANA VICTORIA starts fighting left and right. She wants the truck to stop so she can escape, but the traffickers go on.)
TRAFFICKER 2
Hey girl, you know your children are drugged in the back of this truck. You want to cause an accident. We aren’t making emergency stops.
ANA VICTORIA
You are taking me and my children to a brothel?
TRAFFICKER 1
We have a buyer for the little girl, a nice older couple in Chicago who want to raise a child. 50k in cash. We have some interest in the boy too. See, all your debt will be repaid, and we will give some of it back to you in the brothel.
(AV’s resistance escalates. It becomes difficult to drive. She kicks the man in the passenger seat and he opens the door to the truck by accident. It swings open but the driver does not stop. AV is trying to kick him out of the open door or cause the driver to stop. The men start to punch her to control her violent response. She hits back. In frustration the man in the passenger side grabs her and flings her from the truck. The truck slows down but does not stop. The lights recede into the night. AV is knocked out laying near the truck tracks.)
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT – FLASHBACK
GAEL
Mami, look, there is a lizard.
ALEJANDRO
Yes, that one won’t hurt you. But watch out for the bigger ones.
GAEL
I want to keep it. Then I can swing him by the tail.
(GAEL grabs the green lizard and starts swinging the animal.)
CARMINA
Noooooo! Bad, bad. Papi, stop Gael.
ANA VICTORIA
Let that creature go. Who’s hungry? I made some good food for you. Much better than the taste of that lizard.
(GAEL stops bothering the lizard. CARMINA looks up at her mother with interest in the food. ALEJANDRO smiles and scoops up his children, one in each arm.)
ALEJANDRO
We love you! Let’s eat!
(AL sets down his son and daughter. AV serves lunch. Someone calls AL on his cell.)
ANA VICTORIA
Now who can eat the first tortilla fastest?
ALEJANDRO
No! No! What happened? Trapped. Why wasn’t I there? He told me to go home.
(AL clicks off his cell.)
ANA VICTORIA
Work?
ALEJANDRO
Captain is dead. I have to go out right away. I have to find out what happened. This is serious Ana; I may send you to visit your sister while I work here.
ANA VICTORIA
I am so sorry to hear…..
(GAEL holds up a finger and pretends to shoot Carmina.)
ALEJANDRO
Gael! Stop threatening your sister. Eat your lunch. Can you just behave and help your mother until I get back?
GAEL
Yes.
(ALEJANDRO gets up and starts collecting his bag and his gun.)
ALEJANDRO
Stay very quiet at home tonight. Do not go out. If I don’t come back, take the savings and go to your sister’s place. Don’t ask any questions. I will come when I can get away.
ANA VICTORIA
(Moaning or humming music. Then silence.)
(A woman is dreaming. She imagines her children. Her husband, their father, loved them. He loved her. In her dream she sees her family. She sings to them. They are happy. Then something jumps in the darkness.)
INT. A ROOM IN THE SOUTH – DAY
ALEJANDRO
The men who killed the Captain want to kill me too. We were working together, making connections inside the cartel so that we could find out what was happening.
ANA VICTORIA
I don’t want to leave! My mother’s plates are here. My children need me at home.
ALEJANDRO
Our lives on in danger here now. There may not be much time. You know they control the city. We’ve been harassing some of the men who work for the cartel. With the Captain dead, they will try to stop any information and witnesses from getting out of here. There is no way to defend the station with so many men inside and outside and who knows who.
ANA VICTORIA
We can’t take the highway. What can we do?
ALEJANDRO
We’ll get on the train from the south that goes to La Frontera. No one here will look for us among all the poor people from other countries. They will assume that I am hiding. I can use some of my contacts to get us on board. Then we can get off in Nogales. There are men there who I worked with in the past. They know how to cross the border without swimming or getting cut down. They have people in the States who know how.
ANA VICTORIA
(crying)
I don’t want to leave….
ALEJANDRO
Listen to me, listen. We must get out, get to a safer place. We can only take a bag each and the children. If we stay here they will kill me and take you. I can’t protect you here.
ANA VICTORIA
Okay, we go. I can only pray.
ALEJANDRO
I think this will work.
ANA VICTORIA
I have to put the children’s things in something too. Gael can carry something. I could tie a change of clothes on Carmina.
ALEJANDRO
Good, be quick. I need to find out where the train is today. I’ll be back to get you and the children in an hour. We can make it another city.
GAEL
We have to take the toys with us. I can pull the plastic tub. We have to. I don’t want to play at Auntie’s house without my toys!
ANA VICTORIA
Gael, please do not fight me today. You know my sister has toys too. You will get to play with new toys.
GAEL
What are they?
ANA VICTORIA
What do you think?
CARMINA
Mama, can I sit in your lap on the train?
ANA VICTORIA
Yes, baby girl, I can hold you close. The trip will be over before you know it. You can rest on me. Oh look, your father is back already.
ALEJANDRO
Gael, I need you to be a man and help me keep your mother and sister calm. This is important. Can you do this for me? We will play soldiers together, yes?
GAEL
Carmina said she wants to sleep through the trip. I can be a good soldier. You are my commanding officer.
ALEJANDRO
If I leave you alone, you go on protecting your mother and sister.
EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS AND OPEN CAR – DAY
TE 2
(Cut to La Bestia, a train called the Beast, where the family is squeezed into a small space in a crowded car. The train is full of foreigners from south of the Mexican border, all heading north toward the United States. The family are in a corner near a hole in the wall that lets in air.)
ALEJANDRO
I couldn’t get anything at the office. I found out the train was going to slow down at a point where we got on and that was it. I didn’t have time. We can go back after we get settled and things die down. I buried, you know, our gold, you know where.
