A Naperville North High School student-turned-filmmaker is celebrating the premiere of her first documentary.
16-year-old Maya Meschi screened her film, ‘See It Through My Eyes,’ on Sept. 14, for an audience at North Central College.
“I felt that it’s very important for the youth, especially, to use their voice and to voice their opinions and to also be advocates in their own community. So I felt really inclined and propelled to create a change in my area,” Meschi said.
Sharing immigration stories
The nearly 40-minute film details the histories of five Naperville women, who are either first- or second-generation immigrants.
“It’s a documentary focused on female immigration and really humanizing their stories. So it’s examining rather the females’ lives who’ve immigrated to the U.S., if they’ve improved or worsened since immigrating,” Meschi said.
Meschi added that part of her mother’s family immigrated from India, which, alongside an interest in law and politics, served as inspiration for the piece.
“Growing up, I wasn’t really familiar a lot with my Indian culture. So over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to go back to my roots and discover more about it,” Meschi said. “And with everything going on with immigration and a lot of immigration policies changing, I’ve seen how that’s affected my family. I’ve also seen how it’s affected other families.”
Promoting representation on-screen
One of the women Meschi interviewed is Saily Joshi, who is also a member of Naperville Neighbors United.
Joshi said it was exciting to see a story like her own represented on screen.
“I think when you see other people’s lives through the lens of a film, you start realizing that you’re not that different than many of the characters,” Joshi said. “Their lived experiences may have an overlap with your lived experience as well, and if it doesn’t, I think it also gives you an opportunity to educate yourself, to have a growth mindset and to build empathy.”
‘Keeping it Reel’
After being interviewed for the project, Joshi brought the documentary to her peers at NNU to be shown as part of the group’s ‘Keeping it Reel’ film series.
“(The series) was really to use film as a way to have conversations, to allow people to see themselves or learn about something new through a more passive way of watching the film, and then hopefully leave the room and be active in finding out more information and educating themselves on different topics,” Joshi said.
The group hosts regular screenings of different films around Naperville, with details shared on their website prior to events.
Encouraging young filmmakers
As for what comes next for Meschi, she said she looks forward to continuing her studies at Naperville North.
She also had a few words of encouragement for other young people looking to put their passions on the big screen.
“Just do it. You know, if you’re waiting for something or someone to tell you, you have to find that inside of yourself and every single person can make change regardless of race, gender, age,” Meschi said. “Each of us has a voice, and our voice is so unique… There will be bumps in the road. There will be good times and bad times, but you just have to keep going and just do the thing.”
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