For many teenagers, the sound of gunshots ringing through the halls is their worst nightmare, but for criminal justice students at Horizon High, outside of El Paso, it’s the first step toward achieving their American Dream. Home to one of the largest law enforcement education programs in the region, students train to become police officers and Border Patrol agents. This film follows three Mexican-American students as they embark on such a career path and begin to discover that the realities of their dream jobs may be at odds with the truths and people they hold most dear.

This film is in the Documentary Feature Competition.

MEET THE FILMMAKER: MAISIE CROW

Following a successful career as an award-winning photojournalist, Texas native Maisie expanded her storytelling capabilities as a documentary filmmaker. In 2018, her documentary, JACKSON, received a News and Documentary Emmy award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. The film had its world premiere on Showtime and won 15 film festival awards for best documentary and audience favorite. Most recently, Maisie became the editor-in-chief of The Big Bend Sentinel, a nearly 100 year-old, weekly newspaper in Marfa, Texas where she works alongside with a staff of reporters to cover West Texas. She has taught photojournalism and video storytelling as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as well as the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She has served as a jury member in World Press Photo’s multimedia competition as well as College Photographer of the Year.