Five Fresno area high school students have spent the past year working on a documentary film tracing the lives of three San Joaquin Valley families who came to California to work the land and create new lives in America's agricultural heartland.

The public will have a chance to view the 30-minute film, "Common Ground, Sowing the Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley," on Thursday, July 24, at 7 p.m. at the historic Tower Theater in Fresno. The young filmmakers will discuss the making of the film and answer questions after the screening.

The teens made the film as part of How I See It: Youth Digital Filmmakers, a statewide project of the California Council for the Humanities that includes seven other youth film making projects.

The film follows the students as they talk to agricultural families of different backgrounds—Latino, African American, and Hmong—who came to California to start new lives, and explore how their relationship to the land connects them to the community and to one another.

Location: Tower Theater, 815 E. Olive Ave, Fresno
Starts: 2008 Jul 24 - 7:00pm
Ends: 2008 Jul 24 - 8:30pm
Website: http://www.cmcweb.org/