Celebrating the Bicentennial of Mexico (1810-2010)

2,501 Migrants: A Journey

Global migration as seen through the eyes of Oaxacan artist, Alejandro Santiago

AVAILABLE ON DVD SEPTEMBER 14

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LOS ANGELES (August 10, 2010) – The small Mexican state of Oaxaca is the largest exporter of human labor to the United States.  Understanding the devastating effects of a town left behind, filmmaker and Oaxacan native, Yolanda Cruz takes a look at the other side of immigration to see what happens to a village when virtually all of its citizens have left for a chance at a brighter economic future.  In celebration of Mexico’s bicentennial (9/16/10), 2,501 MIGRANTS: A JOURNEY will be released nationwide on DVD on September 14, 2010.

This marks Cruz’s seventh documentary all of which deal in themes of Mexico’s indigenous people.  Her other films include:  “Entre Sueños,” Sundance Film Festival selection in 2000; “Women Who Organize;” “Sueños Binacionales;” “Guenati’za;” and “MENA.” She also worked with Brave New Films where she produced and directed three episodes of the ”Freedom Files” including: “Freedom to Marry,” “Freedom to Dream: Rights of Immigrants,” and “Freedom to Learn: School to Prison Pipeline.” 2,501 MIGRANTS: A JOURNEY was an Official Selection as the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and was the Winner for Best Documentary Film at the Expresión en Corto International Film Festival.  Additionally, the film has screened at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and will be screening at the Smithsonian in New York and Washington DC during Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 – Oct. 15).

Alejandro Santiago is one of Oaxaca’s leading artists having received critical acclaim in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe.  Born in San Pedro Teococuilco, he left the small village to pursue his art career, which eventually led him to France for a brief stay.  When he returned to his birthplace, he found more than half of the population gone.  Santiago then decided to re-populate the village with 2,501 life-size sculptures, each measuring just over 4-feet tall and weighing approximately 150 pounds.  The exhibition debuted in Monterrey, Mexico and Santiago’s plans are to permanently display the sculptures on the streets of Teococuilco.

SYNOPSIS : Every day, thousands of primarily poor and young indigenous Mexicans abandon their homes in communities throughout the country. Whole villages are left empty of everyone but children and old people as these migrants leave their families and cultures and journey to the first world in search of jobs and a brighter future – or, any economic future at all.

2,501 MIGRANTS: A JOURNEY illustrates this through the story of 45-year old artist, Alejandro Santiago. Affluent and erudite, Alejandro returns home to Teococuilco — after a brief self-exile in France — to a virtual ghost town. He experiences, first hand, the reality that Oaxaca has emerged as one of Mexico’s leading exporters of human labor to the United States. Inspired by this, he decides to create a monumental installation art piece: 2,501 life-size sculptures – an homage to each migrant who left his village.

Filmmaker and native Oaxacan, Yolanda Cruz, explores the questions of art and an indigenous community in the context of global migration and how that impacts the roots and livelihood of a small village. Alejandro’s quiet demeanor and passion for art is celebrated and captured as respectfully and as beautifully as each individual sculpture. His knowledge is shared with those who have stayed behind. They’ve dedicated their lives to this installation in honor of their small Oaxacan town.

BASICS:

SRP $19.95 | USA | TRT: 57 minutes

Street Date 9/14/10

UPC 88139419827 | Catalog CLS 1098

Genre: Documentary

In Spanish with English subtitles

Special Bonus Features: Extended Interviews • Photo Gallery • Deleted Scenes

For trailer, images and downloads, visit www.2501migrants-themovie.com, or click here for high res art.

Visit www.facebook.com/2501Migrants for more information.

ABOUT CINEMA LIBRE STUDIO

Cinema Libre Studio is a haven for independent filmmakers with one-stop shopping for production and distribution.  The company, a leader in distributing social issue films and narratives by young, up-and-coming filmmakers, is a full-service studio with a full array of offerings including:  acquisitions, theatrical distribution, international & television sales, grassroots outreach, digital download and post-production services.  Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company is best known for distributing award-winning films that include: “Outfoxed,” “Uncovered: The War on Iraq,” Participant Media’s “Angels in the Dust,” the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award Winner, “Conventioneers,” and the studio’s own production, “The End of Poverty?”  The company has recently released Oliver Stone’s documentary “South of the Border.”  For more information, please visit www.cinemalibrestudio.com.

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]]> http://cinemalibrestudio.com/clsblog/2010/08/24/2501-migrants-a-journey-coming-to-dvd-on-september-14/feed/ 0 http://cinemalibrestudio.com/clsblog/2010/08/24/groundbreaking-documentary-says-afterellen-com/ http://cinemalibrestudio.com/clsblog/2010/08/24/groundbreaking-documentary-says-afterellen-com/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:00:13 +0000 Lee http://cinemalibrestudio.com/clsblog/?p=811 Charlene Strong promotes marriage equality in the documentary “For My Wife”

In 2006, Charlene Strong lost her wife of 10 years, Kate Fleming, in a flash flood accident in Seattle, Washington. At the time of Kate’s hospitalization, Charlene was denied the basic right to be by her partner’s side, and was refused dignity and respect following Kate’s passing, as the funeral director dismissed Charlene’s existence in funeral preparations.