ANA VICTORIA
We may not be back there for a long time. Maybe my sister could….
ALEJANDRO
No, no one knows. The two of us need to be completely silent. Do not tell your sister where we are or where we are going or how to find our box. Others may overhear or watch to see if someone goes back to the house.
ANA VICTORIA
I am afraid of the people on this train, but I can’t let them see any emotions. The young men assault people over our heads on the roof and in every car.
ALEJANDRO
The army taught me how to fight off these punks. I don’t think they will try anything.
ANA VICTORIA
I love you. I always loved you. I am trying to pretend I am asleep. For the children’s sake, I don’t want to talk to anyone on this trip.
(Sounds of horror, of women crying because they are being raped by men on the train. Her husband stands watch over his family. The children are afraid, but they sleep next to their mother.)
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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LESSON 8 ANTAGONIST JOURNEY
In this exercise I learned that antagonists can be present or not present, memories, ghosts, or real people. I think this works well with poetic realism.
In the Desert Song of Ana Victoria, the antagonist is a group, unseen gang traffickers who have taken her son, and then her son, who chooses to be with the gang.
Gang traffickers make promises to Ana Victoria’s first husband Alejandro.
Gang traffickers carry Ana Victoria, Gael, and Carmina across the border from Nogales into Arizona desert.
Two gang members tell Ana Victoria that they sold her children, attempt to rape her while making references to placing her in a brothel. Ana Victoria is flung from the truck after fighting them, and left in the desert while they drive away with her children.
Gang members elude Ana Victoria’s search for them, although their presence shapes how people interact with her. She and Carmina are almost hit with stray bullets. They assume the shots are from gang members warning them off.
Gael, a gang member, rejects Ana Victoria as his mother, and tells her to stop searching for information.
Gael and the gang are attacked by the police, but escape. Ana Victoria imagines a violent revenge, but Carmina and her husband Manny love her. She decides to listen to the wind and not go after them. Her heart must live with the uncertainty that she will ever see Gael again.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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LESSON 7 KIM REED’S HIGH SPEED BEAT SHEET
THE DESERT SONG OF ANA VICTORIA BY KIM REED
WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS ASSIGNMENT IS HOW TO LOOK AT THE UNDERLYING STRUCTURE AND HOW VISUAL SCENES NEED TO BE PLANNED TO MAINTAIN CONTINUITY WITH THE STORY.
Act 1: 30 pages
Opening:
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT
A still figure lying in the desert. An animal comes close to the figure. Ana Victoria is singing low or making noise trying to sing. A sharp sound scares it away.
A woman is remembering what happened and dreaming.
INT. TRUCK OR SUV – NIGHT
TE 1
AV is in a truck speeding through the desert. Sounds of the desert and the air rushing by in the night. In the front seat two men on either side of our heroine Ana Victoria. The men are joking with her that she would be happy in a place where they have fun. At first visual the audience cannot tell that she is not a friend or familiar to them, but a woman being driven across the border by traffickers. The driver says they are in the United States now. Near where the church group leaves water she asks. Yes, he confirms, but we are not stopping there tonight. The two men start to molest AV. The two children are asleep in the back of the truck, drugged with a mild sedative. AV objects and starts to fight them. This was not the deal her husband agreed to. But he is dead and she has no money to pay for this trip across the border. One man tells her that they have a buyer for her little girl and some interest in her little boy, so that will repay the debt she and her husband owed them. One tells her she is not a virgin, so she should get some practice. They want to recommend her for a nice brothel outside of Chicago. AV’s resistance escalates. It becomes difficult to drive. She kicks the man in the passenger seat and he opens the door to the truck, it swings open but the driver does not stop. AV is trying to kick him out of the open door or cause the driver to stop. The men start to punch her to control her violent response. She hits back. In frustration the man in the passenger side grabs her and flings her from the truck. The truck slows down but does not stop. The lights recede into the night. AV is knocked out laying near the truck tracks.
EXT. DESERT – NIGHT
A woman is dreaming. She imagines her children. Her husband, Alejandro their father, loved them. He loved her. In her dream she sees her family. She sings to them. They are happy. Then something jumps in the darkness.
INT. A ROOM IN THE SOUTH – DAY – FLASHBACK
Her memory shifts to a crisis. Her husband Alejandro says they must leave. Their lives are in danger. His life is in danger here. The decision to leave home and head for the United States was not easy. The local gang controlled the southwest city where they lived, where Al, a local police officer, became a political thorn in their side trying to organize people to reject and resist them. His captain is dead. There is no way to defend the station. It is hopeless. The husband used contacts online to find a trip north. They will have to get on a train heading to the borderland where they will get off in Nogales. There are men there who can make the crossing to the United States easier, with a military vehicle that can withstand the desert.
EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS AND OPEN CAR – DAY
TE 2
Flash to La Bestia, a train called the Beast, where the family is squeezed into a small space in a crowded car. The train is full of foreigners from south of the Mexican border. No one will follow them on this route or imagine they are among so many desperate people going north. Sounds of horror, of women crying because they are being raped by men on the train. Her husband stands watch over his family. The children are afraid, but they sleep next to their mother.
INT. GUEST HOUSE – DAY
TE 3
In Nogales, they find a guest house that will rent a room to them until they can cross. Alejandro goes out to find information. He returns and tells AV he wants to go and see the border which is about 40 miles from their location. He will hitch a ride with a local, then walk the last 10 miles at night. Maybe they can save money and cross on foot. AV should stay in the guest house until he returns.
