Inocente is the inspiring story of a homeless and undocumented girl who refuses to give up her dream of being an artist by the Academy Award-nominated directors and producers of War/Dance and the producers of The Harvest/La Cosecha.

Hosted by:
Giselle Fernandez
Jeanine and Kevin Kay
Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht
Mike and Lisa O’Malley
Susan Ringo and Barry Sonnenfeld
Shannon Sheehan

Conversation with the filmmakers and special guests:

Tom Saenz, President and General Counsel of MALDEF
Matt D’Arrigo, Founder and Executive Director of ARTS
AND
Inocente
Featuring a special presentation of her art

 Wednesday, June 13^th 6-8pm

 Wine and hors d’oeuvres

Writers Boot Camp at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Building I
Santa Monica, CA 90404

To RSVP and purchase tickets or donate click here

 Shine Global is a non-profit film production company dedicated to shining a light on children in need.  Inocente is our fourth documentary film.

 For more information, please contact Acexandra Blaney at Shine Global atalexandra@shineglobal.org or 646-535-6703

Julia Perez is an electrical engineer and an Arizona native. “I was 5 years old when I started working in the fields with my parents. We lived in 10 different states and I was the first in my family of ten brothers and sisters to get an education and to get out of the fields,” said Pérez. Her personal experience in the fields helped her connect with the families and children she and director U Roberto Romano interviewed over the course of filming. “I was able to relate to these families on a very personal level. I was in their shoes so many years ago and yet, I find that nothing has changed. Young children are still working in the fields and getting exposed to dangerous pesticides which in the long term could have life-threatening consequences. Children simply should not be working in the fields at such a young age and that is the bottom line,” said Pérez.

For ten days each month in the following three years, Pérez traveled throughout the United States interviewing migrant families and their children, asking them questions, capturing their hard work on camera and learning about their hopes for a better future.

“I had a child tell me once, ‘I didn’t know I was allowed to have dreams,’”said Pérez. “For a child to be making statements like this in the land of opportunity was astonishing to me. Our children should be getting an education, not uprooting every season from state to state to work under such brutal conditions,” said Pérez.

Migrant labor is one of many reasons why Latinos are not faring well in education, she believes. High school drop out rates among Latinos continue to worsen and are at an all-time high while college admissions low, but in the migrant community, those numbers are worse.

“Sixty-five percent of migrant children drop out of high school compared to the average Latino student and that is a terrible thing for our community. We are losing future doctors, engineers and lawyers,” said Pérez.

“I think there needs to be a fundamental change in agriculture. We have huge agriculture corporations like Cargill who have annual revenues in the billions and it’s on the backs of many migrant children. There needs to be a federal change,” said Pérez.

The Latino Legislative Caucus is comprised of twenty-seven members: nine Senators and eighteen Assembly Members. It is one of the most influential organizations within the California State Legislature. Its members hold strategic leadership positions and focus primarily on improving the quality of life for working families in California. Currently, due to the changing demographics of California, it is apparent that the issues affecting Latinos in California are issues that affect all Californians.

In 2001, the Latino Caucus saw a need to recognize and honor distinguished Latinos for their contributions and dedication to California and the United States’ economy and cultural life with the annual Latino Spirit Awards. These recipients are outstanding individuals who have greatly contributed to the wonderful music, poetry, literature, journalism, community action, and entertainment of California, the United States, and the world.

For more info please read: http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/2012/05/08/1208200/latinos-earn-spirit-awards.html

Matt D'Arrigo, Sean Fine, Dominic, Andrea Nix Fine, Jeff Consiglio, Ryan Brooks, Yael Melamede at the International Premier of Inocente at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto

We are excited to announce Inocente has won the Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking at the Arizona International Film Festival (click here to see all awards).  It was a wonderful screening on Sunday 4/22, which Inocente and Matt D’Arrigo, the Executive Director of ARTS (A Reason to Survive), attended and did the Q&A.  The film was then screened again in the “best of the fest” series on Sunday 4/29.  The festival reports that the audience loved it and were talking about it long after the screenings.

Several members of the filmmaking team attended the International Premier of Inocente at Hot Docs on Sunday night including directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, Producer Yael Melamede, Editor Jeff Consiglio and Executive Producer Ryan Brooks. Inocente has been getting great reviews at Hot Docs with 2 more screenings to come!

The Torontoist says “It’s hard not to love the titular character in this doc about a young artist thriving in difficult circumstances” and that the film is “Both heartbreaking and uplifting, Inocente isn’t the story of a girl who is trying to make something of herself in spite of her tough circumstances. It’s the story of a girl who is already a thoroughly impressive human being and artist, whether she realizes it or not.”

