FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2008
Contacts:
Andrea Fazel, Program Director at Ally Action
916-201-6180
925-685-5480
andrea@allyaction.org
Maura Hurley, Public Information Officer
California Council for the Humanities
415- 391-1474, ext. 308
mhurley@calhum.org
Film to prescreen in El Cerrito on June 5 and UC Berkeley on June 18
CONCORD, Calif. —A group of East Bay teens has spent the past year working on a documentary about the challenges of growing up LGBT. Their 30-minute film, "Don't Erase My History," has been selected to premiere at the prestigious Los Angeles Film Festival on June 29. Prescreenings of the work-in-progress film will be held June 5 (5:30 p.m.) at El Cerrito High School (Room 78), and June 18 (7 p.m.) at UC Berkeley (Dwinelle Hall, Room 0145).
The film project is one of eight Youth Digital Filmmakers projects funded by the California Council for the Humanities as part of its How I See It youth campaign to engage teens in exploring the connections and disconnections in their lives. Films from projects in Los Angeles and Long Beach will also be screened at the film festival.
Nine teenagers from Ally Action, a nonprofit working to assure that schools are safe for youth regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, created the film, which features interviews with four prominent lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender leaders as well as the filmmakers’ own perspectives on being LGBT in a culture that has largely ignored LGBT history.
"What it takes for people to fit in at school is often in conflict with how they want to express themselves, and they have to walk a very fine line between the two," said Andrea Fazel, program director at Ally Action. "The youth wanted to learn from the history and experiences of those who have walked that line."
Featured in the film are Phyllis Lyon, who with her partner of 55 years, Del Martin, made history when they became the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco in 2004; Senator Sheila Kuehl from Los Angeles, the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature who has authored groundbreaking legislation supporting LGBT youth in schools; Cherrie Moraga, a Bay Area poet, playwright and professor long involved in the Chicana movement; and Jewelle Gomez, a Bay Area author and leader in philanthropy.
Martin Meeker, research historian at the UC Berkeley Regional Oral History Office at UC’s Bancroft Library served as a humanities advisor on the film. "Martin provided the youth with a rich introduction to LGBT history and helped them gain access to the GLBT Historical Society’s Archives in San Francisco to do research. He also taught them how to conduct interviews, which was very useful to them throughout the film," said Fazel.
Four of the youth will be attending the L.A. Film Festival premiere. Isabel Malonzo, one of the young filmmakers, said about the recognition, “The best thing is that I know I’ve helped create something that expresses the way I feel in a way that was never really there before. And now with the L.A. Film Festival, it’s going out to people I never imagined I could reach.”
The filmmakers plan to show the film at schools and community screenings around the Bay Area, and engage middle- and high-school students in a dialogue about what it means to be LGBT and to advance understanding and acceptance.
Ally Action received a $30,000 grant last June from the California Council for the Humanities to undertake the yearlong filmmaking project. It is one of eight Youth Digital Filmmakers project funded by the Council to enable young people to make films about what matters in their lives and communities. The Council said that more than 75 organizations applied to participate in the program. Youth Digital Filmmakers is part of the Council’s How I See It campaign designed to give California youth an opportunity to explore community and personal issues and present their thoughts, ideas and discoveries to the public.
“The idea behind Youth Digital Filmmakers is to give youth a voice in what happens in their communities and skills they can use in the future,” said Ralph Lewin, executive director of the California Council for the Humanities. “The humanities scholars give the teens a broader perspective on their film topics and help them see how issues they’re dealing with today are similar to those of other places and times.”
The Youth Digital Filmmakers project is being conducted in partnership with the Digital Storytelling Institute of ZeroDivide http://www.zerodivide.org/.
In addition to the Concord project, the following projects received Youth Digital Filmmakers grants:
BAY AREA
San Francisco: Conscious Youth Media Crew
“A Choice of Weapons”
This is a narrative film about the impact of redevelopment on a San Francisco neighborhood.
Oakland: East Bay Asian Youth Center
“I Ain’t Leaving”
The film will focus on Cambodian-American youth living in Oak Park Apartments, home to many recent immigrants in the impoverished San Antonio District of Oakland. Residents cope with gangs on one hand and the gentrification of their neighborhood on the other. Their film describes the youth’s struggles for balance and security.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Long Beach: Khmer Girls in Action
The film project, titled “My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach,” examines how young Cambodian women see their place now and in the future, as compared to the outlook of their parents' generation — many of whom who came to California as refugees of war.
Los Angeles: Covenant House California
Through interviews with young people who were recently homeless, the film, "My Spaces: Homeless Youth Explore the Geography of Disconnection," traces the challenges and traumas of Hollywood teens living on the streets.
CENTRAL AND NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Fresno: Center for Multicultural Cooperation
The film, "Common Ground, Sowing Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley," examines the connections and disconnections among cultural communities of the rural Central Valley through the stories of Hmong, Latino, and African American farmers and farmworkers.
Lodi: Lodi High School
“Finding Our Own Way: Teens in Lodi" is made up of five documentary films about such issues as racism among Lodi High teens, teenage drug abuse, video games, skateboarders and cliques on campus.
Siskiyou County: Siskiyou Arts Council
The film will explore the origins and influences of Siskiyou County's Native American culture and the challenges young people face bridging the gap between a world that is still partially rooted in the past, yet pulled toward the future.
About the California Council for the Humanities
The California Council for the Humanities has supported and created programs that bring Californians together around their history and culture for more than 30 years. Since 2001 the Council has been engaged in a statewide initiative, California Stories, designed to tell the larger story of California. The Council’s new California Stories campaign, How I See It, is helping young people to share — in their own words and through a variety of media — what their lives are like, what they care about, and what it’s like to grow up in today’s California. For more information, visit the Council’s website at www.californiastories.org or contact the Council’s administrative office at (415) 391-1474. For more information on California Stories, the How I See It campaign, the Youth Digital Filmmakers project and the California Council for the Humanities please visit www.californiastories.org.
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