Going on 13: Four girls. Four years. The change of a lifetime.

If there were any rules about documentary filmmaking, we probably broke them all.

One social worker, one filmmaker and one very ambitious idea: to follow girls over the course of four years as they became teenagers. Knowing that production alone would take so many years, we decided two things: one, that we would have to pace ourselves and, two, that we would be making it up as we went along. This included a shooting schedule that allowed us to keep our day jobs, becoming very close to our "subjects," and leaving the confines of a strictly observational cinema to either chat, hang out or answer the girls’ own questions about growing up.

Seven years later, our feature-length documentary, GOING ON 13, is screening at the SILVERDOCS/AFI Discovery Channel Documentary Festival. 

And we are excited and honored to be bringing along one of the girls from the film.  (See below for information about the screening.)  

That she still wants to be a part of our lives is amazing enough, but that she is willing to come out and engage with audiences–about a very tumultuous and embarrassing time in her life–is even more incredible.

We filmed the girls of our film from when they were 9 to 13 years old.  Not an age most of us want to remember and probably not an age that we would have wanted a camera too closely focused on us. But, an important transitional time for girls and boys, nonetheless, and one that deserves to be recognized for what it is: tough, confusing and fraught with possibility.

Early on in developing our film, we decided to stick with the children who lived in our own urban community of the California Bay Area.  We wanted to choose from the girls who were attending our local public schools, and we wanted typical girls, but not of the white, middle-class suburban variety.  At the same time we understood that when urban kids were called upon–and when we say urban, what we really mean are black, brown, and immigrant kids–they were called upon to demonstrate the woes of their environment.

The girls in our film are typical urban girls, unique in personality and temperament, but they are not teen moms, in gangs, homeless or living with crack-addicted parents.

Many have asked us what exactly then, is the film about.

And I think the answer lies in the more subtle questions our film raises: When does childhood end and what does that journey entail? How is the process specific to these girls of color and at this particular moment at the beginning of the 21st century?

For each of the girls in our film the answer is complicated, distinct and inextricably linked to the little girl she once was.

And in order to hear the answer our film asks that we as adults stop and listen.  Too often we forget to listen to young people or simply choose to ignore them. We not only assume that our way is the right way but that it is the only way.

This is especially true when it comes to girls’ voices.

We wanted to make a space for these girls, at this difficult and decisive time, to voice their angst, excitement, and concern.

But most of all, we wanted to listen to their stories. We couldn’t have written this story; we didn’t know it. It was a story only they could tell.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan is Co-Director of Going on 13.

Both of the filmmakers will be in attendance, as will one of the girls from the film.

Visit SILVERDOCS for more information on purchasing tickets and to learn about other great films by and about women: In the Family, Letter to Anna, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Football Under Cover, A Powerful Noise, Going on 13, Yidesha Mama and My Mother’s Garden.