GRANTS AWARDED IN 2013

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS

• American Reds: The Failed Revolution, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Richard Wormser
  Sponsor: Catticus Corporation
  This two-part television documentary chronicles the history, significance, and decline of the Communist Party USA. The film will include California subject matter such as the Party’s efforts to unionize San Joaquin Valley cotton workers in 1933, its role in Upton Sinclair’s run for California governor in 1934, and the San Francisco general strike of 1934.
• Artbound, $20,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Juan Devis
  Sponsor: KCET-Community Television of Southern California
  Artbound is an innovative new transmedia series documenting arts and culture in Southern and Central California. The series employs over 50 writer/bloggers throughout 11 counties to create long-form multimedia articles that are then distributed via the web, and/or are produced into short-form video documentary for television broadcast.
• Body Politics: The Sterilization Digital Archive, $15,000 (new media)
  Project Director:  Virginia Espino
  Sponsor: Visual Communications
  This interactive web-based documentary and digital archive is a collaboration between media producers, historians, and archivists at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center that maps histories of coercive sterilization practices in California, the United States, and abroad. Through video testimonies, primary documents, and humanities scholarship, website users will be immersed in an alternative history of women's reproductive rights as it relates to immigration, race, and economic status.
• Free for All: Inside the Public Library, $45,000 (film)
  Project Directors: Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor
  Sponsor: Video Veracity, Inc.
  Free For All is a feature-length documentary that investigates the history, culture, and significance of the public library in American life by chronicling a year inside the busy San Francisco Public Library. With public libraries around California and the nation facing uncertain futures, the film will challenge viewers to reflect on universal values of literacy, civic good, access to knowledge, diversity and democracy.
• The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, $50,000 (film)
  Project Director: Arthur Dong
  Sponsor: Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation
  This 82-minute film tells the story of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, Cambodian genocide survivor and Academy Award-winning actor for his role in The Killing Fields. His 1996 murder in Los Angeles brought new attention to the large Cambodian refugee community in California and raised concern over the lasting impact of the Khmer Rouge.
• Kathleen Cleaver and The Black Panther Symphonies, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Manthia Diawara
  Sponsor: National Black Programming Consortium
  In this one-hour documentary, former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver reflects on the trajectory of her past—from an international upbringing, to student activism with SNCC, to her move to California and early participation in the Black Panther Party, to four years of political exile in Algeria—and offers a new perspective on a turbulent era of racial and political activism.
• Perry v. Schwarzenegger, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Ryan White
  Sponsor: Southern Documentary Fund
  This 90-minute film is a behind-the-scenes look at two famous American litigators from opposite sides of the political spectrum who have joined forces in an historic lawsuit for federal marriage equality as California’s Proposition 8 is argued before the Supreme Court. With unparalleled access to the lawyers and plaintiffs, this documentary will offer unique insight into the American justice system and the Supreme Court.
• Roots & Webs, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Sara Dosa & Josh Penn
  Sponsor: San Francisco Film Society
  This feature-length film reflects on questions of memory, war, family, and survival as it documents an unlikely community of California-based Southeast Asian refugees and Vietnam War veterans that are drawn together for an annual mushroom hunt.
• Sonic Trace, $40,000 (radio)
  Project Director: Anayansi Diaz-Cortes
  Sponsor: KCRW
  Sonic Trace is a public radio project that explores the stories of Latin American immigrants in Los Angeles and across the border. Radio stories will be accompanied by web-based videos, photos, and maps incorporating geographic and demographic data.
• Turn it Around, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Dawn Valadez
  Sponsor: San Francisco Film Society
  This film documents the experiences of two young aspiring educators as they go through an alternative "Grow Your Own" teacher training program designed to staff underserved schools. Through associated interactive web and mobile applications, the project plans to inspire dialogue and understanding about the role of teachers in California public schools.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS

• Kashaya/Fort Ross Film Project, $10,000 (film)
  Project Director: Rick Tejada-Flores
  Sponsor: Interfaze Educational Productions
  This one-hour documentary explores the unique relationship between the Kashaya Pomo people of Northern California and the Russian Fort Ross Settlement between 1812 and 1840. The film follows a delegation of Kashaya who travel to Russia to search for artifacts and the descendants of Kashaya women and children who had been taken to Russia when the settlers left.
• Living Condition, $10,000 (new media)
  Project Directors: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
  Sponsor: Bay Area Video Coalition
  This animated, interactive, web-based documentary encourages viewers/users to reflect on questions of morality, economics, race, and justice as it examines the impact of capital punishment on families and communities. Funding is requested to support consultation with humanities advisors and establishing a community advisory board.
• Model City, $10,000 (film)
  Project Director: Lev Anderson
  Sponsor: International Documentary Association
  Model City is a feature-length film that examines the history and social and physical contours of Irvine, CA. As a study of place, community, and policy, the film reflects on questions public vs. private, economic and cultural diversity, urban planning and the built environment, and notions of utopia.
• Splitting the Second: The Brilliant, Eccentric Life of Eadweard Muybridge, $10,000 (film)
  Project Director: Jackie Krentzman
  Sponsor: Inside Out Media
  This 60-minute documentary film will explore the life, work, and legacy of one of the photographic pioneers of the 19th century, Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge’s photography changed the way in which we see the world and had a significant impact on art, technology, industry, cinema, and our basic understanding of California and the American West.
• Wherever There's a Fight: Radio Stories of Unsung Heroes, $10,000 (radio)
  Project Director: Laura Saponara
  Sponsor: Heyday
  This documentary radio series will tell the stories of individuals profiled in the book Wherever There's A Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California. Funding is requested to refine content and develop a stylistic approach that will lay the groundwork for a longer series produced for public radio.

