Pictured: Film Crew and Troupe from Left to Right: Erik, Andrea, and Demi Reyes, Grace Zittel, Silas Mendoza, Sky Bass, Dr. Andrew Yox, Sabrina Otero-Svirska, Emma Mendoza, Gwynn Roberts, Martin Mata, Johnathan Ventura, and Alex Garcia. Winkle Scholar, Emma Mendoza in red is both the film scholar and the director. Photograph courtesy of Sam Ferguson, and the East Texas Journal, published by Hudson Old.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Emma Mendoza’s work on Jovita Idar continues. NTCC’s Gladys Winkle Scholar first won a state Caldwell Award last spring in Irving for her essay on Idar. Then, she won a Britt Poster Award of the Great Plains Honors Council in Kansas City, a conference that included honors students from Nebraska to Texas. Then, last week Mendoza and some fifteen honors and Webb Society students completed a feature-length movie script, filming in Titus and Franklin counties on Monday and Tuesday, and Marion, Wednesday through Friday.
Money is sometimes viewed as “propaganda you can spend,” and in the world of Mendoza’s scholarship, this is certainly true for the Texas woman who now appears on the reverse side—from Washington—on some 389 million quarters. The official story of Idar that first placed her on the quarter celebrated her work as a leading Tejana journalist, feminist, and Mexican-American Queen Esther, who interposed her life between a Spanish-language newspaper in Laredo, and the Texas Rangers. Mendoza argues that Idar was none of these things. She was rather a servant leader, a still-remarkable woman of her time—living in Laredo, Texas from 1910-1917, who tried to embody many aspects of her Methodist faith. Jovita Idar sacrificed her career to teach Tejana children, she sacrificed her profession to help her family, she nearly lost her life serving as a nurse in Nuevo Laredo during the Mexican Revolution, and in the end—married a plumber, hopeful, that she would become a mother.
Mendoza is the same award-winning author who contended that the Singer sewing machine did not confer a time dividend to Victorian women in sewing. Instead, they simply sewed more garments. She is used to revisionism, and is a servant leader herself, though of Roman Catholic spirituality. She is the offspring of a homeschooling mother, and a Panamanian-born teacher at Mount Pleasant High School with a uniquely kind, and sensitive demeanor. She has compiled one of the more amazing records as an honors student at NTCC, having been the only person in our history to win two first-place finishes in the McGraw Hill Poster contests, in addition to her many other intercollegiate and intervarsity accolades. The thirty-scene film just completed on 6 August in Jefferson bears all the marks of Mendoza’s scholarship, and special outreach. She is the first film scholar in the series to also direct, not one, but two films, having led the award-winning Chicano Thermidor film last year. Only Brian Ramirez of 2020 and 2021, of all our directors through the years also served as director, twice. Mendoza also has a talent for sewing and played a major role in providing outfits for the women. Alas, before 1960, women never wore slacks.
Though the 15th film on Texas legends promulgated by Honors Northeast, this experience was unprecedented in some respects. The research was more extensive than other films before it. The work centered exactly on Mendoza’s main story line and enjoyed an additional group research trip of five rather than three days. Thanks to donors, and improvements in funding, the group had no problem claiming a dominant status in three Jefferson B&Bs for filming, and had every electrical appliance, and prop that it desired.
This was the first film ever to reach completion on Thursday of film week, and thus the most successfully sequenced film in the group’s history. It was quite a contrast to the 2023 film where the scenes were not completed until December! Much of the credit for that lies with Cade Bennett who returned to honors this summer as an honors coordinator. Bennett starred in two award-winning, feature-length films at NTCC, first as Bo Pilgrim in the COVID year of 2020, and then as Carroll Shelby in 2021. Between those two he is somewhat of an anomalous figure in our region, having intimately experienced the lives of two of the most successful Northeast Texans in history. Tall and personable, with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Arlington, Bennett not only coordinated schedules, scenes, places, and actors, but energized the entire process. His unflagging buoyancy, even in the face of one actor quitting at the last moment, and a few emergent technical conundrums, was contagious and endearing.
