FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2008
Contacts:
Peter Kim, Managing Director
East Bay Asian Youth Center
510-533-1092 x 33
pkim@ebayc.org
Maura Hurley, Public Information Officer
California Council for the Humanities
415- 391-1474, ext. 308
mhurley@calhum.org
OAKLAND, Calif. — For the better part of a year, a crew of six young Cambodian American filmmakers have spent their afternoons and weekends making a documentary film about growing up in the impoverished Oak Park Apartments in the San Antonio District of East Oakland, home to many recent immigrants. The 20-minute film, "I Ain't Leavin’,” describes the youth’s struggle for balance and security in a neighborhood where residents cope with gangs on one hand and neighborhood gentrification on the other.
The film will preview on Friday, June 27 at 7 p.m. at the Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Boulevard, and the public is invited to attend. The Oakland 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.
"The film is about what ‘home’ means, and why Oak Park is so important to Cambodians like me,” said 19-year-old Maria San, one of the filmmakers who also narrates the film. San said that things have changed for her and her friends over the years. “You used to see little kids and Cambodian families hanging out in the courtyard. Now, all you see is the police telling us we can’t be here.”
The young filmmakers made the film as interns with Streetside Productions, a digital arts internship program of the East Bay Asian Youth Center that trains youth in digital storytelling, documentary video production, photography and media arts. The program targets multiracial, high-risk youth from throughout Oakland and promotes storytelling from a youth perspective.
“When we began this project, the crew was all about telling the story of young people versus the police, but after a year of interviewing, researching, presenting rough cuts and editing, they realized that their story existed within a much bigger context of displacement, gentrification and cultural identity,” said CB Smith-Dahl, filmmaker and Instructor at Streetside Productions.
Elaine H. Kim, professor of Asian American Studies at UC Berkeley, was an advisor on the film. “As our humanities scholar, Elaine helped keep the story grounded in the human experience, and asked the youth important questions, like, Will it make sense to those outside of Oakland? and What do you think the parents and older generation of Oak Park are thinking? explained Peter Kim, East Bay Asian Youth Center's managing director of Streetside Productions.
The center received a $30,000 grant from the California Council for the Humanities to undertake the yearlong filmmaking project. “It’s a huge statement that CCH is making in supporting this type of storytelling — focusing on the young people and allowing them to create a voice for themselves,” Kim said. “It really helps shed light on the diversity of thought and experience of young people in California.”
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 Council said that more than 75 organizations applied to participate in the program.
“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.
In addition to the Oakland project, the following projects received Youth Digital Filmmakers grants:
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
San Francisco: Conscious Youth Media Crew
“A Choice of Weapons” is a narrative film, written, produced and directed by the young filmmakers about the impact of redevelopment on a San Francisco neighborhood.
Concord: Ally Action, Inc.
"Don't Erase My History" highlights LGBT history in California, a story largely untold in the classroom. The filmmakers explore their own perspectives on being LGBT in a culture that has largely ignored LGBT history.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Long Beach: Khmer Girls in Action
The 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, "Voices Between the Mountains, Coming of Age in the Siskiyous," explores the origins and influences of Siskiyou County's Native American culture and the challenges young people face bridging the gap between a world 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.
About Streetside Productions
A program of the East Bay Asian Youth Center, Streetside Productions has worked with more than 400 youth over the past ten years and produced over 200 digital art projects, from 90-second documentaries to 30-minute narratives that have been included in film festivals across the country and throughout the Bay Area. True to the mission of EBAYC, Streetside Productions targets high-risk youth in Oakland and its goal is to provide high-quality, hard skills training within a youth development context of soft skills training, mentoring and relationship building. Ultimately, Streetside Productions aims to provide young folks with the skills, means and opportunities to develop their voices and tell their stories. For more information, e-mail pkim@ebayc.org, or call 510-533-1092 ext 33.
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