Month of February, 2009

I recently received an e-mail from a student at UCLA, Margarita Reyes, who embarked on her own production after watching Made in L.A. It was so moving, and her film is so needed, that I asked her to write a few words to share it with you all:

I am a single mother and had recently started as an undergrad at UCLA. I was touched by the stories of the women and mothers in your film. I was sitting in the audience of a screening with a friend of mine. My friend is an undocumented student at UCLA. We both grew up in the U.S.; the only difference is that I am born here and she is not. I know how difficult it is for her to attend school
financially and emotionally. I was so moved by "Made in LA", that once the film credits rolled, I turned to my friend and said, "I'm going to make a documentary about you."

I have a background in film as an actor for the past 10 years so I knew that I could pool my resources to produce our own project. I met our director, Andrea Ortega, soon after and we began production in April 2008. I talked about the inspiration of Made in LA at our trailer screening last night. We screened it to 4 different student organizations at UCLA last night and met with great praise and support for our students.

I can't thank you enough for making "Made in LA" because it inspired me to make our own "An Unfinished Dream" documentary for our undocumented students, coming Spring 2009!