El Abuelo

• Directed by Stephen Crutchfield
• Written by Stephen Metcalfe
• Produced by Patrick Scott
• Featuring Louis Olivos, Jr. and Jonah Gercke

Nick doesn’t speak. To communicate effectively, there has to be the desire to communicate, and Nick, a twelve-year-old boy with high-functioning autism, doesn’t seem to have anything he wants to say. He is fascinated though, with the immigrant workers who gather at the gas station near his home waiting for work. And he is especially taken with the old man who sells flowers and oranges on the street corner.

And so, Nick decides to go on an adventure. On his own, he bicycles out to the remote canyon where he has learned many of the immigrant workers live in a squatter’s camp. It is there that he meets the old man, El Abuelo, the grandfather.

Over the course of the ensuing day and night, Nick will listen, watch, and learn about lives very different from his own. He will come under the quiet spell of El Abuelo and at the end of his adventure; perhaps he will finally find his voice.

El Abuelo was the winner of Best Local Film in the 2012 San Diego Latino Film Festival