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2012

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS

• Adios Amor - The Search for Maria Moreno, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Laurie Coyle
  Maria Moreno was an under-recognized organizer who put almost everything at risk to fight for migrant farm workers’ rights 50 years ago. This one-hour documentary interweaves the filmmaker's quest to find out what became of Maria with a journey through California's agricultural belt and historical archives. Through a little documented migrant mother's life, Adios Amor tells a story about the struggle of migrant workers, while exploring the question of whose lives are remembered by history.
• Another California: Loggers, Hippies and Immigrants in the State's Small Towns, $35,000 (radio)
  Project Director: Lisa Morehouse
  California’s small towns developed around the economies that built our state—mining, logging, oil drilling, agriculture—but as these industries change or disappear, how will these towns survive? Another California is an audio documentary and multi-media project featuring voices and stories from California’s small towns as they grapple with change. Through short feature stories airing on KQED’s "California Report," an hour-long documentary, and an interactive website, this project will explore issues that are often overshadowed by those of California's urban and political centers.
• California Indians: We're Still Here, $15,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Christiaan Klieger
  California Indians: We’re Still Here will record, contextualize, and deliver by podcast and web-based video oral histories of individuals from California’s more than 150 native tribes. Produced in conjunction with The California Museum’s recently opened gallery, “California Indians: Making a Difference,” the program will highlight the survival and contemporary achievements of the state’s native peoples and work to challenge pervasive stereotypes.
• Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, $50,000 (film)
  Project Director: Dyanna Taylor
  Dorothea Lange’s iconic photographs have come to define critical eras of American history—the Great Depression, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the unprecedented growth and change of postwar society. This 90-minute documentary will incorporate new scholarship and previously unseen archival materials to explore Lange’s life, work, and mark on history. Directed by Lange's granddaughter, Grab a Hunk of Lightning will be broadcast nationally on the PBS series American Masters in 2013.
• John Brown's Body at San Quentin Prison, $44,000 (film)
  Project Director: Joe De Francesco
  In 2002, after three years of work, a group of primarily African American inmates at San Quentin Prison staged a performance of “John Brown's Body,” an epic poem about race, slavery, freedom, and the Civil War. Ten years later, John Brown's Body at San Quentin Prison revisits the participants and reflects on questions of race, justice, and incarceration. The hour-long film will follow former inmates as they reenter society, as well as those who are still in prison.
• Line in the Sand, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Kevin McKiernan
  For members of California’s Yurok, Hoopa, and Karuk tribes, the 1973 confrontation between federal authorities and members of the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee, South Dakota was a pivotal event in the resurgence of tribal culture and pride. Now, almost 40 years later, Line in the Sand will explore the legacy of Wounded Knee and examine its role in guiding Northern California tribes’ efforts to retain and restore cultural and environmental practices.
• Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful, $30,000 (film)
  Project Director: Yuriko Romer
  Keiko Fukuda is 98 years old and the highest-ranked woman in judo’s history. Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful is a one-hour film highlighting the unique details of Fukuda’s life—her introduction to judo in 1934, life in Tokyo during World War II, participation in the 1964 Olympics, immigration to the United States, and many years of teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area—while also examining her defiance of stereotypes and culturally-defined roles for women.
• Redemption, $44,000 (film)
  Project Director: Amir Soltani
  For a number of residents in Dogtown, one of Oakland’s poorest neighborhoods, income from collecting and recycling others’ trash is a primary source of income. To other residents, however, recycling only adds to the dirt and noise in the community. Redemption is an 80-minute film that explores the complex dynamics of race, class, and systemic poverty as it tells the story of four recyclers who struggle to survive in a neighborhood already decimated by unemployment, addiction, and violence.
• Siqueiros: Walls of Passion, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Lorena Manríquez
  In the 1930s, the controversial mural “América Tropical" on Los Angeles’ Olvera Street was whitewashed over for its political content and its artist, David Alfaro Siqueiros, was deported from the country. Siqueiros: Walls of Passion is a one-hour documentary about the life and work of Siqueiros and tells how, as the whitewash faded in the 1960 and 1970s, “América Tropical" became a symbolic inspiration for the growing Chicano Movement.
• Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema at UCLA, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Zeinabu Davis
  Spirits of Rebellion documents the lives and work of a small group of critically acclaimed, but relatively unknown group of Black filmmakers and media artists known as the Los Angeles Rebellion. Formed while students at UCLA and inspired by the social, political, and cultural dynamics of 1970s Los Angeles, the group was the first sustained movement in the United States by a collective of minority filmmakers to represent, reflect upon, and enrich the day-to-day lives of people in their own communities.
• A Wild Woman Sings the Blues, $20,000 (radio)
  Project Director: Ian Ruskin
  A Wild Woman Sings the Blues is a one-hour radio documentary about singer, songwriter, activist, and impresario Barbara Dane. Closely associated with the Los Angeles and San Francisco folk and blues communities, her story reflects the integral role music has played in American social and protest movements since the 1950s.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS

