Evanston teen wins $10,000 scholarship for making video

By Madeleine Wright
Monday, November 17, 2008
Viewed 5696 times.

Zane Scheuerlein was eight years old when he made his first video. Nine years and about a dozen videos later, he’s the winner of a $10,000 scholarship.

“My mom’s a filmmaker, so I always had that being part of my life,” said Scheuerlein, “like making videos for kindergarten... crazy stuff like that.”

Scheuerlein, a senior at Evanston Township High School, is one of five American high school students selected for the Youth Prize for Excellence in International Education. His documentary, “Border Crossings,” takes a look at how some communities deal with what he says is environmental racism.

“It’s very wrong what’s being done to these people,” he said. “They’re victims of corporate greed—our greed.”

Scheuerlein said he spent six months getting footage in Little Village, a Latino community in Chicago.

His friend Marisol was the inspiration for the film. She showed him how her community lives with pollution in their everyday lives.

And he hopes his video will inspire others the same way she inspired him to get active.

“I have an opportunity to take my filmmaking skills and use them for positive social change,” he said.

Scheuerlein said he’s more socially conscious than his friends, and added that activism runs in his family.

“My mom was a big player in the feminist movement, my sister built irrigation systems in Ecuador and Guatemala, and my dad dropped out of Princeton to become a hippie,” he explained.

His dad eventually became a lawyer. But the high school senior said law isn’t for him. He said his scholarship money will go towards a degree in international studies.

Scheuerlein said he hopes to become a diplomat and bridge the cultural gap between nations.