Filming Faith
For Carlos Andrés Cuervo, a 33-year-old film student at North Campus, filmmaking is a way to change the world.
“I am a person who is focussed on social issues,” the Colombian-born Cuervo said. “When people tell me [my videos] have a spiritual element, for me it was just to tell a compelling story, it isn’t something about promoting one religion specifically.”
He put his socially conscious approach to filmmaking into action, producing an award-winning two minute documentary Without Walls about a faith-based social action church, sponsored by the Faith Counts organization. It garnered him the $20,000 grand prize.
Cuervo was working on short films for his classes at Miami Dade College and for non-profit organizations, when his friend texted him about the contest for the nonprofit, nondenominational organization Faith Counts.
“The mission is simply to promote the value of faith because faith tends to be marginalized,” said Kerry Troup, Faith Counts Communications Director. ”We aren’t evangelizing. We are just trying to get people to share how their faith is important to them.”
The prompt Cuervo was given was: tell in two minutes, how do you express faith through film in your community?
He searched for a faith organization and stumbled upon Reforma XXI—and Paula Montoya, the director—a group that feeds and ministers to homeless people in Miami.
“It is a matter of humanizing these people and knowing them by name,” Cuervo said. “They are friends, and it is about taking care of them the same way you would take care of your own friend.”
While video taping, his camera kept overheating, so Montoya put him to work helping to distribute food. He continued to film when the camera cooled down.
Cuervo showed the finished product to his wife and professors. The night before it was due, he submitted the video. Two weeks later he was notified that he was in the top ten. Once in the top ten, the video would be judged on the number of views it got in one month on YouTube.
There were two prizes, the $10,000 prize which was based on the votes, and the $20,000 prize which was based on the judges votes.
“I got a phone call and they told me that I couldn’t win both prizes,” Cuervo said. “I had no idea and I had been bummed when they announced the winner of the $10,000 prize.”
But the news was actually good. He was not allowed to announce his win until the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Philadelphia on Aug. 28. The people from Faith Counts paid for his trip to the meeting. During the conference, he sat surrounded by different religious leaders and he was required to give a two minute speech.
Once Cuervo arrived back in Miami, he decided to give 10 percent of the prize money back to Reforma XXI. He went to revisit the homeless with the organization, this time bringing his son Andrés Lucas, 4, with him.
“My son was so good with them,” Cuervo said. “One homeless person gave Andrés Lucas a granola bar. For my son they are not homeless, they are friends, and we don’t give them things, they give us things.”
During his time in MDC’s film school, Cuervo has entered other contests.
He participated in a Ford competition on social media called #fordistas where he made eight instagram videos and posted them. In that competition Cuervo won $1,500. His short documentary entry to Storytelling Parade in 2014 called Jojo was about an autistic boy. The documentary placed well. The film was also a part of CinemaSlam at Miami International Film Festival. He said the topic opened him up to do more non-for-profit work. He produced several public service announcements for the organization Stop Sex Trafficking Miami. It has become a school project as well.
Cuervo plans to graduate from MDC in May of 2016 while working freelance jobs. His journey to the film program has been long and winding. Faith has been at the base of it.
As a teenager he attended a photojournalism school in his native Bogotá. He then earned a degree at the Youth With A Mission charismatic theological seminary in Puerto Rico where he documented missions to Asia to minister to ethnic minorities. A stint with a school in Laredo, Texas made him an Apple computer expert with certification from Stanford University. A Cuban friend based in Homestead who works with indigenous people invited Cuervo to join him there. Soon after arriving he enrolled at MDC. Cuervo resides in the Redlands with his wife and two children. It takes the dedicated, straight A student an hour-and-a-half to reach his North Campus classes.
“He is an incredibly motivated and talented student,” said Cuervo’s film professor Agustin Gonzalez who teaches in the School of Entertainment & Design Technologies. “He approaches everything he does with enthusiasm.”
Cuervo is continuing to produce sex trafficking campaigns and narrative dramas on the subject, as well as his college projects. At the end of the year, he will work on a documentary in Cuba with a non-profit organization. With graduation looming, he aspires to earn a master’s degree in film with the aspiration to teach at the college level.
“The heart of most documentaries is the people’s story,” Cuervo said. “In that same way, the human element becomes more important than glamorous lighting or intricate action sequences. I believe we can all relate to human stories. We can see ourselves in the struggle, redemption and victory of others.”
Click here to view Cuervo’s winning Faith Counts video.