• American Reds: The Failed Revolution, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Richard Wormser
  American Reds: The Failed Revolution is a 90-minute television documentary examining the history, significance, and decline of the Communist Party USA. Funding is provided to research California subject matter, such as the Party’s efforts to unionize San Joaquin Valley cotton workers in 1933, its role in Upton Sinclair’s run for governor in 1934, and the San Francisco general strike of 1934.
• Free For All: Inside the Public Library, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Dawn Logsdon
  Free For All is a feature-length documentary that will chronicle a year inside a busy urban public library, San Francisco Public Library. With public libraries around California and the nation facing drastic budget cuts and closures, the film investigates why Americans today are using their libraries more than ever before and assesses the high stakes for democracy if public libraries become extinct.
• The Haing S. Ngor Film Project, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Arthur Dong
  Long Beach is home to the largest population of Cambodians outside Cambodia. Yet stories about this immigrant group in our state's history are relatively untold. To help fill this gap, The Haing S. Ngor Film Project will examine the life and experiences of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, a Khmer Rouge prison survivor who escaped to Los Angeles and unexpectedly won an Oscar for his role in The Killing Fields.
• Marked for Life, $7,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Monika Navarro
  Marked for Life is a series of web-based documentary shorts that examines the challenges gang-affiliated youth face to change direction and become contributing members of a society that long ago gave up on them. From a young father trying to get himself removed from a gang injunction; to a single mother balancing sobriety, parenting, and her new job as a farmers’ market manager; to a parolee who is gradually removing his gang tattoos, the project will document the difficult process of leaving street life behind.
• Memories to Light: Filipino American Home Movies, $7,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Stephen Gong
  Memories to Light: Filipino American Home Movies is a participatory transmedia initiative utilizing digital and social media, public engagement, interactive communal screenings, curated programs, web streaming, and a digital archive. Funding is provided to consult with humanities advisors with specialized expertise in Filipino American history and culture to further develop the project’s social and historical context.
• Tales of California: Briggs, Bryant, Homophobia and the Coming Pandemic, $7,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Glenn McElhinney
  Tales of California will record and contextualize first-person accounts of the 1970-1982 "Golden Age" of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experiences in California. Framed by the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and the advent of the AIDS crisis, this digital humanities project will produce video vignettes weaving together oral histories with LGBT Californians who shaped the era and archival footage as it traces the evolution of the movement from protest to celebration to tragedy.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT GRANT AWARDS

• Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful, $10,000
  Project Director: Yuriko Romer
  A public engagement grant was awarded to Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful (CDP 2012) to support the creation of discussion guides, an expanded website, community screenings, judo demonstrations, and discussions at museums and Buddhist temples throughout California.
• Rebels With a Cause, $10,000
  Project Director: Nancy Kelly
  A public engagement grant was awarded to Rebels With a Cause (CDP 2008) to support a series of community screenings and panel discussions focusing on the film’s themes of history, economics, geography, and politics. The project will also create a mobile application in partnership with the Marin History Museum that highlights places of historical significance to the region’s environmental movement.
• Wonder Women!: The Untold Stories of American Superheroines, $10,000
  Project Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
  A public engagement grant was awarded to Wonder Women!: The Untold Stories of American Superheroines (CDP 2009 and 2010) to support the creation of WONDER CITY, an interactive game that encourages young female audiences to think critically about issues of gender and power. (Wonder Women!: The Untold Stories of American Superheroines will be broadcast nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens on March 2013.)

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2011 

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS 

• Agents of Change: Black Students and the Transformation of the American University, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Abby Ginzberg
  Agents of Change tells the story of African American students who in the late 1960s fought for and achieved more inclusive, relevant, and democratic education at American universities. From the strike at San Francisco State to protests at Cornell, the film examines the impact and historical legacy of this student action that led to the first university Ethnic and African American Studies programs, and raises questions about how far we have come in the intervening 40 years.
• Big Joy Project, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Stephen Silha
  The Big Joy Project is a feature-length documentary about the life, work, and legacy of California poet and filmmaker James Broughton (1913-1999). Broughton was a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and pre-Beat era counterculture and remained a creative, playful, and provocative critic of mainstream American society throughout his life. 
• Departures: Leimert Park/Little Tokyo, $20,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Juan Devis
  Departures: Leimert Park and Little Tokyo/Arts District are two new installments in KCET's online documentary series on the neighborhoods of Southern California. Leimert Park explores the heart of Los Angeles’ black arts scene and Little Tokyo/Arts District chronicles the city's historic Japanese American cultural district and neighboring arts enclave. Each episode features interactive murals, video portraits, and interviews with community members and humanities scholars about the cultural and historical significance of the neighborhood. 
• From Ghost Town to Havana, $30,000 (film)
  Project Director: Eugene Corr
  From Ghost Town to Havana tells the story of a young West Oakland baseball team, their coach, and the role baseball plays as an alternative to the gangs and violence of their Ghost Town neighborhood. Informed by a humanities-based approach to issues of race, class, and masculinity, the film documents a unique and revealing cross-cultural experience as the team travels to Cuba to play baseball.
• L.A. Rebellion Website, $20,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Jan-Christopher Horak
  The L.A. Rebellion Website will be a permanent interactive online resource on the “L.A. School of Black Filmmakers,” one of the first independent African American cinema movements that emerged in the late 1960s at UCLA Film School. Intended for use by students, scholars, and the general public, the site will contain essays, oral history interviews, and film excerpts and will work in tandem with the Archive's public screening series and touring exhibition of the same name.
• Life After Life, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Tamara Perkins
  Life After Life is an intimate portrait of two life-term inmates with violent pasts as they return home after decades of incarceration and face an indifferent community and countless challenges. In documenting the process of the former inmates’ release and reintegration, the film examines the social and cultural dynamics behind California’s soaring incarceration rate. 
• ¿Más Bebés?, $50,000 (film)
  Project Director: Renee Tajima-Peña
  ¿Más Bebés? explores the history of Mexican-origin women who were sterilized at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and 70s. The story will be told through the multiple perspectives of key participants in the events, and is contextualized by examining the history and contemporary issues of population measures in California, immigrants, and women's reproductive health.
• Operation Popcorn, $30,000 (film)
  Project Director: David Grabias Operation Popcorn tells the story of Lo Cha Thao, a Hmong-American businessman in Fresno who got caught up in an alleged plot to launch a coup in Laos. The film follows Lo as he faces Federal terrorism charges and life in prison, and in the process, provides a unique and intimate portrait of a California refugee community and its complicated relationship with the United States. Operation Popcorn received CDP R&D funding in 2009.
• Regarding Susan Sontag, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Nancy D. Kates
  Regarding Susan Sontag will be the first feature-length documentary on the late Susan Sontag (1933-2004). The film is a critical examination of Sontag’s life and work, addressing her public and often controversial roles as a writer and intellectual, as well her less well-known personal history that included a formative period in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
• Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle, $40,000 (film)
  Project Director: Phillip Rodriguez
  Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle tells of story of the life and mysterious death of Ruben Salazar, a prominent 20th-century Mexican-American journalist. Central to the film is Salazar's transformation from a mainstream, middle-of-the-road reporter to a supporter and primary chronicler of the radical Chicano movement. The film will also embark on an in-depth investigation of his mysterious death – still an unresolved chapter in American history. Ruben Salazar received CDP R&D funding in 2010.
• Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, $20,000 (film)
  Project Director: Arwen Curry
  Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin is a feature-length documentary film exploring the life, roots, and ideas of the celebrated Bay Area-born writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-). Known primarily as the grande dame of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin is also an established literary figure in the mainstream and a pioneer in feminist thought and activism. Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin received CDP R&D funding in 2009.
• Zydeco Nation, $30,000 (radio)
  Project Director: Richard Ziglar
  Zydeco Nation is a one-hour, character-driven radio documentary on the zydeco community of northern California. The project explores issues surrounding the assertion and maintenance of ethnic identity through the re-creation of the musical culture of one's original home. Zydeco artists such as Queen Ida, Ray Stevens and André Thierry will be interviewed. Zydeco Nation (previously titled Zydeco in Northern California: Ethnic Identity in a Migrant Community) received CDP R&D funding in 2010.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS 

