Trust: Second Acts in Young Lives is the true story of 18-year-old Marlín, from Honduras, who survives sexual abuse, immigration to the United States, and substance abuse. Most of the story takes place at APTP, the Albany Park Theater Project in Chicago. APTP is an after-school theater program that makes plays out of people’s real-life stories. This is a documentary—the kids in the film are not actors. They are going about their regular lives, and the filmmakers have captured their story and turned it into a film. Marlín’s story has difficult themes but nothing graphic. The focus is on how the other youth turn her story into a play.
The Trust Teaching Guide and Community Screening toolkit is a comprehensive set of lessons and resources to use with TRUST. The guide offers community screening guidelines and seven arts- and Common Core Standards-based activities designed for high school, after school programs and community settings, where students can creatively explore very real issues in young lives – identity, belonging, betrayal and resilience. The film and guide support voices of young people telling their own stories and engage students to think critically about the worlds they inhabit.