Dorkshelf reccomeds Inocente “Without Question” saying this short doc is “proof that great things come in small packages.”  It goes on to say the filmmakers have crafted “an awe-inspiring document showing that sometimes the happiest and brightest art comes from the darkest places imaginable.”

Make sure to see it at Hot Docs if you are in Toronto!

4/30/2012 6:30:00 PM (at TBLB3) RUSH TICKETS ONLY
5/4/2012  11:00:00 AM (at ROM)
Tickets and Info: http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/inocente

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**

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

Website: www.inocentedoc.com
Twitter:@InocenteDoc
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InocenteDoc

1-year-old America in the fields with her family.

It is with great sadness that we report that the US Department of Labor has withdrawn its proposed rule to protect children under 16 working in agriculture, seemingly under pressure from the Obama administration. The restrictions on child labor the DOL had sanctioned, based on expert research and proposed in mid-2011, would have added prohibitions on operating additional heavy machinery, working in silos and grain storage facilities, handling all pesticides, and working in the production of tobacco for children under 16 years of age.

Farms that were owned or operated by families would have been exempt. Somehow this fact was lost on opponents and in the wake of tremendous opposition to the proposed rules from assorted farm organizations and lobbies, Senators Thune and Moran proposed the Preserving America’s Family Farms Act.

Shine wants to express its very great disappointment in this decision by the DOL. There are hundreds of thousands of American children working under unspeakably harsh, and often very dangerous, work conditions that are unheard of in most other occupations. Somehow, the fact that these youngsters are poor and overwhelmingly Latino disallows them to receive the protections they need and deserve. We urge all who care to express their views to their Congressional representatives.

For more information on this issue visit www.theharvestfilm.com and also see the Human Rights Watch announcement

US DEPARTMENT OF LABOR NEWS RELEASE

WHD News Release: [04/26/2012]
Contact Name: Joshua R. Lamont or Elizabeth Alexander
Phone Number: (202) 693-4661 or x4675
Release Number: 12-0826-NAT

Labor Department statement on withdrawal of proposed rule dealing with children who work in agricultural vocations

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor today issued the following statement regarding the withdrawal of a proposed rule dealing with children who work in agricultural vocations:

“The Obama administration is firmly committed to promoting family farmers and respecting the rural way of life, especially the role that parents and other family members play in passing those traditions down through the generations. The Obama administration is also deeply committed to listening and responding to what Americans across the country have to say about proposed rules and regulations.

“As a result, the Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations.

“The decision to withdraw this rule — including provisions to define the ‘parental exemption’ — was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms. To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.

“Instead, the Departments of Labor and Agriculture will work with rural stakeholders — such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, the Future Farmers of America, and 4-H — to develop an educational program to reduce accidents to young workers and promote safer agricultural working practices.”

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20120826.htm

Inocente’s international premier is this coming Sunday, April 29th at 7pm at the Hot Docs International Film Festival!  And the filmmakers are all getting ready to head there for the event!

Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine will be there for the Q&A following the Sunday and Monday screenings.  The Fines have been producing, directing and shooting documentaries for the finest outlets in television and film for the last decade. They have worked in over thirty countries, from dangerous war zones to the Arctic Circle, to bring unknown human stories to the screen. The Fines’ distinctive visual and storytelling style invites human connection, which for the Fines, is the basis for all their work and the necessary catalyst for social change and what makes them such wonderful partners for Shine.  The Fines worked with Shine Global on our first film, the Academy Award-nominated War/Dance, which won the audience award for best documentary when it screened at Hot Docs in 2007.

Producer Yael Melamede, producer of the Academy Award-nominated documentary My Architect will be at Hot Docs all week and Producer Albie Hecht and Executive Producer Susan MacLaury, co-founders of Shine Global, will be in attendance for the Sunday night premier.

Other crew members to be in attendance include Editor Jeff Consiglio (another War/Dance team member!) and Associate Producer Anne Marler.  And Matt D’Arrigo, the founder and Executive Director of the ARTS (A Reason to Survive) program in San Diego that Inocente attends in the film will also be at the 4/29 premier.

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

Website: www.inocentedoc.com
Twitter:@InocenteDoc
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InocenteDoc

In addition to the screening, Inocente will be at the Raices Taller gallery opening where her work will be exhibited on Saturday, April 21st.

