FIRST TAKE
Jesus Beltran returned to Fort Worth for his directing debut -- in a film about a conflicted recruiter on the north side
From
FW STAR TELEGRAMBy CHRISTOPHER KELLY
STAR-TELEGRAM FILM CRITIC
PARK CITY, Utah -- The ambitious young directors invited to screen their short films at the Sundance Film Festival usually fall into one of a handful of categories: There are the film-school-geek types, fresh out of places like USC and NYU, eager to make their mark as the next Spielberg or Scorsese. There are also the trust-fund-baby types, whose six-minute opuses look every bit as expensive as the latest Peter Jackson epic.
And then there is Fort Worth native Jesus Beltran, 29, director of The Grass Grows Green, who this year at Sundance fell into a category all his own: He's the mechanical engineer who held down a day job with Apple while writing, directing and producing his short film.
"Coming from a background where you didn't have a lot of money and you watched your parents struggle, you have to be a little more realistic in terms of what you're going to major in," explains Beltran, who graduated from Northside High School before heading off to Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "Engineering seemed like a good avenue for me. ... But when I did graduate, I had a conversation with my dad, and I said, 'I'd really like to do something in film.' And he kind of looked at me funny and said, 'You mean like a director or something?'"
Five years later, burned out by his day job and still eager to break into the film industry, Beltran decided it was finally time to get serious about his directing ambitions. He started by immersing himself in books and magazines about films and filmmaking. He spent his down time on business trips working on screenplays for a number of short films. Last March, he attended the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, and he saw a short called First Date, which starred a Kansas City, Kan.-based actor named Santiago Vasquez.
Beltran thought Vasquez would be perfect for the lead role in one of his scripts, about a Marine recruiter in north Fort Worth who learns that one of his recruits has been killed in combat in Iraq. Beltran threw himself into readying The Grass Grows Green -- and, just a few months later, production commenced in Fort Worth. Beltran's aunt's house served as the crew's operations base. His mother's house served as one of the primary shooting locations.
The result, handsomely photographed on 16mm film in an era when most young filmmakers opt for digital cameras, is a spare and touching drama that focuses on a side of the Iraq war that few people consider: The Marines back home who must continue to persuade new recruits to enlist, even as the news from Iraq turns graver by the hour. Beltran, who financed the $20,000 film entirely out of pocket, extensively interviewed a Marine recruiter in Fort Worth while working on the script. He also says that his older brother -- an ex-Marine -- helped him fine-tune the characters' dialogue.
With a main character racked by guilt for having guided a young man into the military, The Grass Grows Green can easily be regarded as having a political message -- especially considering that the film shows how the Marines particularly focus their recruiting energies on underprivileged Latino and black communities in cities like Fort Worth. At the question-and-answer sessions after the film's screenings at Sundance, Beltran was pressed by audience members who wanted to know if the director regarded the film as anti-war.
But Beltran says he views The Grass Grows Green in much broader terms, as an American Beauty-like story of a man suffering through a painful existential crisis.
"[It's about] having to do something that doesn't feel right, and you have to do it because it's your job and you have obligations to your family," he says. "You hit the breaking point, but do you make a change? You could. But most people don't. They still go to work, and they hate their jobs, and they're stuck where they are."
Even if Beltran shies from questions about the political content of his film, he certainly seems to have a good sense of the politics that dictate a hypercompetitive festival like Sundance, where this year 4,445 shorts were submitted and only 71 were accepted. The topical subject matter no doubt appealed to the programmers. But Beltran was also smart enough to surround himself with talent familiar to the Sundance staff, especially the film's cinematographer, Aaron Platt, who last year made a splash at the festival with a still-unreleased movie called Wild Tigers I Have Known.
"When they see someone like Aaron" in the credits, the programmers "take the submission more seriously," Beltran says.
Midway through the festival, Beltran seemed energized and overwhelmed by all the glad-handing and schmoozing. The shorts programs are often considered hunting grounds by Hollywood producers and agents on the prowl for fresh talent, so Beltran was busy collecting business cards, attending parties and hoping that an agent might want to sign him.
As for whether he plans to return to his mild-mannered life as a mechanical engineer or dive headlong into a filmmaking career, well, for now Beltran plans to do both. He's parted ways with Apple, though he expects to begin a new consulting gig soon that should give him more time to work on film projects. He's already working on the script for a feature-length version of The Grass Grows Green. He also says that, in the next few months, he plans to visit China to shoot a second short film.
"My dream is to do a feature, and to do it independently," he says. "I know a lot of people in the tech industry who have income that, if they believe in me, could invest in a film. I just need a bigger support group to make it happen."