Info Courtesy of Felix Endara, Arts Engine (click here for full event description):

Up Heartbreak Hill by Erica Scharf will screen and receive feedback at the next meeting of DocuClub, Wednesday, January 27, 7 p.m., at 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street (at Canal).

Admission is free for current DocuClub members and $8 for non-members. Only DocuClub members who plan to attend need to RSVP. Membership is an annual $50 and includes free admission to all DocuClub events. Joining online is easy.

Up Heartbreak Hill is a documentary that chronicles the lives of Thomas, Tamara and Gabby—three Native American teenagers in Navajo, New Mexico—as they navigate their senior year at a reservation high school. As graduation nears, they must decide whether to stay in their community—a place inextricably woven into the fiber of their being—or leave in pursuit of opportunities elsewhere. Largely isolated from mainstream America, they hesitate to separate from their families and traditions, rooted to home in equal parts by love, obligation and fear. Tribal elders urge members of the younger generation to leave, acquire an education or learn a trade, and return home with the skills to help their people. But, with an unemployment rate near 58% and a per capita income under $4,600, Navajo has few prospects. Thomas, Tamara and Gabby each bear amazing strength and promise, but all are products of their environment, and it is the same community that has set before them so many challenges that now asks them to become the leaders that will reshape the Navajo Nation. Their battles to shape their identities as both Native American and modern American lie at the heart of the film.

Director: Erica Scharf
Producer: Christina D. King
Executive Producer: Chris Eyre
Editors: Cindy Lee and Isaac Wayton

Almudena Carracedo (Emmy-award winning Director and Producer of the documentary Made in L.A. ) will moderate.