• Borderlands, $5,000 (film)
  Project Director: Carl Byker
  Borderlands will be a two-hour television documentary that takes viewers on a road-trip along the US-Mexico border. Hosted by writer and journalist Rubén Martínez, the film will explore the borderlands’ culture and history, reflecting on subjects ranging from the region’s pre-European society and culture to contemporary conflicts over immigration.
• Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington and the Indigenous Language Revitalization Movement, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Daniel Golding
  Native American filmmaker Daniel Golding will produce a one-hour documentary examining the legacy of anthropologist John Harrington, who in the early 20th century recorded and preserved endangered California Indian languages. The film will also explore contemporary issues surrounding language survival among California's Indian tribes today.
• Chinese Whispers: Mapping the Traces, $7,000 (new media)
  Project Director: Rene Yung
  Chinese Whispers: Mapping the Traces is an interactive, online mapping project that links historical information with contemporary folk memories of the Chinese in Sierra Nevada settlements who worked the mines and helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. Using locative media to bring together humanities research and vernacular content, the project will reframe the contributions of the early Chinese immigrants to the building of the West and connect local histories to the national narrative. 
• Hunting Stories, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Singeli Agnew
  Hunting Stories is a character-driven documentary film about one of the oldest activities known to humans — hunting. The film will follow hunters in California and other regions of the United States as it seeks to answer the question, why do Americans hunt? By taking an observational and non-judgmental tone, the film will encourage viewers to reflect on questions of class, culture, politics, ethics, and our own relationship to the wild.
• MAD! Howard Jarvis and the Birth of the Tax Revolt, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Jason Cohn
  MAD! Howard Jarvis and the Birth of the Tax Revolt chronicles the story of Howard Jarvis and the California campaign for Prop 13. While focusing primarily on the dramatic details of Jarvis and the campaign, the film will also encourage a deeper understanding of the initiative process and the roots of contemporary tax revolts.
• Untitled Zaytuna Project, $7,000 (film)
  Project Director: Maryam Kashani
  This as yet untitled project will document over the course of a year the experiences of students and faculty at Berkeley’s Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college in North America. The film will document how amidst fears of homegrown terrorism and a changing America, Zaytuna students and teachers are negotiating Islam's past and its possible futures as they define what it is to be and become American Muslims. 

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT GRANT AWARDS

• Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial, $10,000
  Project Director: Robert Martin
  Claiming the Title is a half-hour documentary film that tells the story of the US Supreme Court battle over a California athletic group’s right to hold a “Gay Olympics.” With the recent enactment of the California FAIR Education Act (SB 48) that mandates that public schools integrate “the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans,” the project will develop standards-aligned curricula and an educational DVD version intended for use in 11th and 12th grade history and government classes. The materials will be targeted to roughly 1,800 high schools and address issues of equal rights, civics, and the workings of the Supreme Court.
• Seeking Asian Female, $10,000
  Project Director: Debbie Lum
  Seeking Asian Female explores the dynamics of cross-cultural relationships through a very personal tale about love, migration, and “yellow fever.” The proposed engagement activities represent the preliminary stage of a more extensive campaign that aims to launch a national dialogue about race and gender, dismantle stereotypes, and strengthen and build communities invested in pluralism and multicultural understanding. Primary activities include the development of web-based resources such as online contributions from Asian American and women’s studies scholars, webisodes that provide additional context, and a series of focused test screenings and discussions that will help determine how to frame future activities for the most impact.
• Squeezebox Stories, $10,000
  Project Director: Julie Caine
  Squeezebox Stories is a sound-rich, narrative-driven radio documentary that explores the social history and musical variation of the “ambassador of multiculturalism”: the accordion. With a primary goal to engage audiences beyond public radio listeners in a reflexive and collaborative learning process, public engagement activities include the development of an interactive companion website containing user-generated and repurposed audio content, educational curriculum and participatory workshops, and targeted distribution. Engagement partners include 826 Valencia, UC Berkeley, the California Association for Music Education, the Arhoolie Foundation, and the National Accordion Association.

