The Los Angeles Times Presents:

"Youth + Arts + Activism"

"Youth + Arts + Activism" (RT: 92 min.)
With popular media outlets targeting the spending dollars of today?s youth in movies, television and advertising, what happens when the intended audience takes a turn behind the camera? Rather than being passive receptors of spoon-fed popular culture, these youth artists and activists arm themselves with a camera and a vision to realize a better world and a more hopeful future.

PART 1:

WALKING TARGETS
(United States, 2001) Director: Norma Barajas
Teenagers brave the law and speak out about racial profiling.
Video, 2 minutes

HOMOPHOBIA
(United States, 2002) Director: Joey Vazquez, Salih Watt, Loren Hicks, and Shawn Hampton
This piece from Philadelphia?s Youth Health Empowerment weaves together hip hop beats and spoken word to express the alienation experienced by gay youth in a homophobic society.
Video, 5 minutes

HEAR MY CRY
(United States, 2002) Director: Fred Allen, Jr.
The artist offers this hopeful blueprint for solving issues of homelessness, class overcrowding and environmental pollution in his New Jersey neighborhood.
Video, 3 minutes

MÁS ALLÁ DEL FÚTBOL/ MORE THAN SOCCER
(United States, 2002) Director: Johnny Hernandez, Ernesto Fuentes, Jr., Moises Madero, Edson Barillas
The game of soccer holds an importance to Latino families that goes far beyond the field in this documentary on the building and preservation of community through sport.
Video, 4 minutes

UNTITLED
(United States, 2001) Director: B.J. Garcia
Developed out of a Filipino-American community workshop against domestic violence, the artist uses an artful blend of spoken word and still photography to give a testimonial piece on the pain of violence in one Filipino family.
Video, 3 minutes

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
(United States) Director: Inter Tribal Council of California
This PSA produced by the Inter Tribal Council of California tells of the need to break the cycle of domestic violence.
Video, 30 seconds

JUNOON
(United States, 2002) Director: Ali, Hira and Neelam Quereshi and Manjinder Kaur
Desi students of Berkeley High School recount their organizing efforts against hate crimes in a hostile post-September 11 world.
Video, 3 minutes

THINGS TO SAY
(United States, 2002) Director: Tommy Ly
Through this open letter to his social worker, this youth artist gives voice to his frustrations with a faulty foster care system.
Video, 3 minutes

OF BLACK DOTS? (JOURNEYS TO THE US)
(United States, 2001) Director: Yanira Gabriel, Viridiana Garcia, Araceli Morales, Gloria Estrella, Bencyon Hines
To understand the here and now of the United States, it is important to remember the when and where of the people who come to make their homes here. This collage of memories offers the stories of immigrants? journeys in becoming ?America.?
Video, 4 minutes

SUMOUD
(United States, 2002) Director: Rahab Hasan and Nahed Fraij
Holding a split branch of an olive tree, the artist?s grandfather tells of the Palestinian people?s long history of survival when he says, ?We are as old as these trees.? Hasan and Fraij recount the enduring strength of their community following the arson of their Chicago Arab American Cultural Center after September 11.
Video, 4 minutes

HUMAN RIGHTS: OUR SIDE OF THE STORY
(United States, 2002) Director: Dora Aronova, Helen Cho, Daniel Howard, Nicole Nelson, Jon Ramon, Ramalah Yusufzai, and Mohamed Fayaz Zian
New York City youths document the repercussions of September 11 in their lives. From a heightened police and military presence to rising anti-Muslim hate discrimination, these youth media artists discuss how these issues move them to revisit the importance of human rights.
Video, 7 minutes

P A R T I I :

AND THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN
(United States, 2002) Director: YouThink
This animated PSA from YouThink and Animaction envisions the unity that can exist across religious differences.
Video, 30 seconds

UNTITLED
(United States, 2002) Director: Walees Crittendon
Do you know from where your electricity comes? This piece by 12-year old Dineh youth artist/activist of Indigenous Action Media explains how our evening city lights come with a high price. The film serves as a testimony to her family?s forced estrangement from their own home and land by the encroaching Peabody Coal Mining Company.
Video, 4 minutes

BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD
(United States, 2001) Director: Jose Louis Partida and Ivan Cervantes
Does the bombardment of violent images in mainstream media have direct correlation to the real violence experienced by our youth?
Video, 1 minute

UNTITLED
(United States, 2000) Director: Elia Gutierrez
Using the poetry of visuals and spoken word, this piece reflects on death and despair as it moves through Los Angeles streets lit with memorial candles for the dead.
Video, 1 minute

PRICELESS
(United States, 2000) Director: Jessica Fuerst and Jamie Smith This PSA on safe sex asks, ?What is the price of protection??
Video, 1 minute

ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL?
(United States, 2002) Director: Taizet Hernandez
?Are you a boy or a girl?? This question, often posed to the artist begs one to ask yet another question: ?Is gender identity expressed solely in an ?either/or?? In this piece, the viewer follows Hernandez along and through the arbitrary fences that confine her own expression of self.
Video, 7 minutes

CIRCLE OF STRENGTH
(United States, 2002) Director: Adalina Rivera and Ann Caton
Young women of color unite to organize and educate in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Within this circle, the women express their being and their strength in unity.
Video, 4 minutes

THE PROBLEM WITH OUR SCHOOLS
(United States, 2002) Director: Ana Vazquez
In a school of 5,000 students to only nine counselors, students are more likely to discuss their futures with a military recruiter than a college adviser. United Students activist, Vasquez, documents how Roosevelt High School students organized to fight for better school facilities and the right to an education that teaches the history and struggles of peoples of color in America.
Video, 3 minutes

MILITARY MYTHS
(United States, 2001) Director: Revolution Out Of Truth and Struggle (ROOTS) & Paper Tiger Television
Uncle Sam wants youTH. This documentary produced out of collaboration between

ROOTS and Paper Tiger TV critically contrasts the offerings of military life promised by recruiters with the realities faced by veterans, young and old, of the armed forces.
Video, 28 minutes

CHICAGO, CAN YOU SPARE ME?
(United States, 2002) Director: Ada Luz Rivera
This poetic piece from Chicago youth artist, Rivera, is an eloquent call to action through knowledge of self. Describing her vision of revolution, she declares, ?We must imagine interdependent communities epitomized in 360 degrees.?
Video, 4 minutes