Here she is in a clip for the US Census Bureau, telling her story and how the 2010 Census could help gays and lesbians.

Watch and Read More Here.

Originally posted on: Jun 20, 2010

DHAKA — Up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not risk-free, The Lancet medical journal reported.

Over the past decade, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded in a study that monitored nearly 12,000 people in the Araihazar district of the capital Dhaka appear to have been caused by arsenic-tainted well water.

By some estimates, between 35 and 77 million people in Bangladesh have been chronically exposed to arsenic-contaminated water as a result of a catastrophically misguided campaign in the 1970s.

Millions of tube wells were drilled in the aim of providing villagers with clean, germ-free water. Many wells were inadvertently dug into shallow layers of soil that were heavily laced with naturally occurring arsenic.

The UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO) has called Bangladesh’s arsenic crisis “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.”

Read More Here.

Water Wars is coming to DVD on August 31st, 2010.

This month we check in with the Native Program.  In May of this year, Bird Runningwater, director of Sundance Institute’s Native & Indigenous Program gathered a group of four fellows and three advisors in the beautiful lands of the Mescalero-Apache people in New Mexico.

Bird explains the lab in this way: “In Apache we refer to life’s journey as Nda’i bijuuł sia’, which speaks to “life’s living circle.”  The Native Program at Sundance Institute is also a part of a circle: one that begins with a filmmaker’s own point of origin, extends with their experiences through the Native Program, and flows onward through the creative journey of completing their film.  At some point, we hope this circle will bring finished films back to Native lands and Indigenous points of origin to inspire new generations of storytellers. “

Yolanda Cruz, one of the fellows at this year’s lab, is an indigenous Chatino from Oaxaca, Mexico, and the producer-director of seven award-winning documentaries.  Her project,La Raya, tells the story of 11-year-old Papio, who has his eyes set on emigrating to the U.S. with the help of an abandoned refrigerator.  We asked her to tell about her journey to the lab.

Read some more.

By: Olga García Echeverría

I’m not really sure if real women have to have curves (I know some flacas who are pretty chingonas), but in my opinion female filmmakers, especially indigenous female filmmakers like Yolanda Cruz, have to have a lot of nerve.

Yolanda, though, isn’t one to feel limited by past or present. Like many visionary artists, she’s about cultivating and creating, even in times of economic crisis and even within a field where far too often the voices of women of color are excluded. With seven award-winning films to her name, the last of which is a feature-length documentary, Yolanda’s proven that she’s not intimated by the industry and that she’s serious about increasing the representation of indigenous people in the media.

Read On Here.

August 11th

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.

In a 9-2 decision, the tribunal cited an article of the constitution requiring states to recognize legal contracts drawn up elsewhere.

It did not specify what degree of recognition must be granted to same-sex couples.

Read On.

By Margaret Hoover

Published August 10, 2010

As a conservative Republican representing the next generation of attitudes towards gays and lesbians, I encouraged the readers of FoxNews.com last January to take a careful look at the arguments and evidence in the Prop 8 trial, Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

The case was presented by a constitutional conservative, Ted Olson, who helped found the Federalist Society, successfully argued Bush v. Gore to the Supreme Court (among fifty-five other cases), and was George W. Bush’s Solicitor General. Working with his Democratic legal partner David Boies, Olson sought to prove that marriage equality is a constitutional question, not a partisan issue.

The trial assembled a thorough record of evidence that Prop 8 unreasonably discriminates against gays and lesbians, relegating them to second-class citizenship. Their plaintiffs, Kristen Perry and Sandy Steir, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrullo, are the face of the marriage equality movement. They wish to share in the myriad societal, economic and psychological benefits of marriage, which the Supreme Court has ruled is a fundamental right owed to all Americans. By denying them the right to marry because of their sexual orientation and gender, Olson and Boies argued that Prop 8 violates the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, and is unconstitutional.

Among the seventeen witnesses Olson and Boies called to the stand were experts in areas of psychology, political science, economics, socio medical sciences and history.

Read On Here.

The American Bar Association, the nation’s leading legal organization, today passed the following resolution:

“RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges state, territorial, and tribal governments to eliminate all of their legal barriers to civil marriage between two persons of the same sex who are otherwise eligible to marry.”

“With this action, the American Bar Association has affirmed the principles upon which this nation was founded—that every American is vested with certain inalienable rights and that all Americans are created equal,” said Chad Griffin, Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights. “The ABA’s action is significant in that it represents a broad consensus among scholars and practitioners of the law. The ABA is the nation’s leading legal organization and is the one charged with recommending judges and setting national standards for attorneys. This case is not about ideology or politics, and the ABA’s resolution underscores that. Rather, Perry v. Schwarzenegger is a case grounded in fundamental constitutional law and precedent, including equal protection under the law and due process.”

Read More Here.

