Month of September, 2008

PBS has announced today the selection of films that will be part of Latino Heritage Month, from September 15 to October 15. Made in L.A. is one of them! Read here for more information.

We salute Latino/a Heritage Month and are happy to see that Made in L.A. is being used to highlight the work and spirit of Latinos in the US. Made in L.A. will be screened at numerous events (both on campus and off campus). To check cities and venues, visit our Screenings page!

Over the past year, we've been looking for a good model to empower community groups, student groups and faith-based groups to do screenings of Made in L.A. We have just launched a suite of free downloadable "Do-It-Yourself" materials that, along with a screening kit (described in the next paragraph), provide organizations with everything they need to publicize and present a successful, impactful screening. Materials include customizable bilingual flyers, mini-posters, template press releases, and a 12-page "Event Planning Toolkit" that walks through the process of setting event objectives, determining target audiences, using an event to build or strengthen coalitions, contacting media, doing effective outreach, and much more.

As grassroots filmmakers, we deeply understand the financial constraints of small organizations. We have thus created an innovative screening kit that contains all the materials needed for a great event (full-size movie posters, DVDs, postcards) and that is essentially free. Here's how it works: while organizations do have to pay to order a kit, the kit "pays for itself" because it includes enough extra DVDs to sell at the screening to cover the cost of the kit. All proceeds help us continue our outreach and education efforts, and thus the kits help support both sustainable social-issue filmmaking and sustainable grassroots organizing.

Check our brand-new Host a Screening page!

We are thrilled beyond words to report that Made in L.A., which started as such a small grassroots project, has just won an Emmy award! The film received the Emmy at the 29th Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards in the category of Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story-Long Form at a ceremony on Monday night in New York. Made in L.A. has been a six-year journey, and we couldn't be happier to have received this honor. Robert and I were both there to accept the award and it was exciting and very moving...

Acceptance speeches provide a unique opportunity to say "thank you", since this film could not have been made without the care, support and encouragement of literally hundreds of people. And so we took the moment to thank our families, our friends, our amazing crew, the organizations that believed in us (including NALIP and our fiscal sponsor Women Make Movies), and the hundreds of individuals that have supported this film throughout its journey. Special thanks must also go to our Executive Producers Simon Kilmurry, Cara Mertes and Sally Jo Fifer, and to Cynthia Lopez, Annelise Wunderlich and the amazing teams at American Documentary | P.O.V. and ITVS that took such care and devotion in bringing Made in L.A. to a national audience. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to PBS and to our funders ITVS, POV, the Sundance Documentary Fund, Latino Public Broadcasting, CPB, Pacific Pioneer Fund, Unitarian Universalist Fund for a Just Society, Diane Middleton Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Agape Foundation, and nearly 300 individual donors. Finally, we thank our outreach partners for helping us to spread the word and make an impact!

Above all, we owe the deepest, most personal thanks to the people in the film and to the three amazing women in Made in L.A., Lupe, Maria and Maura, who opened their lives to us and allowed us to capture and portray their stories in Made in L.A. As we said in front of more than 1,200 attendees on Monday night, we dedicate this award to them, because it was their fight for their rights and personal dignity that taught us the true meaning of courage and perseverance.

Robert, Peter, Sandi and me after the panel

In September 2004 Robert and I attended the IFP market in NY to raise funds for our still work-in-progress Made in L.A. Happily, four years later we're back, this time to present a case study on the funding and distribution of Made in L.A. The panel was led by distribution consultant/guru Peter Broderick, and, in addition to Made in L.A., the panel featured DIY filmmaker/outreach legend Sandi Dubowski (Jihad for Love, Trembling before G-d). Although short (how do you fit so much in one hour?) it provided an interesting snapshot of the marketing and outreach strategies that had been used for each film.

As if a whole week at the market was not enough, on Saturday afternoon, we had arranged to do a case study for Doculinkers in New York, and we spent 4 hours telling the story of how we raised funds to make Made in L.A. and how our funding model worked.

And, because Robert and I are not happy if we don't pack our schedule, we also held a beautiful screening of Made in L.A. at the North Star Fund, organized in collaboration with Arts Engine. It was a very very nice, intimate screening where we got to discuss the process of making Made in L.A. and how we're using the film to make an impact.