The Cougar Chronicle Staff

On May 10, the Visual and Performing Arts Department will host its eighth annual CSUSM Student Media Festival, celebrating the work of students filmmakers on campus. Here’s a look at one of the films vying for an official entry slot in the competition. 

“Cardboard Credit Card” by Amanda Hazen

Amanda Hazen has a sociology degree from Cal State San Marcos and she’s applied for grad school this spring, but a few months ago she was begging for dollars in a Temecula parking lot.

Hazen, a 25-year-old resident of Murrieta, tried her hand at panhandling as part of a sociology experiment that she documented in her 16-minute documentary film “Cardboard Credit Card.”

Hazen says in the film that she loves studying groups of people, especially people who are different from herself , like a group of panhandlers that enjoy “kicking it” behind a Carl’s Jr. near the freeway in Temecula.

“I was interested in learning more about their world once I started seeing more and more people holding up ‘HELP. NEED MONEY” signs near the freeway exits and entrances within the city and nearby cities,” Hazen said. “Throughout the film, I used a variety of research tools, such as interviewing the participants and filming their day-to-day activities, including the process of panhandling.”

The film opens with a group of heavily tattooed skateboarders and other homeless people being rousted by police from a patch of bushes near the freeway.

In describing how they ended up on the streets, one young man describes his years of drug addiction in foster care. Two others (including a stringy haired man who describes himself as a military veteran) appear to be mentally disabled. And an enterprising street-dweller named “Glitch” explains how he uses the city’s resources, like a local food pantry, to feed himself and take regular showers.

Then, “Glitch” — a bearded man in a gray T-shirt that reads “When life gives you lemons you paint that sh*** gold — teachers Hazen how to panhandle.

He helps her find a scrap of cardboard to create her own sign, on which she writes “Homeless,” then he instructs her to add the words “God Bless,” because it can be used to generate more donations or prayers. As she stands in a parking lot with her sign, several cars stop to give her cash and food.

Hazen says that the film experience taught her that she can relate to the homeless because even though their circumstances are different, they’re striving for the same thing that everyone wants: happiness.