Allow us to introduce you to 4 Teens and 4 Stories -- all in our own backyard.
Did you know that about
25% of Philadelphians
live below the poverty
line? And that the first
district in Philadelphia is considered the second hungriest district in the United States? Are you aware that private builders are purchasing project land to build condominiums that will displace local residents? These statistics represent Ferasha Films' own backyard. Philadelphia is a city where 500,000 people are literacy challenged, and 200,000 people are without a high school diploma, according to Mayor Michael Nutter
We believe that there are many stories of poverty here in our own city of Philadelphia. We will be filming in an area that the locals call "Penn Town." We have invited four teenagers to document their lives and their view of Philadelphia poverty through video journals using Flip Cameras. We will work with these four fledgling 'cinematographers' to produce authentic and honest accounts of their lives. In order to do that, we will hold film classes and help them learn how to use their cameras, capture footage and tell their story. Every month until June 2012 we plan to give them one topic to document. Their first assignment will be to introduce themselves and give us a tour of their everyday life. We will then follow up on each of their video journals with a professional quality interview.
Our goal is to serve the children of the Penn Town Projects and give them an opportunity to tell their story. We would like their voices to be heard.
A story from Kolkata, India where women living in poverty have reconstructed their lives by being involved with ConneXions, a fair trade business.
ConneXions is a vocational training center with the mission to create meaningful work for extremely impoverished women. This work primarily focuses on the textile industry. ConneXions exports these textiles to various western nations and sells them under a fair trade label. The impact of this fair trade can be seen in the lives of these women. The primary work here is stitching together recycled saris, the traditional women's garment. They sew together these elaborate pieces and create various types of items such as baby slings, skirts, shoulder bags, and blankets.
The documentary premiered on October 8, 2010 in Bethlehem, PA. The premiere included a stand with the various fair trade products for sale, a large photo art gallery brought to you by DoSomething.org, and an after party with BEC Recordings artist Phillip LaRue.
THE BACKYARD PHILLY PROJECT
Did you know that about 25% of Philadelphians live below the poverty line? And that the first district in Philadelphia is considered the second hungriest district in the United States? Are you aware that private builders are purchasing project land to build condominiums that will displace local residents? These statistics represent Ferasha Films own backyard. Philadelphia is a city where 500,000 people are literacy challenged, and 200,000 people are without a high school diploma, according to Mayor Michael Nutter. We are currently filming a new documentary project this year which tackles poverty in our own backyard.
We believe there are many stories of poverty here in th city of Philadelphia. Our organization is not just about producing film, but also about creating relationships and building hope. We plan to not only film stories, but we're investing our time by volunteering at the Helping Hand Rescue Mission as tutors and mentors.
A story from Bukemero, Rwanda.
In 2001, brothers Yohani and Jean Paul founded the Umuryango Childrens Network, a boys home based in Bukemero, Rwanda. Having lived through the 1994 genocide, both brothers watched their country unfold and fall behind into poverty. Many children were left behind and the Rwandan family broke apart over the years. Today there are over 95,000 orphaned today, and the number continues to increase. Because of this, they saw the need to revive their country and restore leadership in Rwanda. Their idea was to invest in tomorrows generation by forming relationships with street children and bringing them to the home so they could have food, shelter, clothing, and education. This documentary tells the stories of street children who were given a second chance through Umuryango.
This month marks one year since the premiere of Ferasha Films' last documentary, Threads of Hope, and we're excited to announce new happenings and changes. Ferasha Films has become a well-rounded team of talented individuals from the greater Philadelphia area. Each person brings their own special talents and a unique touch to the work we do.
A CONVERSATION WITH PHILADELPHIA MAYOR Michael Nutter, who's up for re-election in November
In his first term in office as mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter has coped with a crippling recession the effects of which has rippled through the city and an already-troubled school system and has impacted a wide range of vital city services. Contentious talks over salaries and benefits for city employees continue and despite hikes in sales and property taxes, Philadelphia is still facing a major budget battle as wage-tax revenues decline. The public schools, which Nutter called his top concern three years ago, have endured the bitter, controversial exit of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. And his efforts at government reform have met opposition from City Council, which overrode Nutter's vetoes of the DROP bill and the paid sick-leave legislation. Among his accomplishments a 22% drop in homicides, the creation of a 311 Call Center and the establishment the citys first ever Chief Integrity Officer charged with "promoting honesty, integrity, and transparency in City contracting, disposition or use of City property, and provision of City services". All this action in City Hall plus a conservative Republican administration in Harrisburg suggest that, if he's elected to a second term, Mayor Nutter will continue to confront serious challenges. Marty sits down with Mayor Michael Nutter to talk about his first term in office and his priorities and agenda for a second term.
