Upcoming Inocente Festival Screenings

PAST SCREENINGS

Arizona International Film Festival  **WINNER OF SPECIAL JURY AWARD**

Tuscon, AZ
4/22/12  2PM
at The Screening Room, 127 East Congress (downtown Tuscon)
Tickets and Info: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/240667
**Inocente’s work will be exhibited at the Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop opening on Saturday, April 21st at 6pm (218 E. 6th Street Tucson, AZ) and Inocente will be present for the Q&A following the Sunday screening**

Hot Docs International Film Festival

Toronto, Canada
4/29/2012 7:00:00 PM (at TBLB2)
4/30/2012 6:30:00 PM (at TBLB3)
5/4/2012  11:00:00 AM (at ROM)
Tickets and Info: http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/inocente

**All the filmmakers and many crew members will be present at the 4/29 screening**

Montclair International Film Festival

Montclair, NJ
5/5/2012  12:00 pm
at the Clairidge Cinema 1
Tickets and info: http://montclairfilmfest.org/2012-festival/nj-shorts-2-power-of-youth/

**Producer Albie Hecht and Executive Producer Susan MacLaury will be present for the screening and Q&A**

Awareness Fest

Los Angeles, CA
5/5/2012 at 8:30 pm
at The Macha Theatre (1107 North Kings Road West Hollywood, CA 90069)
Tickets and info: http://awareness.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/inocente_andreanixfine_awareness2012#screenings

Inocente at the Montclair Film Festival May 5th


We are pleased to announce that INOCENTE will be screening at the inaugural Montclair Film Festival in Montclair, NJ.  It will take place at multiple venues across Montclair from May 1 – 6, 2012.  There will be 45+ films and 50+ special guests in attendance.

Inocente will be playing in the NJ shorts program focused on the power of youth.  The two other films in the program are Drums of Thunder (11 min, Glenn Schuster & Jason Schuler), which documents a group of New Jersey elementary school students who perform complex percussion pieces and  First Match (15 min, Olivia Newman), a work of fiction, that portrays a 14-year-old girl competing on a boys wrestling team.

Shine Global Co-Founders and producers of Inocente, Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht, will be in attendance.

Showtime:  12:00pm Sat. May 5, 2012  • Clairidge Cinema Buy Tickets

Get more info and your tickets at http://montclairfilmfest.org/films-and-events/?section=Shorts

The Attack on Child Labor Laws


Zulema Lopez from the film THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA (photo by U Roberto Romano)

Our film THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA documents the lives of 3 of the estimated 400,000 migrant farmworker children who are torn away from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. Zulema, Perla, and Victor sacrifice their own childhoods to help their families survive, journeying from the scorching heat of Texas’ onion fields to the winter snows of Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida’s tomato fields following the harvest. Their lives are like most other child farmworkers’ lives, lives of instability and the always present danger of injury.

Agriculture is the most dangerous industry for American children to work in. Children are allowed to work for hire in agriculture at 12 years of age, and can work in small farms at any age. Thousands are injured each year and are exposed to hazardous conditions each day. Unlike other industries, agriculture is exempt from the child labor regulations that other industries must abide by. In September, the DOL proposed changes to the regulations governing child labor in agriculture. These safety rules would place restrictions on the operating of heavy machinery, the handling of pesticides, and the performance of tasks that are too dangerous for children under 16 years of age, among other measures.

In response, the Senate and the House of Representatives have just introduced the “Preserving America’s Family Farms Act”, S.2221 and H.R. 4157 respectively, which would prevent the Department of Labor from placing regulations on child labor in farms at all. Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) introduced the act in the House on March 7, 2012, and Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced the bill in the Senate on March 21, 2012. The proposed legislation defends the importance of the tradition of children working on family farms and overlooks the risks and dangers, as well as the lack of safety measures, that hired child farmworkers face every day.

Their proposed legislation overlooks the crucial facts of the majority of farmworker children’s lives, and suggests that the proposed safety rules would prevent children from getting hands-on training in farms and working for their own family farms. This is inaccurate, as the rules do not apply to children working on farms operated by their own parents (and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has expressed her intention of making this parental exemption apply to farms owned by other family members as well) or in 4H, which is not hired labor and thus not affected at all by the DOL’s proposed rules.

The Child Labor Coalition (CLC), which represents more than two dozen organizations that seek to protect child workers, are advocating for the immediate implementation of the DOL’s proposal on child labor safety rules. They have set up a petition for the Secretary of Labor and the U.S. Department of Labor to implement their rules. They understand that it is imperative for the DOL to pass provisions that will protect children when driving tractors, which is the main cause of death in agriculture, and from engaging in practices such as working with animals in dangerous situations, harvesting and curing tobacco, and working in grain storage facilities, among several others of the most dangerous farm activities.

To sign the petition and support CLC in their efforts to bring the Department of Labor to place protective measures for children working in farms, go to: http://www.change.org/petitions/u-s-dol-child-safety-rules-for-hazardous-work-on-farms-will-save-lives-we-need-them-now

Keeping Arts Education in LA schools


By Naomi Hernandez

In Shine Global’s film INOCENTE, we meet a 15-year-old girl living homeless and undocumented in San Diego.  She is able to overcome her circumstances and paint vibrant and whimsical paintings in an after-school program called ARTS. She’s lucky a program like it exists for her – but many other children who used to rely on the arts education programs being cut from their schools are now finding they have no where to turn. That’s why Abigail Berman’s organization Adopt the Arts is so important right now.

Abigail Berman, President and Executive Director of Adopt the Arts, just launched her organization this month along with the support of figures such as Matt Soros and Jane Lynch. Adopt the Arts raises money to keep arts education in public schools in Los Angeles and plans to bring artists, celebrities, and notable figures into the schools to host special events.

Berman grew up in Los Angeles and attended school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She lives in Los Angeles today, where her children now attend public school. She became actively involved with arts education when one of her kids first became a student and saw how the LAUSD budget cuts were affecting arts education. Having a vague idea about wanting to do something about it, she turned to movie producer friend Naomi Despres to brainstorm and later to rock musician and neighbor Matt Sorum. Sorum, who was involved in a nonprofit to bring music to under-privileged children, quickly jumped on board and formed with Berman Adopt the Arts.

Adopt the Arts enjoys the support of several notable figures. Actress Jane Lynch, another neighbor of Berman and Sorum, was approached to join and she now serves as a director of the organization. Other directors for the organization include musicians Lanny Gordola and Adrian Young, and the advisory committee for the organization includes such figures as Billy Bob Thornton, John Stamos, and Danny Masterson.

The organization’s fist event, hosted by Jane Lynch, was held this month, and around two hundred people attended, including LAUSD superintendent John Deasy. The event raised $100,000. The performers in the event consistently emphasized the cuts that have been made to arts education programs and stressed the value and importance of supporting these programs.

Berman remarked that the cuts that are being made are “…unacceptable, especially in a city where all of the arts are a major part of the economy.” In Southern California, one out of every eight jobs is in the creative industries, which makes the possibility of the complete elimination of elementary school arts program particularly problematic.

Due to budget cuts, schools are now required to “buy” art classes from the district, which isn’t possible for many schools.

Berman’s organization currently supports seven schools in the LAUSD, with Rosewood Avenue as its pilot school, but she expects that as the organization grows they will move to other cities. Currently, Adopt the Arts is working directly with the principal of the school and the booster club to ensure that the students get exposure to all of the arts’ disciplines. The organization will keep working to ensure that more children have the opportunity to fulfill the potential of their creativity and imagination.

For more information about Adopt the Arts, go to www.adoptthearts.com.