Current Projects
F-R-E-E
David Collier and Suzanne LaFetra
David Collier and Suzanne LaFetra
F-R-E-E follows five teenagers from Oakland, California through a year in the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company. The dancers embark on a creative journey together, creating original theatre based on their lives. By sharing their stories, the youth find hope amidst the violence, abuse and poverty that has defined them. And with that healing comes liberation. Follow them through a year of becoming F-R-E-E.
A Fierce Green Fire
Mark Kitchell
Mark Kitchell
A Fierce Green Fire tells stories of environmental activism – people trying to save the planet, their homes, the future. It chronicles grassroots and global movements building over five decades; connects all the causes; explores how we got here and where we’re going. Ours is the time when humanity ran up against nature. The challenge before us is bringing our civilization into sustainable balance with Gaia the living planet.
50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus
Steven Pressman
Steven Pressman
In 1939, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Jewish couple from Philadelphia, traveled to Berlin and Vienna in order to rescue 50 Jewish children from Nazi-controlled Austria. 50 Children is a documentary film that tells the dramatic story of how they succeeded despite an indifferent U.S. government and the looming Holocaust in Europe. The film premiered on HBO in April 2013, and the filmmaker is now raising funds for an educational curriculum and outreach program that will bring this important story to educators and students throughout the United States.
Fiji Time
Alexandra Lacey
Alexandra Lacey
After Leaving Fiji 64 years ago as a war bride, the filmmaker’s 82-year old mother returns to her island birthplace. Aided by the traditions of oral history, Fiji Time documents the women’s struggle to come to terms with memory, secret family histories and the legacy of colonialism. In the process of traveling the island together, the two find greater understanding of their shared history and each other.
Finding a Safe Place
Ingrid Schulz
Ingrid Schulz
Of different genders and generations, but all veterans suffering from PTSD, Tina, Dennis, and Aaron share the difficulty transitioning back to civilian life. Despite the initial interventions of talk therapy and medicine, they struggle. This 60-minute documentary will follow the impact of a different intervention – specially trained service dogs, and the support they provide for these veterans facing everyday struggles, now with more hope and success.
Finding Mabel
Eileen Mabel Reardon
Eileen Mabel Reardon
"The Dirty War" in Argentina claimed 30,000 "disappeared" victims who were systematically kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated by their own government. 34 years later, the namesake of one of the 30,000 journeys to Argentina to put the pieces together. What will she find along the way - will she find Mabel?
Five Blocks
Dan Goldes, Robert Cortlandt
Dan Goldes, Robert Cortlandt
Five Blocks chronicles the journey of a community working to revitalize central Market Street in San Francisco, a blighted no-man’s land. Centered in the Luggage Store Gallery, an art gallery and performance space, the film weaves together the stories of artists, politicians, low-income residents, business owners and landlords. Can past political and ideological differences be put aside? Can the neighborhood be revitalized in a way that doesn’t displace the people who are living and working there now?
Focus on Me
Focus on Me is a collaboration between Robin, a charismatic developmentally disabled woman and her sister, Jennifer as she struggles to understand Robin and what is necessary to keep her safe and happy. Faced with the overwhelming responsibility of handling Robin¹s medical, occupational, residential, social and financial needs, she delves into the history of her sister¹s life and the machinations of her current support system.
Food Forward
Stett Holbrook, Greg Roden
Stett Holbrook, Greg Roden
Food Forward goes beyond celebrity chefs, cooking competitions, and recipes to reveal the compelling stories and inspired solutions envisioned by food heroes across America who are striving to create a more just, sustainable and delicious alternative to what we eat and how we produce it. Produced for public television, Food Forward is a series of thirteen, 30-minute episodes that each focus on a different theme--school lunch reform, urban agriculture, commercial fishing, grass-fed beef, soil science--and spotlight the real people who are creating viable alternatives to how we grow food and feed ourselves in the United States.
Forty Winters
Valarie Jernigan
Valarie Jernigan
In 1969 American Indians occupied Alcatraz Island, beginning the American Indian activist movement. Forty years later, one of the original activists seeks to reignite the movement by putting the political symbol of the occupation, the tipi, back on the island. He looks to his children for support. Now adults, and engaged in their own struggle for survival, his children question the real benefits of the movement and its costs to their family. Forty Winters is a story about the idealism and the aftermath of the American Indian movement as told through one family’s struggle for cultural identity and survival.
From Roses to Rivets
Michel Fraser
Michel Fraser
From Roses to Rivets is a documentary comprised of a one-hour program intended for broadcast television and two extra hours of video for educational purposes. While the material will reflect issues facing working women across the country, California will take center stage as the state has throughout the years led the nation in championing progressive labor standards that were then embraced universally—including breaking down racial and gender barriers. The film traces the history of unionizing women from the Gold Rush to the present and recounts the battles in their quest to win dignity and equality in the workplace.
From the Ground Up
Kristi S. Adams
Kristi S. Adams
From the Ground Up is a feature length documentary that delves into the lives of gardeners in three cities, weaving their stories together to showcase their individual struggles and common goals. The film allows these unique stories to be united through the narrative representation of a garden’s life cycle, paying close attention to the lives of remarkable people who have succeeded at turning the old Victory Garden movement into a new and surprisingly successful reality.