HUELLAS
Huellas Trailer
Juana
Juana is a fantastic woman with a smile on her face no matter the circumstances. She has lived her entire life with severe club feet. As a teenager, she was unable to save the money it would take to travel to Lima for surgery. Now, she has two children and is supported by her adult son, who makes $10 a week at the local glass manufacturer since Juana cannot have a job due to her deformity.
Gabriel
Gabriel is 30 and comes from a rural region of northern Peru near the border of Ecuador. He fell off a wall when he was nine years old and broke his ankle and has been walking on the completely fractured leg for 20 years. Unable to work, he and his brother drove over 13 hours one-way in a bus for surgery.
Essential Strides
Pain free gait is a luxury many of take for granted. Thousands of people across the world live with congenital anomalies or neglected trauma leaving them unable to walk or with limited and painful mobility. These conditions prevent children from playing with their peers or parents from working and providing for their families. These disabilities are correctable with the right care. However, many of these people live remotely and have no access to the advanced care or reconstructive surgical services they would require to return to fuller functioning. The mission of Essential Strides is to provide this surgical and follow up care to ensure these patients’ mobility is restored. We work with local physicians in the areas of our missions to ensure a more lasting impact to the local communities and patients we treat. We help train and educate doctors of the regions we visit in the surgical techniques that we use. These doctors will also help provide the follow up care for the patients moving forward. We plan to maintain close relationships with our medical peers abroad throughout the year as part of an ongoing partnership.
For more information, go to www.essentialstrides.org
Director
Brad was born in Montana, grew up in Colorado, and while being active in the performing arts, found that it was not where he saw himself establishing a career. He took his experience in voice and stage performance and used this experience to pursue a BFA in film production and critical studies at the University of Colorado. After college he worked for various post-production houses as an editor until starting his own company, Stabio Productions, in 2000 in Denver, Colorado. Since then he has worked as an award winning director and editor of over 25 short films and also does work for various television and corporate clients. Brad is also the winner of three Heartland Emmys and continues to work as a producer/director in the Denver area.
Huellas - A deep impression or lasting impact on someone or the world
In Peru's rural Moyobamba region, there are no surgical specialists, and for the people who live there, most earning less than $10 a week, even basic orthopedic care is often out of reach. Huellas follows a team of volunteer podiatrists who travel there to perform corrective surgeries that, for their patients, are nothing short of life changing.
The film centers on three individuals living with major foot and ankle deformities, including severe clubfoot, as they arrive at the clinic uncertain of what's possible, undergo surgery, and begin the long road to recovery.
Intimate and observational, Huellas is as much about the patients' resilience as it is about the doctors who choose to share their skills across borders. At a moment when support for international medical aid is shrinking, the film offers a quiet reminder: a healthier world is a shared responsibility, and even small acts of expertise, freely given, can change the course of a life.
Jhon
Jhon is an active teenager who lives in a small town in northeastern Peru. His aspirations for the future are to go to university in Lima but presently, he’d love to simply be able to play soccer with his friends. His family has done all they can to help, but he also does not live in an area that provides specialized health care.
