Brandon De Los Reyes :/ The Day I Had To Grow Up

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A ROSSO FILMS
PRODUCTION

CO-PRODUCER

STORY-PRODUCER
(CO-WRITER)

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

THE DAY I HAD TO GROW UP (2020)

‘The Day I Had To Grow Up" is a call to action. It features six young activists and the events that shaped their political lives. This story is about the future of youth activism in America.

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(24 min.)

THE DAY - ANCHOR

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MAY 27TH 2021

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THE DAY I HAD TO GROW UP

I know it sounds cynical as I write this, but documentaries like Stefano Da Fre and Laura Pellegrini’s The Day I Had to Grow Up comes around literally once a generation. The film opens with a speech that went viral of student activist Jeremy Ornstein outside of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in Washington. The speech was impassioned, to say the least, and led to Ornstein’s arrest along with fellow activists.

In the film, co-writers and directors Da Fre and Pellegrini spotlight youth activism by interviewing several notable activists, including Orenstein, Violet Kopp, Griffin Gould, Taylor Nicole Turner, Saira Salyani, and Sofia Ongele. At the time of the interview, each activist was between 17 and 18 years old and spoke about subjects ranging from the climate crisis, gun violence, abortion and women’s rights, poverty, and Black Lives Matter.

Let me address my cynicism for a moment. Student activism is not new. My generation had student activists along with the generation before and after and after and after. What hasn’t changed is the passion and desire to see real progress made in bettering this world. Orenstein talks about being at the intersection of criticality and hope. Quite frankly, hope is not always something we hear from our activists.

Also different with this generation of protest is the use of social media to get one’s message out and the community built between the like-minded. The Day I Had to Grow Up does a great job shining a light on the young people and gives us a glimpse into why they do what they do.

Having seen documentaries like The Day I Had to Grow Up over the last several decades, there is nothing new in the message. Just compare these students to Abbie Hoffman from the late 1960s. But the truth is protest and activism against our local, state, and federal government are vital to this system of checks and balances. Films like this keep the flame burning.

MAY 16TH 2018

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The Filmmaking of The Day I Had To Grow Up

indieactivity: Introduce your film?
Stefano Da Frè (SDF): “The Day I Had To Grow Up” is a documentary about Youth Activism in America. It showcases six activists and the events that shaped their political lives. When Laura & I direct documentaries, oftentimes we blend in our narrative aesthetics. For example, in this film, the activists are shot on an ARRI Alexa camera with colorful, lush backdrops in a studio.

We believe having that production value not only heightens the overall look and feel of the film, but makes audiences connect even more closely with each teen and their reasons for being involved in politics. Like all our films, the tone is very personal.

We have an activist named Taylor Nicole Turner who talks about her experiences losing her close friend, Helena Ramsey, to a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School. Making the teens feel safe allowed them to open up in a way that is candid and thoughtful.

Tell us why you chose to write, produce, direct, shoot, cut/edit the movie? Was it financial, chance or no-budget reason?
Stefano Da Frè (SDF): One of the advantages of producing and directing your own projects is that you have creative control of a film from its inception to its execution. We assembled the best team to shoot this documentary and hired an Emmy-award winning editor that we know and trust to edit the film. Had the budget been much higher and a studio been involved, Laura & I might not have had the same advantages, such as having final cut. So I’m proud to say that what you see onscreen was the vision we had from the get go.

Introduce your crew?
Stefano Da Frè (SDF): Our Director of Photography A.J. DeSimone has an incredible eye. I’ve personally known him for years and have watched him evolve from film school at SVA into the DP he is now. He has worked on multiple shows for HBO and Netflix, so his sensibilities have become much stronger and sharper. He was an asset to this film during its creative development, always bringing to the table innovative ways to shoot exterior locations and how to frame the teens in the studio.

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