ESMERALDA SANTIAGO

Writing a Life

A documentary film portrait

Writing a Life is an intimate documentary film portrait of best selling author, Esmeralda Santiago in the midst of a culture-sharing journey. Her ground breaking memoirs, When I Was Puerto Rican, Almost A Woman and The Turkish Lover have a transforming impact on the lives of people she meets face to face—in book stores, universities, urban schools, family shelters, libraries, prisons, and projects. Our film captures the irrepressible charisma of a woman who is willing to do whatever it takes to open up heated debates on race, culture and identity. She sings, she dances, she cooks. She jumps languages “double-dutch,” moving fluently between English and Spanish without missing a beat, simultaneously translating her own words, thoughts...even the jokes. Dreaming in Spanish, writing in English, Esmeralda shares the joy and sorrow of living between two cultures.

Writing a Life is not just a rags-to-riches, jíbara to Harvard story. Esmeralda’s life story and work are an ongoing exploration of how language and memory define who we are and what it means, truly, to be culturally ambidextrous. In an age where books are referred to as “dead tree technology,” viewers will hear Esmeralda encouraging people to read and tell their own stories. She uses her celebrity to raise consciousness, and give voice to an emerging population. She encourages wide-eyed children and sobbing adults to face issues of race and social justice. Esmeralda is an ideal role model whose sense of humor and gift for entertainment opens new doors and empowers diverse audiences to value and speak about their own experience.

Viewers will enjoy the candor of a film that leverages twenty-four years of collaboration between Esmeralda and her filmmaker husband, Frank Cantor, to reveal a kind of insight rarely seen in a performance documentary.

Writing a Life shows Esmeralda as a key creative force in the transformation of her own memoir from book to script to screen for the Peabody Award winning Masterpiece Theatre production of Almost a Woman. With this movie Esmeralda Santiago joins writers James Agee, Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, and Henry James as the first six authors featured in the prestigious “American Collection.” Almost a Woman is the first Masterpiece Theatre production to focus on a Puerto Rican family, and the only film in the series to dramatize the work of a living writer.

Writing a Life is a co-production of PBS Channel 6 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and CANTOMEDIA, New York. The hour long documentary can be seen uninterrupted or in chapters: Sharing Stories Culture Shock My Family Impromptu Identity Writers Group Teaching Almost a Woman Solitude The Turkish Lover. The take away messages are clear:

If you are invisible in the arts, you are invisible in the culture

Reading can change your life

You have the power to achieve your dreams

Content Review screenings of Writing a Life have taken place at

• Kennedy Center/AFI Theater Washington, DC • El Museo del Barrio New York City

• Jacob Burns Film Center Pleasantville, NY • Peabody Essex Museum Essex, MA

• Boston Arts Academy Boston, MA • Scholastic Arts and Writing New York City

• Wadsworth Athenaeum Hartford, CT • Chicago Education Alliance Chicago

• Sacred Heart University San Juan Puerto Rico • North Park University Chicago

To Order Film (914) 245-0251 or write to: Esmeralda Santiago Writing a Life PO Box 100 Amawalk, NY 10501