INT. GUEST HOUSE – MORNING
TE 4
EXT. GUEST HOUSE YARD – MORNING
Inciting Incident: In the morning there is some commotion outside. The guest house owner tells AV that her husband was found dead in the desert. She places her hands over the heart. They are willing to bury her husband on credit, but this will increase her debt. Alejandro made contacts who know the guest house. They know she is waiting for them. But she does not know who anyone is.
Optional: AV identifies her husband Alejandro- or the local officer hands her his backpack that has his id.
TE 5
EXT. FRONT OF GUEST HOUSE – AFTERNOON
Turning Point: The guest house owner tells AV that their things are out front. Men are coming to take them across the desert to the United States. AV and the children carry backpacks. A truck pulls up. A man gets out. He approaches AV and the children. He has a bottle with water in it. He tells her that the children should drink something before they start the trip. It will help them sleep and deal with the trip. She realizes he is insisting that she give them some of the bottle. To help them sleep, yes? Yes, he tells her. They carry the children to the truck. The man orders AV to ride up front with he and the driver.
EXT. DESERT – MORNING
Morning in the desert. Someone is pouring water from a plastic bottle on AV’s face. There are three people speaking English. This is the United States, one says. We don’t want you to die here. The group helps get AV into their vehicle. She mumbles that she needs to find her children. The group look at one another. There is no one within miles because they have done a circuit looking for migrants. One points out the deep tire tracks. A powerful SUV went through here. AV mumbles, they took my children. God protect them, a member of the group says. Another says quietly, we can’t catch them and if the patrol gets to them first, they will go into child protective services and get a temporary adoption. AV passes out.
Act 2:
INT. CHURCH – DAY
AV is cleaning a church in Arizona. She is working as a domestic and she volunteers to help the church where she was rescued. (She is doing penance over losing her children.) She meets an older man who is praying, Manuel Guerrero. His wife died two years ago. He is retired from the sheriff’s department. He asks AV if he can help her move the furniture. She tells him her husband was also a police officer. He died on the trip to the US. They have coffee. Manny discovers that AV lost her children who were taken north to Chicago by traffickers. She tells him their story. She wants to go north and search for them. Nothing else is as important as seeing her children again. He is interested in AV and helping her. He feels protective toward AV and he wants her to find him interesting. He tells her he can make some calls and see if there are any records of her children being taken into the system.
TE 1
INT. HOUSE – NOON
After Church on Sunday AV accepts his invitation to come over for something to eat. He puts a map on the table and talks to her about Chicago, how far it is by train or highway, where Mexicans live in La Villeta and Pilsen. He offers to take her north where they can ask people in the Mexican communities if they know how to find her children.
AV is impressed with how Manuel cares for her by helping her, listening to her. She knows they both need love. They begin a passionate affair. The search is something they can work on together. It revives his sense of purpose and mission. Manny grows stronger loving again.
INT. CHURCH – AFTERNOON LATER IN TIME
TE 2
AV marries Manuel.
EXT. CHICAGO STREETS – DAY
Plan in action: AV and Manuel make trips to search for the children. They get some information about where the gangs who control the desert around Nogales have sold under-age migrants as laborers in the Chicago area.
INT. CHICAGO ORGANIZATION – DAY
TE 3
AV finds contacts in organizations that help immigrants reunite their families. They involve her in conversations about strategy and put out messages online with information about her search. There are people and places that are new, where all share the label of immigrant. The people they meet encourage her. She feels real hope, but there are thousands of people who lost their relatives on the trip north, generations of people who have a connection to this experience and understand loss. AV meets people with stories about the immigrant experience.
INT. HOTEL ROOM – EVENING
Midpoint Turning Point: Despite the frustration of not finding her son and daughter, AV vows to go on. Manny convinces her to rest back home with him so that she can keep up her strength and think through their next moves in the search.
INT. HOME IN AZ – DAY
Back home, she keeps in touch with the immigrant organizations, helping when she can. One day a woman calls to tell her that she thinks she knows where the traffickers left her children. AV goes out into the desert and prays. There is hope.
Act 3:
EXT. CHICAGO – DAYS
AV and Manny explore dead ends, one or two dangerous situations, but do not find Gael.
INTS. – DAYS
AV goes to work for a temp agency. She sees how exploited people are in the city.
INT. CHURCH – DAY
TE 1
Someone from a church organization thinks they may know her daughter’s stepparents, a couple that applied to adopt and were rejected because of their age and some hostility toward new immigrants. Eventually, AV finds Carmina, who was adopted by an older business couple in Chicago.
EXT. CHICAGO STREETS – DAYS
TE 2
Rethink everything. Carmina wanted to find her real mother. She wants to join her mother’s search for her brother. They start searching together.
INT. HOME IN CHICAGO – DAY
New plan: Carmina enlists her stepparents who reveal how they found her.
EXT. LA VILLETA STREETS – DAY
Carmina uses the information to follow leads to organized criminals who do business in the immigrant enclaves of the city and travel to the borderland where their connections bring in people and illegal products.
INT./EXT. CHICAGO DAYS
TE 3
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: People in the community tell AV that she is attracting the attention of the FBI and authorities, bringing too much attention to them by hostile officers. There are many people who are not related to her search who need to hide their origins or their taxes or many things that the authorities could use to hurt their families.
EXT./INT. CHICAGO STREETS AND STOREFRONTS – DAYS
AV persists in harassing some gang members. AV and her daughter are almost hit by gunfire from some unseen shooter. AV discovers her connections are telling her to go home now. This will get worse. One or two swear they will keep their eyes open for her.
INT. CHICAGO HOUSE – DAY
Carmina decides to stay with her stepparents instead of moving to Arizona to rejoin her mother, but the two form a real relationship that is not going away.