We need to raise $4,000+ by January 10, 2012, and we're raising it through indiegogo.com. We already started filming this project but we need your help to continue. Your donation will help invest in filming for this specific project and future projects to come. We need a few pieces of equipment to get our project rolling. The equipment that you help to invest in will also allow us to continue doing future projects like this one. As a sign or your gratitude, our team has custom designed items in appreciation of your donation.If we don't reach our goal, we will purchase what we can and seek sponsorships but we would much rather have you, our supporters, becoming a vital part of our filmmaking process.
HUNGER GRIPS Pa.'s FIRST DISTRICT
Written By Alfred Lubrano, Inquirer Staff Writer
STATES ADDING DRUG TEST AS HURDLE FOR WELFARE
Written By A. G. Sulzberger
A new report that astonished even experts on hunger shows that half of all households with children in Pennsylvania's First Congressional District can't always afford to buy enough food.
The district - which includes Kensington, parts of North and South Philadelphia, and Chester - is the second-hungriest place for families in the United States, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the leading antihunger nonprofit in the nation.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - As more Americans turn to government programs for refuge from a merciless economy, a growing number are encountering a new price of admission to the social safety net: a urine sample.
Policy makers in three dozen states this year proposed drug testing for people receiving benefits like welfare, unemployment assistance, job training, food stamps and public housing.
Such laws, which proponents say ensure that tax dollars are not being misused and critics say reinforce stereotypes about the poor, have passed in states including Arizona, Indiana and Missouri.
In Florida, people receiving cash assistance through welfare have had to pay for their own drug tests since July, and enrollment has shrunk to its lowest levels since the start of the recession.
The law, the most far-reaching in the nation, provoked a lawsuit last month from the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the requirement represents an unreasonable search and seizure.
The flood of proposals across the country, enabled by the strength of Republicans in many statehouses and driven by a desire to cut government spending, recall the politics of the 80s and 90s, when higher rates of drug abuse and references to welfare queens led to policies aimed at ensuring that public benefits were not spent to support addiction...
Our Mission
Ferasha Films is an organization that strives to document causes, serve people, and promote organizations.
Our Vision
We are from the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, PA. At Ferasha Films we take our films beyond the screen. We aim to bring awareness through documentation and creating premiere events in order to inform and challenge our followers to impact their community. Filmmaking is an expensive endeavor for an organization and we understand that organizations cannot always afford to hire a professional filmmaker. Ferasha Films provides professional-quality documentaries that the organizations we film can use for their promotional and fund-raising activities. We believe there are many stories that are worth sharing and have taken it upon ourselves to act in the investment of building relationships and connecting communities both locally and globally.
Ferasha Films has filmed in two continents so far; Africa and India. These documentaries have brought awareness and compassion to our local community. Umuryango, a documentary filmed in Rwanda, challenged people to donate both their time and money at a Rwandan orphanage. Threads of Hope, a documentary filmed in India, brought understanding to impoverished womens issues in Kolkata and challenged the viewers buying habits, encouraging them to purchase fair trade items.
Our goal is to find, film, and act upon stories such as these.
1. To create a social movement by challenging those worldwide into action through the power of media.
2. To educate a world that longs for true storytelling.
3. To raise and invest fundraising in programs that impact worldwide communities.
Ferasha Films is a volunteer staff from the greater Philadelphia area. We are a group of innovative people who are passionate about documentary story-telling. Read our bios to find out more about us.
Amanda Danziger
Amanda Danzigers passion for film and cinematography began in 2008 when she was a student at Drexel University. She volunteered at an orphanage for street children in the town of Byimana, Rwanda. As a way to show her appreciation to those who donated toward the cost of her trip, she bought a camera and set out to film a short documentary, Umuryango, about the lives of the children she worked with, many of whom were orphaned by the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. After this experience, Amanda was hooked on the idea of linking together volunteer work and film. She recognized the overwhelming power of film as a medium to confront western culture with the raw living conditions of the third world. Ferasha Films was born.
In 2009 Amanda volunteered to go to India to film her second documentary, Threads of Hope, the story of impoverished women at ConneXions, a fair trade vocational school in Kolkata, India. She received a scholarship from the McKnight Fund to finance the project.
