For Immediate Release Contact: Robin Canfield, Curator of Good Actuality Media robin@actualitymedia.com Phone: 503-208-5042 Fax: 503-334-2844
“BUILDING UP FOUNDATIONS IN CARTAGENA” Student Filmmakers Reach Out to Colombia May 12, 2011 - Portland, OR – The first full summer of Actuality Media outreaches in Latin America is set to begin soon. A lone crew, comprised of students and filmmakers from Florida and New York, is set to arrive in Cartagena, Colombia in late May to make a short documentary film about the local foundation Granitos de Paz. Cartagena is a wondrous, tourist destination on the Caribbean shore. The student crew will be on site from May 22nd through June 19th, living and working in the heart of Cartagena, in the “old” districts. To shoot, they will travel to the Rafael Nuñez district, home to much of Cartagena's impoverished citizens and base of operations for the foundation. Granitos de Paz is an innovative, hands-on changemaker organization that has many programs to benefit its target community – ranging from healthy food programs for children and the elderly, backyard gardens for health and income, micro-lending for small businesses, craft and trade classes for adults, and more. Rather than produce a comprehensive video covering all of these great facets, the Actuality Media crew will choose one aspect, one story to focus on in their short documentary, to tell a tale of Granitos de Paz. This storytelling process will be the same for outreaches later this summer in Nicaragua and Guatemala. On each outreach Actuality Media crews will be comprised of a mix of students and filmmakers from around the United States and abroad. The crew that will be on the ground in Cartagena is specifically made up of students from Purchase College, SUNY, in New York, University of Miami, in Florida, and also a young filmmaker based in central Florida. The entire short documentary process, from research through final editing, will be completed on site. Afterwards, students will have the film to add to their reels and send to festivals, the subject organizations will be free to utilize the film for their own beneficial means, and Actuality Media will be exploring other possibilities for distribution of this and other short documentaries created this summer. Student contact information can be obtained through Actuality Media. Actuality Media is a social enterprise that takes top media students to developing countries to produce short documentaries and other media for changemakers working to solve chronic social problems. For more information visit www.actualitymedia.com. ###