INT. AMTRAK TRAIN – DAY
With half of her search completed, AV returns to Arizona with mixed feelings. In part, she cannot abandon the search for Gael because that would be abandoning part of herself, her baby.
ACT 4:
INT. CHICAGO ORGANIZATION OR CHURCH – DAY
TE 1
Carmina meets a woman who knows the gang members. She tells her that there was a young boy who the gang leader adopted in his own family because the child was so attractive, a real devil doll. AV gets a call from a police officer who she met in Pilsen.
INT. POLICE STATION – MORNING
TE 2
The police believe Gael is being raised by a man associated with a burglary and car theft ring that helps move drugs for a cartel. The leader of this group has a history of being seen with older boys who are identified as his children who then disappear. They tell AV that Gael may be dead. AV must go and find out if Gael is still alive.
EXT. STREETSCAPE IN CHICAGO – DAY
Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict
TE 3
AV runs past a series of places she saw before, looking for the place the police describe. She arrives at a lot where several cars are lined up as if they are going to be shipped somewhere. She waits patiently out of sight behind a grass mound or wall. A car mover truck arrives. A man gets out of the cab. He moves to the line of autos. He starts one to place on the carrier. AV sneaks closer to the cab of his truck. A young boy jumps out of the truck cab and moves toward the place where AV is watching. Gael meets AV. It is a surprise. He does not yell. She asks if he knows who she is? Yes, he remembers that she is his mother. He does not yell. He greets her as mother. But he does not attempt to hug her or approach her. He tells her that he loves his family here. He was told that she abandoned them in the desert on the way north. That she made a deal to give up her children to pay off debt. His adoptive father is a successful man. His father is dead. Did she make that deal or not? Gael knows that she did, even if she did not understand what it would mean. It was AV’s fault that she lost her family in the desert. She is harassing him and his family. She has to stop asking for information or she may be hurt. No one wants to disrupt their relationships. Gael is beautiful, healthy, but menacing, groomed to do more evil as he grows older. Crushed, AV watches as Gael returns to the truck and jumps into the cab. The driver is finished loading. He jumps in and the truck leaves the lot. Dust and emptiness confront AV now.
INT. CHICAGO HOUSE – EVENING
AV considers killing his new family to fulfill her revenge, but her daughter’s love stops her from going on a suicide mission.
Resolution
TE 4
EXT. EMPTY LOT – DAY
AV enlists the police in a major bust of the gang member who has Gael. Gael hates AV and will not surrender to the police. Gael escapes with another gang member.
AV accepts that Gael and Carmina have their own paths. She found them again. Her vendetta would never make up for what people experienced while trying to survive at the mercy of traffickers and exploiters.
EXT. DESERT – AZ SUNSET
AV is watching the desert as shadows deepen. A woman is singing the love song that AV sang to her family and on the night of their separation. The music grows louder.
AV is joined by her husband Manny who tenderly puts his arm around her shoulders.
What is love? The desert in her heart may never entirely close. Perhaps they all died on that trip north and were revived, reborn in a new day where there was more hope.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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Ana Victoria’s Transformational Events
Should I change the name to Maria Victoria? MV instead of AV….
1. Sees the power of the gangs and how they exploit and injure immigrants using violence.
La Bestia
Death of her husband
Guest or slave?
2. Believes that caring for others matters.
Mother courage
Makes connections with others in immigrant organizations
Lets a man become her new husband
Rejects violence as a resolution
3. Invests time in helping those who are helping her and other immigrants.
Benefits mentally and in fulfilling her goals by networking
4. Discovers exploitive situations immigrants are trapped in
Experiences danger and risk exploring sociological landscape of immigrants
5. Makes decisions that it is okay to change her life or change her path
Accepts help, remarries.
Accepts her son is no longer her own dream.
Accepts connection with her daughter does not mean possession.
6. Resolves her search for herself and her children by rejecting violence and annihilation.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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5.ASSIGNMENT
Create a first draft of your 4 Act Transformational Structure.
“What I learned doing this assignment is if you rush your story you may lose the deeper poetry of the character’s experience because you have to do something in 24 hours to open the next lesson.
1.
A woman left for dead in the desert by traffickers who steal her two children, survives and vows to get them back. On this journey she is helped by a range of characters who shelter her in situations that range from tents and pick up trucks to her eventual marriage to an American retired police officer who joins her quest to find her son and daughter, a tableaux of characters from the experiences of immigrants in the US. After a new search, they locate the son, now a gang member, who rejects her, breaking her heart, and then the daughter, who embraces her mother as family. Her son is now Ana Victoria’s enemy, but they both feel conflicted about it. Near the end the son re-emerges and recognizes Victoria as his mother, but is it too late to save him from the law or gang members?
INTERNAL JOURNEY: Ana Victoria starts the movie as an abused, abject slave who was trafficked after her dead ex-husband left debt with local criminals. She dreams of starting again in a new life, but she is weak and uncertain of what she can do.
EXTERNAL JOURNEY: From victimized illegal woman to confident, networked American who can still love and seek justice. Ana Victoria learns that she is strong enough to work, love, and find people who she can trust.
OLD WAYS:
Afraid, widow of a debtor
Dominated by others
Single mother can’t protect her children
Manipulative, expects to be preyed on
Violence equals justice, dreams of it
NEW WAYS:
Confident but tested in her search
Mother courageous learns to fight for other immigrants
Becomes respectable by learning to trust better people
Resolves her search and vendetta
Accepts her son and Carminaas individuals on their own path
Act 1: 30 pages
Opening:
A still figure lying in the desert. An animal comes close to the figure. A sharp sound scares it away.