Time will tell how good the film actually is. The film’s associate producer, Silas Mendoza, the brother of Emma, has a broad vision, and this is one hopeful sign. Composer Kenny Goodson, who has created such luxurious works as the “Preamble to Where E’re the Sun,” and the “Smoke Music Overture,” is again looking forward to new possibilities with Mexican-American idioms. Another experienced hand in this year’s film, was last year’s cinematographer, Johnathan Ventura. About the only person who ever hears Ventura speak in a shoot is the director, Mendoza. In fact, he only gestures most of the time. But he is very meticulous. If a boom mic gets in the way, if an actor begins to garble, if the angle is not right, Mendoza will inevitably trust his judgment. This worked remarkably in 2025 when the group filmed more outdoor scenes, and with more success—all of them fully audible, than ever before in the series.
Some of the cast might still distract viewers at crucial moments. But for the more experienced film leaders, the verve and emotional range of the Jovita Idar lead—Sabrina Otero-Svirska, was a delightful discovery. Otero-Sviska, registered to come to NTCC in the fall, has yet to have an experience like this. She is a 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School, interested in speech therapy, and experienced in martial arts and art. However, fluent in English, Spanish and Russian, she seemed fluent in another sense. She internalized the story to the point where she seemed like a bilingual Jovita Idar from the past suddenly appearing on the film set and spontaneously living her character. The crew, led by Mendoza, Bennett, and Ventura, filmed faster on Wednesday and Thursday than a typical soap opera. But Otero-Svirska, in almost every scene, showed a phenomenal sense of with-it-ness and mind control. Her linguistic background might help to explain some of her fluency. She is the daughter of NTCC’s Spanish professor, Dr. Maryna Otero, and her husband Norberto. Every day, she speaks Russian to her mother, Spanish with her father, and English to her peers and teachers.
There is a theory in honors education that if one can reach a higher level of teamwork known as “synergism,” 3 plus 3 can equal 9. The whole can do things unimaginable to individuals. In some ways Film XV gave glimpses that the honors experience at NTCC had reached this stage. Never before has the support of patrons been as apparent. Jerald and Mary Lou Mowery of Mount Vernon have traditionally been the special catalysts of the film tradition, but in addition to this input, there were several key anonymous givers this year. On Tuesday of film week, the Mount Vernon lawyer, B.F. Hicks invited the NTCC film group, and other local friends including the Mowerys to a free luncheon at a local restaurant. Though the years, the support of the Franklin County Historical Association members like the Mowerys, Dan Hoke, and Mr. Hicks has been remarkable.
The NTCC group was indebted to others as well—Elizabeth Wilson allowed the troupe to film at Tennison Methodist, a church that has many other supporters of Honors Northeast. Mount Pleasant City Manager, Robert Vine, allowed for the group to film by Town Lake. Mitchell Walker arranged for the group to film behind his Laura’s restaurant in Mount Pleasant, and Carolyn Franks allowed the group to get a start at the Whatley. Administrators at NTCC also helped with a large number of purchase orders, and intricate arrangements, such as the hiring of Bennett, and the complex travel arrangements for fourteen to Jefferson. The effort was beholden to the Whatley Employee Enhancement Fund process overseen by Development Director Nita May.
Students with main roles included Silas Mendoza, and Presidential Scholar, Adam Richards as the brothers of Jovita Idar, Eduardo, and Clemente. Sky Bass appears as Idar’s mother, and Grace Zittel as Idar’s alter ego, the Mexican feminist, Leonor Magón. Andrea Reyes, an honors alumna from Hughes Springs who has now played indispensable roles in five films, not only agreed to cover a key role, but also allowed the group to incorporate her talented children, Demi, and Erik into the cast.
The plan from this point is to launch a trailer which can serve to present the film effort to state audiences in New Braunfels for the Walter Prescott Webb Society, and Nacogdoches for the East Texas Historical Association, as well as at the National Collegiate Honors Council in New Orleans in November. The hope is to present another premiere in the early spring of 2027 on the campus of Northeast Texas Community College.
