Movie To Premiere In Student Filmmaker’s Absence

Elisa Broche won’t be at Saturday’s premiere of her new documentary about Newhallville community activist Marcus Harvin at the University of New Haven.

That’s because the 19-year-old student filmmaker is back in her home city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras — doing everything she can to raise enough money to return to West Haven to complete her studies.

Broche’s new movie, ​“Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story,” chronicles Harvin’s journey from incarceration to Yale Prison Education Initiative graduate to leader of a movement to feed people’s dreams.

The documentary is set to premiere at UNH’s 300 Boston Post Rd. campus at 6:00 p.m. Saturday.

One UNH film professor described Broche as a once-in-a-generation talent. Another called her an old-school go-getter, willing to go outside her comfort zone to make something happen. A third lauded her combination of creativity and professional polish.

Back in her native Honduras, Broche is working a multitude of jobs in her bid to complete her education at UNH. For the three semesters she needs to graduate, Broche estimated a cost of roughly $80,000.

She’s doing research on a documentary about legislation to protect firefighters in Nevada for a paid internship. On weekends, she photographs weddings, quinceañeras and other events. She’s completing a documentary, United By Faith, on perceptions of religion. On the Wednesday before the premiere, she traveled through small towns in Honduras to make a video about the reality of life there.

“Whatever money I’m making, the plan is to use it to go back to UNH, that’s the dream,” Broche said. ​“Whatever else I’m doing is to feed my passion to tell stories.” 

“You get a student like this, you do everything you can to keep them and support them,” said distinguished lecturer Susan Campbell, one of a team of UNH faculty ​“moving heaven and earth,” as she put it, for Broche’s return.

Broche grew up in Honduras, a country with rampant poverty and violence, the daughter of an opera singer mother and a father, a politician in Cuba, who has never been a part of her life. ​“I was always around creative people,” she said. ​“I was singing with the national choir and doing TV shows and theater and dancing from a young age.”

She blogged on WordPress and developed her media chops, recording herself on a home computer that her mother uploaded to YouTube. ​“I’ve always just wanted to tell the stories no one was telling,” she said. 

Discovered in Honduras by a sponsor who agreed to fund her college education, she came to the United States by herself at 16, enrolling at UNH. Then, for reasons unexplained, the checks stopped coming.

“As much as I don’t understand what happened, I am still very appreciative of what they did for me,” she said about her sponsor. ​“I will be forever grateful for everything they did for me, but now will look elsewhere.” 

Efforts to reach the sponsor went unanswered.

Tom Garrett, chair of the communication, film, and media studies department, is among those leading the efforts to bring her back. ​“Elisa is someone who never asks for help, but we can on her behalf, especially when you see the great work she’s doing,” he said.

Nicki Chavoya, a practitioner in residence for the film department, recalled a short piece Broche created about Carlos Rebollo, who was incarcerated at 15 and released after 24 years in prison. ​“She focused on how his perspective changed and how it wasn’t really about race but about the person, and it left everyone in tears,” she said. 

“Every project she’s made has a community aspect to it,” Chavoya said, referring to another project, called Faith, on the journalist Ana Palmore’s work on domestic violence in Honduras. ​“She coordinated a trip for Dr. Palmore to do a series of talks,” she said. ​“What’s wonderful about Elisa is she knows how to create activism and dialogue around a particular issue.”

Campbell said she heard about Broche before she met her. ​“She’s been an anchor of Charger Bulletin News,” the UNH weekly broadcast show covering the top news of the week, ​“and I was hearing other students talk about this anchor and it was always with a sense of ​‘she’s so talented,’ ​‘I can’t believe she’s our age kind of thing,’” she said. 

Broche also co-founded the Cinephile Collective, an effort to introduce an array of new and international films that ​“celebrate the magic of storytelling through cinema,” bringing in, among others, Bollywood producer Prashant Shah.

Garrett said he first met Broche when she volunteered for a marketing department project. ​“This was to do a promotional video of UNH faculty media placements and she turned it around in about three hours,” he said. ​“I knew she was someone special.”

That led to a Liberty Initiative Scholarship, a paid internship to conduct real-world research – funding the work on Nevada firefighters she’s doing remotely – as well as short documentaries for the 10-year anniversary of the Tow Youth Justice Institute and the UNH Welcome Project, which tells the stories of people at the university through short video and audio interviews.

“She’s someone who’s outspoken about her ideas and willing to think outside the box to get them out there,” said Andy Billman, an adjunct professor in the department. ​“Those are qualities that have people rising to the top of our business.”

Garrett sounded a similar refrain. ​“I’ve always believed in the mantra to find something you love to do and go there and do it, and when you’re there, help somebody else out, and everything else will come,” he said. ​“She’s living that, and we’re all trying to make sure she can keep living that.” 

Marcus Harvin, the subject of the documentary directed by Broche, put it plainly.

“She wrote me a text before she went back to Honduras that film and documentaries are her fresh start,” he said. ​“Well, the completion of her degree, the actualization of her aspirations, are my priority.”

Before she left for Honduras, Broche was working several jobs at UNH. ​“This is me trying to pay for my own school without having to depend on anyone,” she said. About the documentary on Marcus, ​“I could never accept payment,” she said. ​“This is pure me believing in his vision, especially when I don’t know if I’m going to be able to come back next semester. His story has to be told.”

For information on supporting Elisa, contact the UNH Office of Advancement at 203 – 479-4114 or email advancement@newhaven.edu.