A woman is remembering what happened and dreaming.
Ana Victoria (AV) is in a SUV speeding through the desert. Sounds of the desert and the air rushing by in the night. In the front seat two men on either side of our heroine Ana Victoria. The men are joking with her that she would be happy in a place where they have fun. At first visual the audience cannot tell that she is not a friend or familiar to them, but a woman being driven across the border by traffickers. The driver says they are in the United States now. Near where the church group leaves water she asks. Yes, he confirms, but we are not stopping there tonight. The two men start to molest AV. The two children are asleep in the back of the truck, drugged with a mild sedative. AV objects and starts to fight them. This was not the deal her husband agreed to. But he is dead and she has no money to pay for this trip across the border. One man tells her that they have a buyer for her little girl and some interest in her little boy, so that will repay the debt she and her husband owed them. One tells her she is not a virgin, so she should get some practice. They want to recommend her for a nice brothel outside of Chicago. AV’s resistance escalates. It becomes difficult to drive. She kicks the man in the passenger seat and he opens the door to the truck, it swings open but the driver does not stop. AV is trying to kick him out of the open door or cause the driver to stop. The men start to punch her to control her violent response. She hits back. In frustration the man in the passenger side grabs her and flings her from the truck. The truck slows down but does not stop. The lights recede into the night. AV is knocked out laying near the truck tracks.
A woman is dreaming. She imagines her children. Her husband, their father, loved them. He loved her. In her dream she sees her family. Then something jumps in the darkness. Her memory shifts to a crisis. Her husband says they must leave. Their lives are in danger. His life is in danger here. The decision to leave home and head for the United States was not easy. The local gang controlled the south western city where they lived, where her husband, a local police officer, became a political thorn in their side trying to organize people to reject and resist them. His captain is dead. There is no way to defend the station. It is hopeless. The husband used contacts online to find a trip north. They will have to get on a train heading to the borderland where they will get off in Nogales. There are men there who can make the crossing to the United States easier, with a military connections and a vehicle that can withstand the desert. Flash to La Bestia, a train called the Beast, where the family is squeezed into a small space in a crowded car. The train is full of foreigners from south of the Mexican border. No one will follow them on this route or imagine they are among so many desperate people going north. Sounds of horror, of women crying because they are being raped by men on the train. Her husband stands watch over his family. The children are afraid, but they sleep next to their mother. In Nogales, they find a guest house that will rent a room to them until they can cross. Her husband goes out to find information. He returns and tells AV he wants to go and see the border which is about 40 miles from their location. He will hitch a ride with a local, then walk the last 10 miles at night. Maybe they can save money and cross on foot. AV should stay in the guest house until he returns.
Inciting Incident: In the morning there is some commotion outside. The guest house owner tells AV that her husband was found dead in the desert. She places her hands over the heart. They are willing to bury her husband on credit, but this will increase her debt. Her husband made contacts who know the guest house. They know she is waiting for them.
Optional: AV identifies her husband- or the local officer hands her his backpack that has his id.
Turning Point: The guest house owner tells AV to take all of their things out front. Men are coming to take them across the desert to the United States. AV and the children carry backpacks. A truck pulls up. A man gets out. He approaches AV and the children. He has a bottle with water in it. He tells her that the children should drink something before they start the trip. It will help them sleep and deal with the trip. She realizes he is insisting that she give them some of the bottle. To help them sleep, yes? Yes, he tells her. They carry the children to the truck. The man orders AV to ride up front with he and the driver.
Morning in the desert. Someone is pouring water from a plastic bottle on AV’s face. There are three people speaking English. This is the United States, one says. We don’t want you to die. The group helps get AV into their vehicle. She mumbles that she needs to find her children. The group look at one another. There is no one within miles because they have done a circuit looking for migrants. One points out the deep tire tracks. A powerful SUV went through here. AV mumbles, they took my children. God protect them, a member of the group says. Another says quietly, we can’t catch them and if the patrol gets to them first, they will go into child protective services and get a temporary adoption. AV passes out.
Act 2: 30 pages
New Play
AV is cleaning a church in Arizona. She is working as a day domestic and she volunteers to help the church where she was rescued. She meets an older man who is praying. His wife died two years ago. He is retired from the sheriff’s department in Chicago. He moved to Arizona for the sun and hiking. He asks AV if he can help her move the furniture. She tells him her husband was also a police officer. He died on the trip to the US. They have coffee. He discovers that AV lost her children who were taken north to Chicago by traffickers. She tells him their story. She wants to go north and search for them. Nothing else is as important as seeing her children again. The man is interested in AV and helping her. He feels protective toward her and he wants her to find him interesting. He tells her he can make some calls and see if there are any records of her children being taken into the system. After Church on Sunday he asks her if she would like to come over for something to eat. AV accepts his invitation. He puts a map on the table and talks to her about Chicago, how far it is by train or highway, where Mexicans live in La Villeta and Pilsen. He offers to take her north where they can ask people in the Mexican communities if they know how to find her children. AV is impressed with how this man is caring for her by helping her, listening to her. She knows they both need love. They begin a passionate affair. The search is something they can work on together. It revives his sense of purpose and mission. He grows stronger loving again. AV marries him.
Plan in action: AV and her new boyfriend make trips to search for the children. They get some information about where the gangs who control the desert around Nogales have sold under-age migrants as laborers in the Chicago area. AV finds contacts in organizations that help immigrants reunite their families. They involve her in conversations about strategy and put out messages online with information about her search. There is a panoply or people and places that are new, where all share the label of immigrant. The people they meet encourage her. She feels real hope, but there are thousands of people who lost their relatives on the trip north, generations of people who have a connection to this experience and understand loss. AV meets people with stories about the immigrant experience.
