Director Gabriel Gaurano Talks About His Boxing Documentary Team Meryland about a young girls with Junior Olympic Dreams.
Meryland Gonzalez training for the 2019 Junior Olympics.
Director Gabriel Gaurano talks about his boxing bocumentary Team Meryland about 12-year-old Meryland Gonzalez fights in-and-out of the ring attempting to be crowned the 2019 Junior Olympics Champion.
Director, Editor and Director of Photography, Gabriel Gaurano is a filmmaker whose work has screened and garnered awards at festivals like AFI, Palm Springs International Shorts Fest, and many more. Gaurano’s experiences have pulled him towards telling real stories of resilient families who push through the impossible.
In this case, Gaurano was lucky enough to be in a San Diego, CA park when he met Meryland Gonzalez’s father who approached them in wanting to tell the story of his young daughter training for the 2019 Junior Olympics in the sport of boxing.
Meryland Gonzalez is from the Watts district of Los Angeles, born to immigrant parents that struggle to make ends meet while supporting their daughter’s dreams of becoming a champion.
Official Synopsis:
Gabriel Gaurano’s documentary short film Team Meryland focuses on a 12 year old Mexican-American boxer’s second chance at life as she overcomes a past medical trauma. This inspirational story already screened at many prestigious film festivals including the Oscar qualifying Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and Cleveland International Film Festival where it won the FilmSlam Best Short Award. It will be screening at the 2021 Indy Shorts International Film Festival: Heartland Film this month.
The documentary is a beautifully made film and we can only hope to see what is next for Gaurano and the Gonzalez family as she will possibly strive to become an Olympian in the adult games, once she is old enough.
Team Meryland is one of those documentaries that you wish was longer and I am thrilled I got to watch it and speak with Gaurano.
Follow Team Meryland on Instagram @teammerylandfilm and visit their official website www.teammerylandfilm.com.
