Youth Digital Filmmakers
California Teens’ films explore connections and disconnections in their lives, communities
In October 2007, the Council awarded $30,000 grants to eight California organizations to enable teens to create digital films exploring the connections and disconnections in their lives and communities.
CCH Programs Manager Raeshma Razvi spearheaded the projects, and the teens worked with experienced filmmakers, community mentors and humanities scholars for the next year in making their films. The films dealt with a range of topics, from the legacy of genocide in Long Beach and a quest for gay history by LGBT teens in the San Francisco Bay Area to the challenges of growing up in rural Siskiyou County.
All the films were screened locally and three – “Hidden Hollywood,” “Don’t Erase My History” “My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach” —were screened at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival, a huge validation of the young filmmakers’ efforts. Distribution efforts are now under way to bring the films to a wider audience.
Youth Digital Filmmakers was conducted in partnership with the Digital Storytelling Institute of ZeroDivide, a nonprofit that invests in community enterprises that leverage technology to benefit people in low-income and other disadvantaged communities.
Youth Digital Filmmaker Projects
SAN FRANCISCO
"A Choice of Weapons"
Sponsor: Conscious Youth Media Crew
San Francisco youth document how redevelopment is affecting their neighborhood in an 85-minute narrative film they wrote and produced. Find out more.
SISKIYOU COUNTY
“Voices between the Mountains – Coming of age in the Siskiyous.”
Sponsor: Siskiyou Arts Council
Mt. Shasta-Happy Camp students’ film explores challenges of growing up in small rural town.
Find out more.
Read about the project.
CONCORD
“Don’t Erase My History”
Sponsor: Ally Action Inc.
Film by East Bay LGBT youth explores the absence of LGBTQ history in our schools and what that means to LGBTQ youths. Featured are s interviews with history-makers State Senator Sheila Kuehl, Phyllis Lyon, Cherrie Moraga, and Jewelle Gomez. Film screened at 2008 L.A. Film Festival.
OAKLAND
“I Ain’t Leaving”
Sponsor: East Bay Asian Youth Center
Oakland youths create documentary film on the Cambodian-American experience of growing up in East Oakland's Oak Park Apartments.
Find out more.
Read about the project.
FRESNO
“Common Ground: Sowing the Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley”
Sponsor: Center for Multicultural Cooperation
Fresno teens create a documentary film tracing the lives of three San Joaquin Valley families who came to California to work the land and create new lives.
Read about the project.
LOS ANGELES
“Hidden Hollywood, At-Risk Youth Explore the Geography of Disconnection”
Sponsor: Covenant House California
Films by formerly homes teens explore the challenges of living on the streets. Film screened at 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival.
LONG BEACH
“My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach”
Sponsor: Khmer Girls in Action
Film by first-generation Khmer American teens explores the legacy of the Khmer Rouge War. Film screened at 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival.
Find out more.
LODI
"Finding Our Own Way: Teens in Lodi"
Sponsor: Lodi High School
Lodi high schoolers’ films focus on disconnections in teen life.
Find out more.