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2010

The 2010 California Documentary Project production and research and development projects were made possible with support from Cal Humanities (then known as the California Council for the Humanities) in partnership with the Skirball Foundation.

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS 

• Everyday Sunshine, $40,000 (film)
  Producers: Lev Anderson and Christopher Metzler
  Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, Everyday Sunshine follows the Black punk/funk band Fishbone from their roots in South Central LA to almost "making it," and, in the process, debunks myths about young Black men from urban America. The film explores the cultural forces that gave rise to the band’s hybridized musical style.
• A Fierce Green Fire, $30,000 (film)
  Producer: Mark Kitchell
  A Fierce Green Fire is a feature-length documentary that provides an historical overview of environmentalism in the US. The film synthesizes the major issues, events, and eras of the environmental movement, including conservation’s defining battle over Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite and the founding of the Sierra Club.
• Forty Winters, $50,000 (film)
  Director: Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan
  Forty years after American Indians occupied Alcatraz Island, one of the original activists seeks to re-ignite the American Indian movement by putting the political symbol of the occupation—the tipi—back on the island. Forty Winters is a story about the idealism and the aftermath of the movement as understood through one family’s struggle for cultural identity and survival.
• The History of the Universe as Told by Wonder Woman, $40,000 (film)
  Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan; Producer: Kelcey Edwards
  The History of the Universe as Told by Wonder Woman documents the 67-year career of Wonder Woman and her transformation from comic book character to feminist icon. The film examines the mainstream media industry that creates and perpetuates images of women and also takes a critical look at our evolving values about women as agents of strength, authority, and leadership. 
• Mobile Hi Fi, $10,000 (new media)
  Directors: Mike Blockstein and Reanne Estrada
  Mobile Hi Fi engages four generations of Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown (Hi Fi) community in an exploration of the neighborhood’s history and contemporary character. Digital media elements include locative media GPS guides and web-based, participatory, community-generated story content.
• Seeking Asian Female, $30,000 (film)
  Director: Debbie Lum; Producer: Cianna Stewart
  Seeking Asian Female explores the dynamic of Asian female-White male outmarriage, cross-cultural relationships, and cultural stereotyping in the US. This self-reflexive tale, told through the filmmaker’s eyes, follows a complicated relationship between a Bay Area man and his young bride from China.
• The Waiting Room, $20,000 (new media)
  Producer: Peter Nicks
  The Waiting Room is a multi-faceted social media/documentary hybrid that tells the story of Oakland’s Highland Hospital and the community that it serves. Incorporating web-based interactivity and a participatory story booth placed in the hospital’s waiting room, the project is a timely exploration into issues of access to quality health care.
• WE WERE HERE: Voices from the AIDS Years in San Francisco, $40,000 (film)
  Director: David Weissman
  WE WERE HERE: Voices from the AIDS Years in San Francisco is the first film to take a deep and reflective look back at the impact of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. Based on interviews with people who were there at the outset, the film explores the first reaction to the crisis, the response by activists, and how the epidemic played a role in shaping the sociopolitical landscape of San Francisco.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS 

• Adios Amor-The Search for Maria Moreno, $7,000 (film)
  Producer: Laurie Coyle
  The discovery of forgotten photographs prompts a search for an unsung heroine—a tenacious woman who sacrificed everything but her twelve kids to organize California’s migrant farm workers 50 years ago. The film will trace Maria Moreno’s story through materials found outside the bounds of the sanctioned historical record and, in the process, raise questions about the inclusiveness of "official" histories.
• Asian American Art Film, $7,000 (film)
  Director: Steven Okazaki; Producer: Stephen Ujlaki
  Asian American Art Film will be a four-part series created for public television that documents the history and significance of Asian American artists. Based on a recent exhibit at the De Young Museum, the film will include interviews with surviving artists, descendants, contemporary APA artists, art historians, curators, and collectors.
• The Bakersfield Sound, $7,000 (film)
  Producer: Andrew Chambers
  This documentary film about the nationally influential Bakersfield, CA country music scene from 1951 to 1976 will explore the lasting influence of the musicians and their music, as well as the broader social context of the Depressionera migration into the San Joaquin Valley that produced this distinct cultural moment.
• Big Jay, $7,000 (film)
  Producer: Adam Hyman
  Big Jay will tell the story of 82-year-old Cecil “Big Jay” McNeely, legendary LA R&B saxophone “honker.” The film will place McNeely’s career in the context of post-war Los Angeles, tracing the social, cultural, and economic changes within the city’s African American community.
• Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle, $5,000 (film)
  Producer: Phillip Rodriguez
  In 1970, prominent Mexican American journalist Ruben Salazar was killed by an LA County Sheriff while covering a protest for the LA Times. This film will seek to uncover the mystery of Salazar’s death while telling the story of his eventful life. Salazar embodied many of the enormous shifts that occurred during the 20th century—in politics, journalism, and Mexican American identity.
• Siqueiros: Walls of Passion, $7,000 (film)
  Producer: Lorena Manríquez
  Siqueiros: Walls of Passion is a documentary film about Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the interplay of art, society, and politics that led to the restoration of his controversial mural, América Tropical, in Los Angeles. Destroyed soon after its unveiling in 1932, the restored mural has symbolic, cultural, and historical importance.
• Zydeco in Northern California: Ethnic Identity in a Migrant Community, $5,000 (radio)
  Producer: Richard Ziglar
  A character-driven radio documentary on the zydeco community of Northern California, this project explores issues surrounding the assertion and maintenance of ethnic identity through the re-creation of homeland musical culture. Interviewees will include zydeco artists such as Queen Ida, Ray Stevens, Andrew Carriere, and Betty LeBlanc.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT GRANT AWARDS 

• Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone, $10,000 (outreach project) Film by: Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson
  Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, this documentary film follows the Black punk/funk band Fishbone from its roots in South Central LA and explores the influences behind the band’s hybridized musical style. The directors are reaching out to new audiences via screening, musical performance, and discussion events featuring humanities scholars, guest speakers, musicians, and authors in partnership with the Black Rock Coalition, cultural centers, and universities. Discussions will explore topics such as racial stereotyping and African American cultural history. A forum for continued conversation and social networking, along with new video and educational content, will be added to the film’s website. 
• GOING ON 13, $10,000 (California Library Tour)
  Film by: Dawn Valadez and Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
  GOING ON 13 explores the lives of four pre-teen girls from California cities as they become young women. The filmmakers are providing screening packages and skilled discussion facilitators to libraries across California and will work with library staff to reach new intergenerational audiences. In partnership with community leaders and local youth organizations such as Girls Inc., Boys and Girls Clubs, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the filmmakers will lead discussions about the film on topics such as girls’ health and development, self image, gender stereotypes, social and family life, empowerment, and cultural identity.
• When Medicine Got it Wrong, $10,000 (Statewide Screenings at NAMI Chapters)
  Film by: Katie Cadigan
  When Medicine Got it Wrong is a documentary about California parents whose grassroots activism initiated a nationwide movement that challenged how psychiatry diagnoses, views, and treats schizophrenia. In partnership with filmmaker Cadigan, the National Alliance on Mental Illness of California (NAMI-CA) and the California State Department of Mental Health are featuring the film in its May 2011 Mental Health Awareness Month campaign, with screenings across all 58 California counties. Speakers with firsthand knowledge of schizophrenia, mental health care, and the criminal justice system will lead post-screening discussions. Film excerpts will be incorporated into statewide educational curricula on mental illness for law enforcement and families of those who are ill. 

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2009 

These projects were made possible with support from Cal Humanities (then known as the California Council for the Humanities) in partnership with the Skirball Foundation.

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS 

• Cruz Reynoso: A Man for All Seasons
  Producer: Abby Ginzberg
  Cruz Reynoso: A Man for All Seasons is a multilayered portrait of former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, the son of farm workers who has devoted his life to ending discrimination, fighting for immigrant rights and promoting equal opportunity. The film documents Reynoso’s early life in rural Southern California, his leadership of California Rural Legal Assistance and his election to the California Supreme Court. Reynoso's story reveals aspects of 20th-century California history as seen through the lens of a unique individual who was at the crossroads of change and controversy for more than seven decades. 
• Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race
  Producers: Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor
  Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race (previously entitled Tom Bradley's Impossible Dream) is a feature-length documentary about the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city elected without a black majority electorate. Elected in 1973, Bradley served as Los Angeles mayor for 20 years and oversaw the complex dynamics of race, politics and economics as L.A. transformed itself into one of the most diverse and important cities in the world.
• Squeezebox Stories
  Producer: Julie Caine; Co-Producer: Marié Abe
  Squeezebox Stories is a radio documentary exploring the cultural, social and musical history of the people’s instrument: the accordion. Listeners will be taken on a musical road trip up and down the state of California to hear from a diverse group of individuals who use the accordion in a wide variety of traditional and popular musical styles — German polka, Mexican norteño, Zydeco, Cajun, Irish folk music, Balkan dance music— as well as in modern hybridized and eclectic accordion-based musical traditions.
• Strand: A Natural History of Cinema
  Director: Christian Bruno; Producer: Natalija Vekic
  What does it mean to go to the movies and how has the movie-going experience changed over the years? The feature-length film “A Natural History Of Cinema” examines these questions by focusing on the rise and decline of San Francisco’s postwar movie theater culture in the 1960s and ’70s against the backdrop of the changing face of public space in postwar urban America. Viewers will hear from scholars, essayists and many important figures in the Bay Area film community about the social dimensions of movie going, the factors that led to the closure of independently owned single–screen movie theaters, and how the demise of public space affects individuals and communities. 
• The Delano Manongs: The Forgotten Heroes of the UFW
  Producer: Marissa Aroy
  The Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the UFW documents a small group of Filipino farm labor leaders in Delano, Calif., who instigated the great Delano grape strike in 1965 and helped create the United Farm Workers Union. The grape strike catapulted César Chávez into the national spotlight, but the Filipino leaders received little recognition for their efforts. Using animation, archival footage, and interviews with key leaders, participants and historians, the film tells the gripping story of this forgotten part of labor history. Producer Marissa Aroy, a second-generation Filipino American who grew up in the Delano area, narrates.

