The Latin American Studies Association has granted an Award of Merit to Niños de la Memoria / Children of Memory.

The film will screen at the conference in San Francisco on May 26th.

Go, Niños!

Editor Ann Tegnell and subject/participant Jamie Harvey will join producers Kaye Pyle and María Rodríguez in El Salvador for the first public screening of Niños de la Memoria at the AMBULANTE film festival in El Salvador, May 8-18, 2012.

It will be an incredible moment to see the piece we’ve been working on so long screen in a multiplex with folks who are living this history. Two screenings and a panel discussion, possibly a filmmaker’s working session will complete our participation. But more films and visitations await. Report to follow.

This is the project formerly known as ¿Dónde Están?  It’s what I’ve been cutting these past few years… along with another thing or two.

It’s so close to being out in the world that you can get a sneak peak!

Ann and Ernie at the 61st Academy Awards

when Family Gathering was nominated for ‘Best Documentary Short’. Nice.

Lily Yeh is a global artist who is fueled by a belief that art is a human right, and that artists can create a foundation for profound social change. Slight of frame, but large in spirit and vision, the 70-year-old artist was born in China, lives in Philadelphia, and now, as constant traveler, the world is her canvas.

This lyrical and emotionally wrenching film is a full portrait of the artist, documenting two sides of Lily’s life: her international ventures mending the broken and helping to heal weakened spirits in communities in North America, Africa, China, and India, and a personal journey within, to repair her own fractured family.

The Barefoot Artist is the definitive telling of Lily Yeh’s story in film. It will trace her evolution as an artist – from her first exposure to Chinese landscape painting as a young girl in China to the hauntingly beautiful memorial she designed to honor the victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It will show her methodology for community building – using art as the foundation – which she has developed over many years as she has worked in impoverished communities around the world. It will showcase her remarkable artistry and talent in terms of the physical spaces she has transformed. It will show the power of her work in terms of the lives she has touched. Finally, it will reveal the source of her quest, and the personal costs of a life committed to the public.

The film is directed by Glenn Holsten and Daniel Traub.

Ann Tegnell wields the scalpel and Flux the brush.

As a partially Sundance-funded doc, ¿Dónde Están? is one of five productions headed to the 2011 Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab. Very exciting! We will be working with seven stellar Creative Advisors, experienced assistant editors and the knowledgeable staff of The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to refine our narrative. We’re told it will be ‘intense’ and we hope it is! It’s quite an honor for all of us and a great lift to the final stages of post-production. Stay tuned.

¿Dónde Están? tells three intertwined stories about children who disappeared during the Salvadoran civil war and the search, 30 years later, for family, identity and justice as Salvadorans struggle to right the wrongs of the past. Producers are Kaye Pyle and María Rodríguez, with María also directing, and editorial is in the hands of extendedPLAY partner Ann Tegnell.

According to the more vigilant hawkaholics, the first egg of 2011 from the pair of red-tailed hawks at the Franklin Institute was laid 17 March at 2.54pm. Estimated hatch is 24 April!

Egg, seen here with Dad.

It’s come to our attention that Mirror Dance is now available on iTunes.

Come get it! here…

oh, joy! another season of live red-tail hawk action. gotta love it!