PEABODY — The effects of immigration both here and in Brazil are the subject of a feature-length documentary being filmed in the city.
A crew from Santa Fe, N.M.-based Guarda Chuva Films has been interviewing local Brazilians and filming around the city this spring for their movie "Dreaming in American."
"We're really capturing a moment in time," director Eliot Fisher said. "By the time we finish, things will have changed."
The filmmakers have been working with about eight families who have relatives in Peabody and in the rural town of Resplendor, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Fisher said the film will have elements of a literary style known as "magical realism." The crew also has animators for some of the storytelling.
"It's blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction," the director said.
The movie is actually using fictitious names for Resplendor and Peabody and for the featured characters, many of whom are illegal, to protect their identities, Fisher said.
The filmmakers hope to tell the story about what happens when a small village like Resplendor experiences a mass exodus of residents to the United States, and specifically, Peabody.
"No one knows still what the impacts are," Fisher said. "That's what we're trying to ask."
Part of the story touches on the impact on children raised by grandparents in Resplendor, and the economic ripple effect of American dollars entering the poor, rural town and the locals' reliance upon it as the trend reverses.
"It's harder to admit it's actually causing more problems than not," Fisher said of the impressions in Brazil. "It feels like you should be happier."
Producer Milla Araújo, who was born and raised in the nearby town Aimorés, had been working as an English teacher in her native Brazil. She saw firsthand how her own students' behavior evolved as many of their parents left to live abroad.
"This project for me, it's very interesting to show some of the bad impacts of this and of immigration," she said.
Fisher collaborated with Araújo when she worked as a translator on another film project in Brazil in the fall of 2005. At the time, Fisher was a part of a student group from the College of Santa Fe working in Minas Gerais.
That documentary project looked at the impact of a hydroelectric dam on locals. When villagers learned Fisher was an American, they asked him if he knew their relatives in Peabody.
"At some point we wondered, 'Does everyone here have a relative in the U.S.?" he said.
Initially, the filmmakers thought they'd be working in Boston. Instead, "we ended up in Peabody, and in some ways that makes more sense," Fisher said. The film's subjects were leaving rural communities and could better adapt in a city like Peabody than in a major metropolis like Boston.
During their time in Peabody, the crew met with city officials like Mayor Michael Bonfanti and library director Martha Holden.
Araújo and Fisher learned quickly about the contrasts between Resplendor and Peabody.
In all likelihood, some immigrants left Brazil in December when local temperatures were probably around 110 degrees, Fisher said. Choosing to settle here in the winter seemed a mind-boggling choice for Araújo, who saw snow for the first time when she arrived in early spring.
"All the time I'm cold here," she said. "You have to prepare. I can't imagine how is winter here."
After interviewing families in her country, she thought she would see fellow Brazilians everywhere. "I thought Peabody didn't have Americans, only Brazilians," she said.
The Brazilian families also thought all Americans were wealthy, Araújo said.
"When they arrive here, they start to understand," she said. "There, they dream in American."
"Dreaming in American" is an independent movie the filmmakers intend to release through festivals. Guarda Chuva is working on a shoestring budget and trying to secure grants and organize fundraisers for the project.
The film company expects to complete the movie by August 2010.
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