NEW MEDIA GRANT AWARDS 

• Cambodian Community History Archive Website
  Producer: Susan Needham
  The Cambodian Community History Archive Website will create a permanent, bilingual, interactive multimedia digital archive of the Cambodian Community in Long Beach. Photographs, historical documents, audio recordings and video clips will tell the story of the community — how it came to be the largest Cambodian community outside Southeast Asia; how Long Beach Cambodians have re-created Cambodian cultural practices in California; and how Cambodians have contributed to the economy, politics and redevelopment of Long Beach. This project is a collaborative effort of California State University, Dominguez Hills; CSU Long Beach; and the Historical Society of Long Beach.
• CaliforniaNIOT.org
  Executive Producer: Patrice O'Neill
  California Not In Our Town (CaliforniaNiot.org) is a unique social networking site where Californians can learn about hate crimes in their communities and engage with others to take action against them. The site is an outgrowth of the national Not In Our Town movement that encourages community response to hate crimes. The site will feature streaming video, interactive maps, user-created blogs, an advice center, networking capabilities, and much more, all with the aim of giving people they tools they need to fight intolerance.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS 

• Operation Popcorn 
  Producer: David Grabias
  Operation Popcorn tells the remarkable story of a young Hmong American businessman in Fresno who got caught up in a Rambo-like plot to launch a coup in Laos to stop human rights violations — and who now faces federal terrorism charges and life in prison. As his trial unfolds, we discover how the Hmong community is redefining its identity and coming to terms with the realities of life in modern-day California.
• Redevelopment Blues: The Legacy of West Oakland 
  Producer: Erin FitzGerald
  Redevelopment Blues: The Legacy of West Oakland tells the story of West Oakland's 7th Street neighborhood, once a vibrant center of music, culture and activism, but now known for its culture of violence. The film celebrates the area’s history and examines its decline at the hands of top-down redevelopment forces that physically divided and displaced the community. Along the way, it posits the idea that actions of the past without regard for culture, community and family had a hand in creating the West Oakland of today. 
• My Life Before Me
  Producer: Banker White
  My Life Before Me is a documentary about the life of Afro-Cuban musician and Yoruba priest Carlos Lázaro Aldama Pérez. His story explores how African traditions survived slavery and how they are now thriving two centuries later in California and all over the world. 
• At 18
  Producer: Goro Toshima
  At 18 tells the story of three youths as they try to find a life for themselves after they age out of the California foster care system. The film follows the youths over a 12-month period and reveals their successes and failures during a crucial time of transition.
• Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past
  Project Director: William Deverell; Producer: Walter Dominguez
  Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past will be a four-part, four-hour documentary series about the intertwined Mexican and Anglo American ethnic history of Los Angeles. The series is based upon the book of the same title by Professor William Deverell, a historian and director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.
• Green Shall Overcome
  Producer: Megan Gelstein
  Green Shall Overcome will examine the viability of the national movement for green-collar jobs as both a pathway out of poverty for young adults and a key weapon in the battle against climate change. The film focuses on Van Jones, an Oakland, Calif.-based African-American civil rights lawyer who helped make Oakland the first city in the nation to create a green job corps program.
• Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
  Producer: Arwen Curry
  Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin is an hour-long documentary film exploring the life, roots and ideas of the celebrated feminist science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin, Bay Area-born and raised, now 79, exploded onto the literary scene of the late 1960s, elevating science fiction to new levels of political sophistication and artistry. Although she has repeatedly won the highest awards in her genre, her story has never before been told on film.
• A Hammer in Her Hand
  Project Director: Maria Brooks
  A Hammer in Her Hand is a 60-minute television documentary about the complex history of women in California's construction trades. The film tells the stories of pioneer and current tradeswomen while examining such issues as race, gender, class and politics that continue to shape tradeswomen’s experiences.
• The History of the Universe As Told by Wonder Woman
  Producer: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
  The History Of The Universe As Told By Wonder Woman looks at the 67-year career of Wonder Woman and her transformation from comic book character to feminist icon. The film addresses the legacy and cultural influence of Wonder Woman in light of a modern California mainstream media industry that creates and perpetuates images of women.
• Now En Español
  Producer: Andrea Meller
  This 90-minute feature documentary chronicles the ups and downs of being a Latina actress in Hollywood by following five dynamic Latinas who dub into Spanish the popular television program “Desperate Housewives” while trying to break through as actors. Along the way, the film explores issues of language and identity and what it means to be Latina today. 

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2008

These projects were made possible with support from Cal Humanities (then known as the California Council for the Humanities) in partnership with the Skirball Foundation.

PRODUCTION GRANT AWARDS 

• Forget Me Not
  Open Eye Pictures, Inc.
  Producer and Director: Andy Abrahams Wilson
  The story of the AIDS Memorial in Golden Gate Park. (film)
• Inside/Out: Life in a California Prison
  Backbone Media
  Writer, Producer and Director: Noel Schwerin
  Life in a California state prison. (film)
• Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times
  International Documentary Association
  Producer and Director: Peter Jones
  The emergence of modern-day Los Angeles during the Chandler era at the Los Angeles Times. (film)
• Metropolis in the Making
  International Documentary Association
  Producer and Director: Clement Barclay
  Urban redevelopment in Los Angeles: Who decides what goes and what stays? (film)
• Moments in Time
  Rural California Broadcasting Corporation (KRCB)
  Producer and Director: Nancy Kelly
  How citizen action saved the Marin County coast. (film)
• Calexico: California Borderlands
  W.M. Corporation
  Project Director: Peter Laufer
  The true story of life in California’s borderlands. (radio)