Midpoint Turning Point: Despite the frustration of not finding her son and daughter, AV vows to go on. Her new husband convinces her to rest back home with him so that she can keep up her strength and think through their next moves in the search. Back home, she keeps in touch with the immigrant organizations, helping when she can. One day a woman calls to tell her that she thinks she knows where the traffickers left her children. AV goes out into the desert and prays. There is hope.
Act 3: 30 pages
AV and her husband explore dead ends, one or two dangerous situations, but do not find Gael and Carmina. AV’s husband stays home while AV goes back to Chicago and revisits the people she met there. AV goes to work for a temp agency. She sees how exploited people are in the city. Someone from a church organization thinks they may know her daughter’s stepparents, a couple that applied to adopt and were rejected because of their age and some hostility toward new immigrants. Eventually, AV finds Carmina, who was adopted by an older business couple in Chicago.
Rethink everything. Carmina wanted to find her real mother. She wants to join her mother’s search for her brother. They start searching together.
New plan: Carmina enlists her stepparents who reveal how they found her. Their information leads to organized criminals who do business in the immigrant enclaves of the city and travel to the borderland where their connections bring in people and illegal products.
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: People in the community tell AV that she is attracting the attention of the FBI and authorities, bringing too much attention to them by hostile officers. There are many people who are not related to her search who need to hide their origins or their taxes or many things that the authorities could use to hurt their families. AV persists in harassing some gang members. Gang members shoot at AV and her daughter. AV discovers her connections are telling her to go home now. This will get worse. One or two swear they will keep their eyes open for her. Carmina decides to stay with her stepparents instead of moving to Arizona to rejoin her mother. The two form a real relationship that is not going away. With half of her search completed, AV returns to Arizona with mixed feelings. In part, she cannot abandon the search for Gael because that would be abandoning part of herself, her baby.
Act 4: 30 pages
Carmina joins the search for her brother. She finds a woman who knows the gang members. She tells her that there was a young boy who the gang leader adopted in his own family because the child was so attractive, a real devil doll.
Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict
Gael meets AV. He tells her that he loves his family here. He was told that she abandoned them in the desert on the way north. That she made a deal to give up her children to pay off debt. His adoptive father is a successful man. His organization is powerful. Did she make that deal or not? Gael knows that she did, even if she did not understand what it would mean. It was AV’s fault that she lost her family in the desert. She is harassing him and his family. She has to stop or she may be hurt. No one wants to disrupt their relationships. Gael is beautiful, healthy, but menacing, groomed to do more evil as he grows older. AV considers killing his new family to fulfill her revenge, but her daughter’s love stops her from going on a last mission.
Resolution
AV accepts that Gael and Carmina have their own paths. She found them again. Her vendetta would never make up for what people experienced while trying to survive at the mercy of traffickers and exploiters. What is love? The desert in her heart may never entirely close. Perhaps they all died on that trip north and were revived, reborn in a new day where there was more hope.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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INTERVIEW WITH ANA VICTORIA – PROTAGONIST
Tell me about yourself.
My name is Ana Victoria. I am from Mexico, the southern state of Guerrero. I travelled north on a freight train they call La Bestia with my husband and children, Gael aged three and Carmina aged five. We stopped in Nogales. We borrowed money from a man who claimed he knew how to get us across the border into the United States. He wanted 5 thousand dollars each to drive us into the desert where he said he could drop us off at a water station. He said he knew when people from a church would come to leave food and water. My husband attempted to walk to the border to check it out, but some men found his body about half-way there. My husband died of heart failure. We owed money for everything. My kids were too young to go out and pick on the farms. I couldn’t leave them, especially not my daughter. We were lucky to have shelter but now the owner and our coyote wanted the money. Any money. One day they told me to gather our things because we had to leave. Two men in a truck came. They wanted me to sit up front with them. The children were in the back. I was afraid they would rape me. At first it seemed like they were going to go through with the deal. We drove long enough to reach the border. The Sonoran Desert was peaceful and dark. Then they started harassing me, maybe out of boredom or I don’t know why. They got angry that I didn’t want to perform sex. They said they could just throw me out in the desert because they had buyers for the children. Someone wanted a little girl for a family in Chicago. My orphans would pay off our debt. This was not part of our deal. They were going to sell my children like slaves, and I might end up in a whorehouse. I started fighting with them. They stopped the truck and punched me in the head and body. They threw my body into the desert. I was lucky. The church people found me early in the morning on one of their trips to leave water and food near the border. I would have died if I lay there for a day in that sun. I want to get my children back. I want Carmina and Gael to be with me. I will never give up my search for my children.
Having to do with this journey, what are your strengths and
weaknesses? I loved Carmina and
Gael. No one can take that away
from me. I am poor now, and I am
not sure I am strong enough to take on those kidnappers. But I will do it.Why are you committed to making the Protagonist fail? Or for a
relationship movie, why are you committed to making them change? It is my fault we were separated on this
journey. I could not protect my
children. I want to recover them
from the evil bastards who drove off laughing about selling them to
strangers.What do you get out of winning this fight / succeeding in your plan
/ taking down your competition? To
be reunited with my children, and revenge.
I do dream of killing those men.What drives you toward your mission / agenda, even in the face of
danger, ruin, or death? Love,
anger, I am a mother. I cannot give
up this role.What secrets must you keep to succeed? What other secrets do you
keep out of fear / insecurity? I feel
guilty about making my husband go north.
We owned money back home, and we did not have enough to get across
the border without making more compromises. I made a bad deal with men who hurt us.Compared to other people like you, what makes you special? I am fierce. I am love. I met a new man who married me. He is a retired police officer. He is helping me search for my children.
