
Independent Lens
The People vs. Agent Orange
Two women, one American and one Vietnamese, fight to hold the chemical industry accountable for the devastation caused by Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides.
Grappling with poverty, crime, and more, in Venezuela’s Las Brisas district, families’ hopes for the children hang on the escape found in a local youth orchestra.
MARIANELA MALDONADO - a Graduate of the Nations Film and Television School in the UK, wrote and directed ‘The Look of Happiness’ and ‘Breaking Out’, two short films which premiered at Cannes Film Festival. As a screenwriter, Marianela has worked on various fiction and animation features and short films among them ‘Peter and the Wolf’ (Oscar winner 2008), Unmade Beds… Show more
Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.
IInn Venezuela’s Las Brisas neighborhood, the power of music is put to the test. Poverty, murder, and corruption leave the community’s families with few ways to create a brighter future. Their best local hope: a youth orchestra founded in 1975 known as El Sistema that offers children the opportunity to pursue a life of art in spite of the harshness of the society around them.
Nine-year-old Dissandra’s grandmother signs her up for the orchestra in the hope it will provide a healthy outlet for her granddaughter’s sorrow after she loses two sisters. Another grandmother coaxes a resistant Edixon to join as a scheme to keep him off of the very streets where his father was gunned down. In El Sistema, the young people meet the concertino Wuilly, a passionate musician who after abandoning life in a religious cult as a teenager taught himself to play the violin via YouTube videos. Together, their aspirations align, propelling the group to some success – even a venture to perform at the world-renowned Festival of Classical Music in Salzburg. Yet Venezuela’s spiraling collapse threatens the musicians’ dreams of a better life—can music save them?
We’ll send you funding deadlines, events, and film news.
Connect with us now at itvs@itvs.org.