Sundance 2021: Interview With Director Maisie Crow Of AT THE READY

Border control in the United States has been a topic that often triggers heated discussions in recent years. Fuelled by a (former) president who constantly incited hateful ideologies in his public remarks, any discourse on the subject often feels highly politicized. In Maisie Crow‘s At the Ready, political messaging takes a backseat to the much more personal stories of high school students living in Texas. These students live close to the border, actively participate in an extracurricular law enforcement club, and have a worldview that is shaped by an environment in which most adults only dare to view from afar. Crow spoke with Film Inquiry about the film during the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.

Wilson Kwong of Film Inquiry: I know that At the Ready is a film that you’ve been thinking about for a number of years. Can you start off by talking about how the conception of the film changed over time?

Maisie Crow: Yeah, I went in with a verité approach of wanting to follow these students through their senior year in high school. And so, the film really changed with the ways in which the students changed. And I feel like that’s very much the way I like to approach storytelling.

And why did you decide to profile high school students, as opposed to adults? Was that always the plan?

Maisie Crow: It was always the plan to focus on high school age students. I think I was very interested after the 2016 elections in understanding the way that teenagers were processing what was happening in the national rhetoric, and how that was affecting especially teenagers on the border. Donald Trump was saying some pretty terrible things. And for students to have to wrestle with that, especially when he’s talking about their own communities, I thought it was very important to understand their perspectives.

And how did you go about choosing the children that you ended up including in the film?

Maisie Crow: The students that I ended up following were all students that I met through the program, and I got to know each one of them in different ways. I really found each of their stories, their struggles, their hopes, very compelling, which was why I stuck with them.

Everyone profiled in the film also seem pretty mature. Was that surprising to you?

Maisie Crow: I mean, all of them are 17, 18, 19 years old, so I like to think of them as young adults. And they’re being asked to process a lot of information that even we, as adults, have a hard time processing. I think I was always very impressed with the classroom discussions that they had, and the back and forth dialogue. Their willingness, honestly, and openness to being more vulnerable, and being able to exist in a more grey area than a lot of adults are able to. I think we live in silos these days, and so, for them to be willing to have these very complicated discussions about their feelings on something, it was pretty astounding.

And did you get any pushback from the parents? I remember one scene where a parent talked about there being a stigma when it came to working in border control.

Maisie Crow: No. My hope is that this documentary is very respectful of the people that are in it. And so, I think if anything, the parents of those students were happy to have their kids sharing their stories.

For sure. And when it comes to the political nature of the film, what kind of impact are you hoping for At the Ready to have?

Maisie Crow: Look, I think this country is really divided, and I think we all exist in our own bubbles. And I think that there needs to be a lot of discussion about what’s going on. I think people are going to be angry by what they see. I think other people might like what they see. And the film is there to start a discussion, to ask people to think about what they’re seeing. I’m never trying to push an agenda with my films, other than asking people to take a deep look at something that I find complicated. And I think if as adults we’re not willing to go there, and we’re just going to stay in this black and white world, then we’re really never going to accomplish anything.

And given the results of the recent election, and the change in presidency, does that change the film’s message at all?

Maisie Crow: These issues will remain just as complicated. I think one of the more frustrating aspects of the prior administration, especially for the students, is just how derogatory the language was around their home town and the border region in general. You have the president of the United States calling immigrants from Mexico “bad hombres”. Really, it’s unthinkable for me, for the president of the United States to be saying something like that.

Let’s end off with this; what was the most challenging part about making this film?

Maisie Crow:  The most challenging part about making the film was during post-production, just editing a film in a pandemic, and being so removed from everybody on my team. And then not being able to film pickups and any of those things was really like having to use everything that we had in the can.

It’s a good thing you got all your footage before the pandemic started.

Maisie Crow:  Yeah. We got all the footage before the pandemic. There were still plans to go shoot more, and honestly, I think I would have ended the film with a scene of Mason as Mason (known as Kassy in the film), if the pandemic hadn’t happened. But Mason transitioned during the pandemic, and that’s why we included a YouTube video of him coming out because we couldn’t be there to capture it.

Film Inquiry would like to thank Maisie Crow for taking the time to speak with us!