What do you think of the Protagonist? I do not know if the gang members sold
Gael or turned him into one of their own.
I will discover what happened.Tell me your side of this whole conflict / story. I was looking for a way out for our
family. I encouraged my husband to
go north, but I lost him. I continued
pursuing our deal with criminals who stole my children and left me for
dead. I have to recover my children to feel at peace and find some kind of
justice. Like millions of other migrants, I seek recovery, a resolution with justice, and love.-
This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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CHARACTER PROFILES FOR LEAD CHARACTERS
What I learned doing this assignment is…Each individual character may have complicated emotions and personality that propels their motivation for having relationships. I could adapt this story line to any society where women are vulnerable to exploitation and risk losing their children to traffickers.
ANA VICTORIA. (I listened to the Mexican American pop singer Ana Victoria and imagined a strong passionate woman in this role, but fictionalized the entire story which has no relationship to the singer.)
What
draws us to this character? Ana
Victoria represents the journey of a mother trying to connect with,
recover, or save her children from harm. <div>Traits:
Passion, courage, strength, stubbornness.Subtext:
Motherhood is essential to Ana Victoria’s identity and motivation for
living, but it has been troubled and flawed by debt, loss, bad choices,
and exploitation, creating a nightmare in which she must try to recover
her honor, self-respect, and her children.Flaw:
Ana Victoria’s search is about recovering herself; it is not just a pure motivation to do
right by her children. She has
compromised in the past in ways that got them all in trouble. She may compromise again to save her own
sense of mission and good purpose.
Does she care if her search places her son and daughter in new
dangers? Ego and some narcissism are involved in the battle.Values:
Love, loyalty, integrity, family, faith, law and order.
Irony:
she placed her children in the path of a strong criminal family that also
values loyalty, courage, violence, and dominance of the weak.
What
makes this the right character for this role? The story is all about motherhood,
mother courage from the borderland to Chicagoland.GAEL SON OF ANA VICTORIA (and dead husband Alajandro)
What draws us to this character?
He never had a real choice in life because he was stolen by criminals who adopted him and socialized him in their world. He is beautiful, evil, but human and remembers his mother and father.
Traits: Clever, seductive,
brutal, and manipulative.Subtext: What would the little
boy be like if he had stayed with his mother?Flaw: He hesitates and is unsure
what the truth is.Values: Masculine violence, family,
getting the job done.Irony: Part of him wishes he was
a legal, normal business owner and family man.What makes this the right
character for this role? Ana Victoria
was close to her son as a child, but now she can never feel the same
things for this man. Creates tension and drama in the new rediscovered relationship.CARMINA DAUGHTER
What draws us to this character?
She is Ana Victoria’s lost daughter who is growing up in someone else’s house.
Traits: Intelligent, kind, easy to get along with.
Subtext: She is willing to listen to AV even though she has accepted
her adopted parents as her new family.Flaw: Carmina hides how wounded she felt over her displacement and
feels shame that bubbles up sometimes in her interactions.Values: Patience, self-preservation, outwitting or winning small
games or intrigue.Irony: She would have felt
competitive with Ana Victoria if they had stayed together, but now she can
accept her as someone new who she is related to and can admire.What makes this the right character for this role? Ana Victoria is reunited with Carmina
first and they can both find Gael, providing support, drama, and subtext
for the search.MANUEL GUERRERO, RETIRED CHICAGO POLICE OFFICER, (MEXICAN) AMERICAN HUSBAND
What draws us to this character?
Manny immediately bonds with Ana Victoria in her passion to succeed and overcome all obstacles. Al feels protective and paternal, matching her strong maternal spirit. They hate the gang members. They want to win, and love empowers their quest.
Traits: Paternal, protective,
passionate, masculine, a lover and a fighter who is revived by his new
relationship with Ana Victoria. </div>Subtext: His relationship
reconnects him to his former occupation but now he is free from
bureaucratic rules and regulations.
Ana Victoria reactivates his sense of purpose. These people need
him. AV loves him.Flaw: Manny would selfishly settle for just
keeping Ana Victoria to himself at home, but he is seduced by all the
action she brings into his life. He
may go home and nap if it gets too rough.Values: Protectiveness, love, mission.
Irony: Manny retired not that
long ago because he felt exhausted by fighting crime and unsure that his
efforts could change anything.What makes this the right
character for this role? Ana Victoria
is a stronger woman with a partner by her side, riding shotgun or driving
to their next lead. Manny gives her the support she needs to believe in her quest.-
This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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DESERT SONGS OF ANA VICTORIA by Kim Reed Lesson 2 Homework
2. Ana Victoria is a heroine, but she also has elements of other characters or multiple selves related to different times in her story. She is a fighter and a dreamer who wants to find a new future for herself and her family. As a runner she fled criminals, was left for dead, and authorities who oppose illegals. She is exploring the United States, a big country where many people from south of the border have settled in different situations, but all share some similar vulnerabilities and risks.
3. Antagonists include:
Gang members who see Ana Victoria and her family as property. Villains and predators.
Local ranchers and police who oppose the volunteers who rescue and hide Ana Victoria. Authorities.
Other immigrants who believe Ana Victoria should give up her search for her children because she is causing trouble, attracting attention, and provoking organized criminals. Social blockers, social empowerees, and change agents.
Her new husband is a change agent, hopeful, patient, in love with Ana Victoria.
Her own son who becomes a gang member and rejects Ana Victoria’s love and offer to reunite as part of her new marriage to an American cop. The son cannot be a pure villain, so this is a compromised role as a change agent.
