At the time "English as a Second Language" was conceived, I was searching for a concept that would excite me, a film that would be emotionally and dramatically complex while being logistically simple so as to lend itself to production on a very modest budget. My initial idea was to create an ESL classroom with an ensemble of Latino characters and to follow them as they lived, worked, struggled and triumphed. I set out to create nine fully defined and unique characters but after thirty pages of background bios I fell in love with two of them: Bolivar De La Cruz, an illegal just over the border in search of a better life; and Lola Sara, a second generation Latina who was forced to attend the class to work off community service hours and would later would fall in love with the people from which she had always tried to distance herself.

I began writing so much about these two characters that it soon became clear "ESL" would be primarily about them. They are both pieces of me, both lost and searching for each other without really knowing it; two people from very different sides of the same culture, learning from one another, helping each other through life's cruel jokes and ultimately falling in love. To be true to them we had to make Lola's world primarily English speaking and Bolivar's world Spanish speaking. That was the basis for the bi-lingual quality of the film.

As far as the look and style of the film, knowing money and time would be tight, I adopted a jump cutty, free flowing hand held style of photography. Yet even without the budgetary constraints, creatively and emotionally that style just seemed to track perfectly with the story I wanted to tell and the movie I wanted to make. I've always enjoyed films that move, that are flying at you, that have a mind of their own, that make you a little dizzy. I worked intensively with our Director of Photography, Ben Kufrin, to create a very specific look and feel. We shot tests and studied films I love like "Amores Perros," "Laws of Gravity," "Goodfellas," "Run Lola Run." We coined our look "ugly beautiful." We wanted gritty, hot, clipped, rich blacks, heavy contrast and color. Yes, color. Rich beautiful chroma bursting from the screen, color that was in effect trapped inside the film wanting to get out.

Like any filmmaker, I could fill up ten or twenty more pages detailing every idea, all the blood, sweat and tears that went into this film. Instead I will simply express my sincere desire and hope that you will watch "ESL" and be moved by these characters and their world.

- Youssef Delara