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDS 

• Behind the Velvet Curtain: The Hidden History of the U.S. Supreme Court and Gay Rights
  Film Arts Foundation
  Project Director: Beth Pielert
  The Supreme Court and gay rights. (film)
• Filipinos: Forgotten Heroes of the UFW
  Iris Films
  Project Director and Producer: Marissa Aroy
  The forgotten role of Filipinos in the early farmworker movement. (film)
• Homegirls
  Urban Berney Foundation
  Producer and Director: Isabel Vega
  Once involved in gang life, young women get a chance at a new life. (film)
• Jack London: Twentieth-Century Man
  Film Arts Foundation
  Director: Christopher Million
  The life and work of Jack London. (film)
• Lost Treasure Hunt
  Film Arts Foundation
  Producer and Project Director: Matthew G. Davis
  Enlivening California history for young people. (film)
• ¿Mas Bebés?
  Visual Communications
  Producer and Director: Renee Tajima-Peña
  The forced sterilization of Mexican American women and the fight for justice. (film)
• Preaching Revolution
  Center for Independent Documentary
  Coproducers and Codirectors: Katie Galloway and Po Kutchins
  The emerging progressive evangelical movement. (film)

EARLIER FUNDED PROJECTS:

These projects were made possible with support from Cal Humanities (then known as the California Council for the Humanities) in partnership with the Skirball Foundation.

• California and the American Dream
  (Bay Area Video Coalition) Exploring the dynamics of culture, identity and civic engagement in California. (film/video)
• Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East Los Angeles 
  (Historical Society of Southern California) Chicano rock ‘n’ roll and its role in defining the Latino Community. (film/video)
• Going on 13
  (Film Arts Foundation) Four girls from immigrant and working-class families navigate adolescence. (film/video)
• Grassroots Rising
  (Asian-American Workers in Los Angeles / Visual Communications) Low-wage Asian immigrant workers struggle to improve their lives through community-based organizing. (film/video)
• Hollywood Chinese
  (Film Arts Foundation San Francisco) A film history of Chinese Americans in Hollywood. (film/video)
• Juvies
  (Community Transitions) Young offenders in one of the largest juvenile facilities in the United States await trial and sentencing in adult court. (film/video)
• Los Angeles Now
  (Center for the Study of Los Angeles) L.A.'s changing character and culture is explored. (film/video) 
• Manju Mamas and the Ahn-Pan Brigade
  (Visual Communications) How three Nisei Christian women in the San Fernando Valley stay connected to their Japanese heritage (film/video)
• Also Ran
  (Film Arts Foundation) Director-Producer Sara MacPherson and Producer Mark Arellano. The world of the racetrack worker at Bay Meadows racetrack. (film/video)
• Paperback Dreams
  (Catticus Corporation) Producer-Director Alex Beckstead. The rise and fall of independent bookstores. (film/video)
• Preacher’s Sons
  (International Documentary Association) Co-producers-Co-directors Celia Reed and Mark Nealey. Chronicling the life of a gay couple and their five adopted sons. (film/video)
• Prison Town, USA
  (Center for Independent Documentary) The effect of the prison boom on a rural California town. (film/video)
• Romántico
  (Film Arts Foundation San Francisco) An undocumented Mexican musician supports himself and his family in Mexico by playing "romantica" music in San Francisco restaurants. (film/video)
• Seasons of Migration
  (Khmer Arts Academy) Interpreting the changing identities of Cambodian refugees in Long Beach through Cambodian classical dance. (film/video)
• The Tailenders
  (Film Arts Foundation) A missionary organization uses low-tech media devices to evangelize Mexican agricultural workers. (film/video)
• Thinking Grande: Creating California's Mexican Wonderland
  (Media Arts Center San Diego) One man spends decades building a Mexican village in Santa Barbara County. (film/video)
• Valentino’s Ghost
  (International Documentary Association) How Hollywood portrays Arabs and Muslims 
• When Medicine Got It Wrong
  (International Documentary Association) Producer-Director Katie Cadigan. How San Mateo County parents changed how schizophrenia is perceived. (film/video)
• The Boomtown Chronicles: Reflections on a Changing California
  (KUSP-FM - Santa Cruz) How four California families on California's Central Coast are redefining the concept of home and community in an era of widespread change. (radio)
• Growing Old in East L.A.
  (Atlantic Public Media) Elderly Chicanos in East Los Angeles tell their stories in a radio documentary. (radio)
• Pastures of Plenty:
  The History of California Farmworkers
  Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation, Inc.
  A multipart radio series on the history of California’s agricultural workers. (radio) 
• Saving the Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action
  (The Sierra Fund) How community-based conservationists are working together for a better Sierra. (radio) 
• From Where I Am Standing: Photographs and Writings Documenting the Experiences of Latino Youth in Los Angeles, 1995-2005
  (College of Arts and Letters, California State University, Los Angeles) A group of Latino young adults, all participants in a photography and writing project as junior-high and high- school students, document their lives through words and photographs. (photography)
• Herstory
  (Migrant Photography Project) A photography project documenting in images and words the lives and work of Mexican migrant women in Central California. (photography)
• Iranian Jewish California
  (Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity) A look at Persian Jewish immigrants in California. (photography)
• Life Cycles: Reflections of Change and a New Hope for Future Generations
  (Regents of the University of California) Documenting the lives of migrant workers in the Coachella Valley. (photography)
• Living Under the Tree
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