By Vanessa Carmichael

August 9th, 2010

Celebration is indeed in order. The health of our society, our democracy, hinges on equality, not just for some but for all. However, the ink isn’t even dry on Judge Walker’s decision to undo the wrong passed by California voters and already we’re onto how weak Obama and Democrats are on gay marriage.

Obama may have brought this one on himself. There was really no need to rain on the gay marriage parade with a statement about not supporting gay marriage. And I suppose, there is a lot he and Democrats could do. If Obama believes in civil unions so wholeheartedly, he could have someone draft legislation or call for a vote on legislation that would give civil unions the equal rights and protections of marriage. He could also do what he does best and give a big eloquent speech on equality for all and how it is unconscionable to demand gays and lesbians pay taxes while denying them the full liberties granted in our Constitution. He could do this from any national monument or from the oval office on television, on the day of the big march for gay marriage. He could do this, except for one small thing, there is no big march for gay marriage!

Read More Here.

WATER WARS:

WHEN DROUGHT, FLOOD AND GREED COLLIDE

The Struggle ‘With’ Water and ‘For’ Water Is The Next Big Global Crisis

Available on DVD August 31, 2010

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LOS ANGELES (July 2010) – On July 28th, the United Nations General Assembly declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. This was a historic vote meant to improve quality of life for the nearly one billion people who lack clean drinking water, and the over two-and-a-half billion people who do not have basic sanitation. A recent World Bank study says that the demand for water is going to exceed supply by 40 percent within twenty years.  Water Wars: When Droughts, Flood and Greed Collide, forecasts the future by sharing the story of the nation of Bangladesh, whose water supply is under threat from every disaster known to man, available August 31^st on DVD in North America with an SRP of $ 19.95.

Today the struggle ‘with’ water and ‘for’ water has become a global crisis. As stated in the film, an estimated 35,000 people are dying every day from water related causes. In the last century much of the horn of Africa dried up before our eyes. In 1953, the sea broke through the dykes in Holland to kill 1800 people. In 1971, flooding rivers and a tidal wave killed a half million in Bangladesh. In 2004, a Tsunami claimed over 200,000 lives in Southeast Asia. In 2005, a massive hurricane destroyed the city of New Orleans.  And in 2006, the Government of India planned a massive River-Interlinking Project to siphon off up to 70% of the Brahmaputra River which provides Bangladesh with 65% of its fresh water.

Jim Burroughs, an Academy-Award ® nominated filmmaker, and his crew spent two years on this film in Bangladesh where they witnessed flood, drought and near-violent protests; in India documenting the struggle of Indian activists against the prevailing dam mentality of the Indian Government; in New Orleans after Katrina where the Dutch Crisis Team and its hi-tech pumping systems made a difference; and in Holland where they examined its state-of-the-art canal and levee system.  The filmmakers have interviewed water management experts Taiudal Khan, Hafiz Uddin and Bilqis Hoque in Bangladesh; in India, activists Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy and Water Management expert Vijay Paranjipe; in Holland, Crisis Manager Jaap Van Wissen and Professor of Crisis Management Eelko Dykstra; in the US, Congressman Earl Blumenhauer, responsible for the recent passage of a bill to provide fresh water for the world’s poor.

Narrated by Martin Sheen, Water Wars is a necessary call to action; many experts predict that water will be the cause for the next world war.  The film’s global view poses the necessary question; can the global community work together to deal with the impending calamity and perhaps avert it?

Synopsis:

The nation of Bangladesh is prey to every threat from water known to man.  WATER WARS: When Drought, Flood and Greed Collide tells the story of this land at war with not only rising seas, but devastating floods and droughts — from India’s dams dumping their excess in the wet season and siphoning off river water in the dry season. And as Bangladesh sees less and less river water during the dry season, it is forced to dig deeper for more wells, encountering arsenic poisoning that is filling hospitals and graveyards.

More information available at: http://www.waterwarsfilm.com/index.html

BASICS- WATER WARS

Price: $19.95 | Street Date: 8/31/10

Languages: English | TRT: 55 minutes | Rating: Not Rated

DVD cat # CLS 1097 | UPC # 881394109728

Bonus Features: Trailer, Earth Song Video, The “Making Of Water Wars”, Video Bio of Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh and author of the poem “Oh My River Deep”

To download high-res box art: http://www.cinemalibrestudio.com/clscatalog/2010/WaterWars_3D_HR.jpg

VIEW TRAILER

(Distributed in the U.S. by Cinema Libre Studio and in Canada by VSC )

About Cinema Libre Studio: Cinema Libre Studio is a haven for independent filmmakers with one-stop shopping for production and  distribution.  The company has been a leader in distributing social issue and political documentaries as well as independent films. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company is best known for distributing award-winning films that include: Outfoxed, The Beautiful Truth, Participant Media’s Angels in the Dust and Oliver Stone’s South of the Border. The company recently produced the critically acclaimed documentary, The End of Poverty?. For more information please visit www.cinemalibrestudio.com

Media Contact: press@cinemalibrestudio.com