Her compassion for the poor and her visual arts talents have brought attention and awareness to the needs of those who live in the third world.
Nienke Izurieta
After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Photography from the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Nienke Izurieta set off for Europe where she lived and worked in Paris, France. It seemed natural for Nienke to pursue an artistic practice, yet she was never able to find satisfaction in working with other mediums. But the day she developed her first roll of film, she knew that she wanted to do this for the rest of her life!
Her role as a photographer has generated many opportunities, from photographing fashion on the runway in Paris to teaching photography workshops for foster-care children. It is this broad range of subject matter that keeps her curiously engaged, and it is the personal accounts and inspiring stories of courage and perseverance that Nienke finds most fulfilling in her work. Visions and stories of hope drives her forward as she aims to satisfy the restless desire to see the world and portray it through her lens. Her goal is not to make images that advocate change, but to make images that are an advocacy of the value of truth and the essence of the human soul.
Bruce Kite
Beginning his journey of story-telling in 1997, Bruce Kite earned his stripes producing designs and photography for an international consumer electronics company. He became known for his use of light and the dream-like quality of his images. In early 2009, Bruce dove into the cinematic realm and honed his visual storytelling through live performance visual pieces and commercial imagery. He believes that photographs and moving images are keys to telling an impact-full story.
Expanding from there, Bruce started producing documentary-style pieces for his commercial clients and collaborating with Ferasha Films, with the goal to make a difference with every piece they produced. Whether the final deliverable is a commercial piece with national exposure or the visual representation of a song performed live with a band, Bruce brings a big-picture perspective to each project staying true to the story being told while expressing his unique perspective.
Lucas Clauser
Lucas Clauser was born and raised in Bethlehem, PA. At 18, he attended Edinburgh College of Art in Edinburgh, Scotland. A short while later, Lucas transferred to the University of Southern California where he graduated with a BA in Fine Arts with an emphasis in Graphic Design and Photography. Since 2004, he has worked as a freelance artist and consultant with a strong background of 3-D modeling, web site design and development, as well as a solid graphic design and photography base.
He is known to be a bit accident-prone and yet is still wildly adventurous. He currently lives at home with his cat, Mr. Bigglesworth...wait this isnt a personal ad? Darn. Lucas is always up for a challenge and really enjoys thinking outside of the box, which for him usually happens in the very early hours of the morning.
Brendan Schaller
In 2010, Brendan stumbled out of Bloomsburg University with a bachelor of arts in Mass Communications and little to no direction for his life. He sent Amanda a Facebook message asking if she needed help promoting the screening event for her documentary, "Threads of Hope." Although they had not really talked in several years, Brendan had way too much free time on his hands.
In the spring of 2011, Brendan spent four months working as an intern for To Write Love On Her Arms, a non-profit movement to end the stigma surrounding mental health issues and to provide support to those affected by addiction, depression, self-injury and suicide.
Brendan now works for Ferasha Films as the Communications Director, writing press releases, newsletters and other promotional content. He believes that everyone has a story and that everyone deserves the chance to share that story with others. In his spare time, Brendan writes and plays a lot of music, watches a lot of movies and pretends he knows a lot about photography with his old film camera.
Did you know that about 25% of Philadelphians live below the poverty line? And that the
first district in Philadelphia is considered the second hungriest district in the United States?
Are you aware that private builders are purchasing project land to build condominiums that
will displace local residents? These statistics represent Ferasha Films' own backyard.
Philadelphia is a city where 500,000 people are literacy challenged, and 200,000 people are without a high school diploma, according to Mayor Michael Nutter (a recent interview on WHYY).
We need to raise $4,000+ by January 6, 2012, and we're raising it through indiegogo.com. We already started filming this project but we need your help to continue. Your donation will help invest in filming for this specific project and future projects to come. We need a few pieces of equipment to get our project rolling. The equipment that you help to invest in will also allow us to continue doing future projects like this one. As a sign or your gratitude, our team has custom designed items in appreciation of your donation. If we don't reach our goal, we will purchase what we can and seek sponsorships but we would much rather have you, our supporters, becoming a vital part of our filmmaking process. We hope to reach our goal, and we want you to know that your donation will be well invested in a group of people who are passionate about impacting their community.