4. Major roles will be Ana Victoria, Gang kidnappers, three friends who guide her way and redirect the story, her Son and Daughter, and her new husband. Upfront it is Ana Victoria, the kidnappers, and her children from the first scene who are present in the last 10/15 minutes.
5. This is a drama with action, exploration, romance, and heartbreak.
6. MAJOR ROLES: ANA VICTORIA, SON, DAUGHTER, TRAFFICKER 1, 2, RESCUER 1, 2, HUSBAND, IMMIGRANT BUSINESS OWNER/COMMUNITY LEADERS 1, 2, 3.
ANA VICTORIA
Role
in the story: HeroineAge
range and Description: Trafficked in her 20s, ends in her late 40sInternal
Journey: From dominated, disempowered slave to confident seeker after
justice.External
Journey: Rescued in the desert by water volunteers, Ana Victoria travels to an
American city (Chicago) where she searches for the men who took her
children in hope of reuniting with them: She meets and marries an American retired police officer who increases her networking where she takes on people who urge her to
give up. Ana Victoria finds her son and her daughter, coming to terms with each
one, and discovering that she may not be able to recover her son.Motivation:
Love, self-respect, seeking justice.Wound:
Loss of her family, loss of her dignity, must recover herself.Mission/Agenda:
To find her children and reunite her family.Secret: Ana Victoria is not perfect. She made compromises when she was trying to negotiate
her husband’s debt with the gang, so she feels responsible for the bad way
things turned out and their separation, a vulnerability her son goads her with at the end that she must overcome.What
makes them special? Perseverance,
courage, insistence on the importance of her family and her human
feelings.SON
Role in the story: Victim, antagonist.
Age range and description: in first scene a boy 6-8 years old, later scenes a man in his late teens to 20s.
Internal journey: From loving child to hostile, indifferent gang member
External journey: Largely unseen, he grows up in the gang who kidnapped him, a privileged position as their adopted family member compared to others who are sold for sex or labor.
Motivation: Survival in the gang
Wound: Abandoned by his mother who could not find him.
Agenda: To fight off authorities and his mother’s search, to get rid of emotions from the past.
Secret: He dreamed of being found by his mother as a child, but it was just a dream and now it is threatening who he is.
DAUGHTER
Role in the story: Victim, motivation, motivator for Ana Victoria
Age: Child in first scene, later a woman in her 20s.
Internal journey and External journey: From passive victim to motivated member of her reunited mother’s search efforts for her brother.
Motivation: Justice for herself and her brother, love for her mother.
Wound: She never loved her adopted parents who bought her from the gang.
Agenda: To be reunited with her mother in a common cause that helps them recover an important bond.
TRAFFICKER 1
TRAFFICKER 2
RESCUER 1
RESCUER 2
HUSBAND
IMMIGRANT BUSINESS OWNER
COMMUNITY LEADER 1
COMMUNITY LEADER 2
MINOR ROLES: GROUP VOLUNTEERS, LOCAL POLICE, LOCALS IN SETTINGS, IMMIGRANT INFORMANTS, PRIESTS AND NUNS, BACKGROUND GANG MEMBERS.
7. What I learned from doing this assignment:
As the story unfolds over time, major and minor characters are interacting and engaging with the central problem of finding and recovering Victoria’s children. This requires a careful weaving of a web of social and symbolic connections, dialogues, and cascading scene settings to support the drama unfolding over a limited period of time to tell a story.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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DESERT SONGS OF ANA VICTORIA by Kim Reed
STORY LINE: A woman left for dead in the desert by traffickers who steal her two children, survives and vows to get them back. On this journey she is helped by a range of characters who shelter her in situations that range from tents and pick up trucks to her eventual marriage to an American retired police officer who joins her quest to find her son and daughter, a tableaux of characters from the experiences of immigrants in the US. After a new search, they locate the son, now a gang member, who rejects her, breaking her heart, and then the daughter, who embraces her mother as family. Her son is now Ana Victoria’s enemy, but they both feel conflicted about it. Near the end the son re-emerges and recognizes Victoria as his mother, but is it too late to save him from the law or gang members?
INTERNAL JOURNEY: Ana Victoria starts the movie as an abused, abject slave who was trafficked after her dead ex-husband left debt with local criminals. She dreams of starting again in a new life, but she is weak and uncertain of what she can do.
EXTERNAL JOURNEY: From victimized illegal woman to confident, networked American who can still love and seek justice. Ana Victoria learns that she is strong enough to work, love, and find people who she can trust.
OLD WAYS:
Afraid, widow of a debtor
Dominated by others
Single mother can’t protect her children
Manipulative, expects to be preyed on
Violence equals justice, dreams of it
NEW WAYS:
Confident but tested in her search
Mother courageous learns to fight for other immigrants
Becomes respectable by learning to trust better people
Resolves her search and vendetta
Accepts her son and daughter as individuals on their own path
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Kimberly Reed.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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Kim Reed
I agree to the terms of this release form.
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
This completes the Group Release Form for the class.
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Hi, My name is Kim Reed. I am a playwright and poet. I wrote a dozen 10 minute plays (one produced in festival, others read in Chicago Dramatist workshops or showcases) and four full plays (two have been read by Chicago Dramatists). I was a frequent contributor to Tuesdays@9 Chicago Naked Angels, a play reading group. I attempted a screenplay for a tv movie about a young woman immigrant rescued from traffickers who run a storefront medical center by a community college teacher, but I never did anything with it. Plays can be made into screenplays, but that is not my goal today. I am going to attempt to write a screenplay from scratch in 30 days. I have competing concepts today and I have to make a decision about which one to commit to.