Arizona International Film Festival

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 and Matt D’Arrigo will be present for the Q&A following the screening**
**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)

Website: www.inocentedoc.com
Twitter:@InocenteDoc
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InocenteDoc

The Child Labor Coalition Holds a Press Conference on the Proposed Protections (Hazardous Orders) for Children Employed in Agriculture

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) April 19, 2012

Today, the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) held a press conference to dispel some of the misinformation surrounding the Department of Labor’s recently proposed safety updates to the rules governing child labor in agriculture. The updates would be the first change in 41 years. A panel of experts from the advocacy, education, health and agriculture communities discussed the rules’ potential impact on children’s health and safety. Testimony was also shared by Catherine Rylatt, the aunt of Alex Pacas, a young man who was killed in the 2010 grain engulfment that killed 14-year-old Wyatt Whitebread.

Ms. Rylatt recounted the details shared with her by a friend of her nephew who survived. She said that as the boys were working to break up the corn, “Wyatt started sinking; he was yelling ‘Help me, help me!’” His young coworkers tried to save him. Alex, her nephew, lost his life as well. She went on to note that after the tragedy, “Chris, the 15-year-old who witnessed the death of his 14-year-old friend, kept saying ‘I should have stayed; I should have stayed and helped.’ He doesn’t understand if he had stayed, he would have been dead, too.”

Other experts who provided insight on the proposed updates, included: Lorretta Johnson, Co-Chair of the CLC and Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Norma Flores López, Chair of the CLC’s Committee on Domestic Issues and Director of the Children in the Fields Campaign at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP), and a former child farmworker; Dr. Sammy Almashat, M.D., M.P.H., Research Associate at Public Citizen; and Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, a national children’s advocacy organization.

“The American Federation of Teachers believes that it is our responsibility to educate the ‘whole child,’” said Ms. Johnson, who opened the press conference. “This means looking after the well-being of our children, in and out of the classroom. The updates proposed by the Department of Labor are common sense changes that are designed to preserve the safety of children who work on America’s farms.” That sentiment was echoed throughout the press conference.

“As a child working in the fields, I was exposed to dangerous pesticides and machinery. While I was fortunate not to be seriously injured while working, that is not the case for many,” said Ms. Flores López. “That also doesn’t mean I’m in the clear. As a farmworker advocate, I know there are many other serious long-term health consequences associated with pesticides that may affect me in the future.”

Each of the speakers discussed the hazardous orders from their respective areas of expertise. Agriculture, which is consistently ranked as one of the three most dangerous industries for all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is especially perilous for children. In 2010, three-quarters of the children under age 16 who died while working for wages were killed while working on farms.

“From a medical perspective, we know that children are more vulnerable than adults to the myriad hazards encountered on a farm. A child’s mental capacity and judgment is not as fully developed as it is in an adult,” said Dr. Almashat. “As doctors well know, children are not little adults. Their bodies are structured fundamentally differently, leaving them uniquely vulnerable to a number of different hazards.”

The agribusiness and the farm lobby have voiced strong opposition to the protections, resulting in Members of Congress introducing legislation in the House and Senate to block the implementation of the protections. The bills, called “Preserving America’s Family Farm Act,” are not supported by all in the agriculture community though. In a press release the National Farmers Union, while not comfortable with all aspects of the proposed rules, has voiced support for the Secretary’s efforts to better protect farmworker children. At the end of the press conference,National Consumers League Executive Director and CLC Co-Chair Sally Greenberg read a statement prepared by Bryce Oates, a grower from Missouri who recently authored a post with a fellow family farmer Jake Davis, expressing disgust over the untruths being spread about the rules in Footprint Magazine.

“The longer we wait to finalize these protections, the longer kids’ lives are in danger. Children’s safety and well-being must be the number one priority,” said Mr. Lesley. “As children’s advocates, we can accept nothing less.”

About the Child Labor Coalition
The Child Labor Coalition is composed of 28 organizations, representing consumers, labor unions, educators, human rights and labor rights groups, child advocacy groups, and religious and women’s groups. It was established in 1989, and is co-chaired by the National Consumers League and the American Federation of Teachers. Its mission is to protect working youth and to promote legislation, programs, and initiatives to end child labor exploitation in the United States and abroad. A list of the CLC members may be found at http://www.stopchildlabor.org.

About the Children in the Fields Campaign:
The Children in the Fields Campaign is a project of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP), a national federation of non-profit and public agencies that provide job training and services for America’s farmworkers. The campaign strives to improve the quality of life of migrant and seasonal farmworker children by advocating for enhanced educational opportunities and the elimination of discriminatory federal child labor laws in agriculture. For additional comment or interview from an AFOP expert, please contact Ayrianne Parks at 202.579.7445 or Parks(at)AFOP(dot)org.

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 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

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