Main items that we need:
· 2 LaCie 2TB Hard Drives + 2 500GB Hard Drives
· 2 Sennheiser G3 Wireless Pack with Lav Mic
· Lighting Kit
· DSLR Baseplate
· Manfrotto Tripod Kit
· Rode VideoMic Pro
· Marantz Flash Field Recorder
Other Ways You Can Help
Every Tuesday of this school year we plan to volunteer
at Helping Hand Rescue Mission located right in
Penn Town for tutoring and mentoring. Tutoring hours
are from 3pm-5pm. Wont you consider joining us and
pledging your time? Its time to make a difference in
your backyard.
Find out more information by getting in touch with us:
We also need you to help us get the word out about The Backyard Philly Project and our IndieGoGo.com campaign! Please tweet, facebook, blog, and e-mail your friends and family.
Special Thank You to:
ConneXions India
Servants to Asia's Urban Poor
First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
The McKnight Fund
Unity Marketing (Business Sponsor)
Bath & Supply, Co. (Business Sponsor)
Do Something
Phillip LaRue
Thank you to our Kickstarter Supporters:
Juli Kuebler - Issy Tavares - Brendan Schaller - Dave and
Nacy McCormick - Joanna K Douglas - George & Dee
Porterfield - Dina Wanamaker - Juan Carlos Lagares -
Katharina and Markus Freudiger - Bill Krauss
Premiere Event Crew:
Lucas Clauser - Jenny Scott - George Porterfield - Ariel
Danziger - Brently Groshong - Ken Holler - Crystal Casteel -
Amy Sondova - Brendan Schaller - Bruce Kite - Ann Marie
Krulick - Jason DeChristopher - Sarah Merkel - Danny Ibrahim
- Chris Peters - Craig Greenfield - Linda Scott - Nicole Thomson - Betsy Mowrer - John Kennedy
Filmed in Kolkata, India by Amanda Danziger (Ibrahim)
Edited and produced by Amanda Danziger (Ibrahim)
Assistant Producer Ariel Danziger
Script by Jenny Scott, Ariel Danziger, Amanda Danziger (Ibrahim)
Color Corrected by Bruce Kite
Voice Overs by Lauren Harper
Sound Mixed by Will Dickerson
Translations by Jaya Mondal
Featured music by Aradhna , Majestico, Charlene Ava
TOHPosterRed.pdf
FERASHA FILMS presents
an AMANDA IBRAHIM Production
with UMURYANGO CHILDREN'S NETWORK
"UMURYANGO"
music by AMANDA IBRAHIM
technical director BRUCE KITE
sound mixed by BRUCE KITE edited by AMANDA IBRAHIM
filmed & created by AMANDA IBRAHIM, GIDEON SCHWARTZ
Featured Music: Shirock, Charlene Ava, Majestico, Reilly, and Elliott Powell
Currently No New Screenings.
If you are interested in hosting one of our screenings, we would love to hear from you!
THREADS OF HOPE:
PREVIOUS SHOWS:
Pre- Show: Tuesday October 5, 2010, 8PM
Vancouver, Canada
Premiere: Friday October 8, 2010 7 PM
in the Kirk Center, 2344 Center Street, Bethlehem, PA
Photo/Art Gallery + After Party with Phillip LaRue
$5 in Advance, $10 at the Door
First 30 ticket orders get a free Josh Wilson CD
Tickets go on sale August 2, 2010
BUY TICKETS HERE
In partnership with Servants to Asia's Urban Poor
www.servantsasia.org | www.philliplarue.com | www.joshwilsonmusic.com
Saturday October 30, 2010, 7PM
The Red Thread Cafe
301 Market Street, Bangor, PA
Cover Charge: $5 Adults, $3 Students
Thursday November 4, 2010, 5PM
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme
1900 West 5th Street
Oxnard, CA
Join students of California at the Boys & Girls Club as they speak out to raise awareness of those affected by war and poverty and improving the conditions of those in developing countries. Followed by a screening of "Threads of Hope" -- Open to the public!
Tuesday March 15, 2011
Penn State University
State College, PA
Free
Hosted by CSF
Thursday April 7, 2011, 7:30 PM
Penn State Berks
Reading, PA
Enjoy all the photos of our team photo shoot, taken on October 5, 2011 by our very own Nienke Izurieta. Not all of these photos have made it onto the web in other locations so enjoy the full set of team images.
IMAGES FROM THE THREADS OF HOPE PREMIERE
Threads of Hope premiered on October 8, 2010 in Bethlehem, PA. It was held at First Presbyterian church in Bethlehem, PA.
For More information about Threads of Hope
For More information about hosting an Event or Exhibition
