Download a full fundraising packet here For more detailed information. What follows is a brief introduction to the film, where we are and what we need to complete the project.
|
|
THE FILM
A Place to Stand is the authorized story of Jimmy Santiago Baca’s transformation from a functionally illiterate convict to an award-winning poet, novelist and screenwriter. It follows Jimmy’s path through childhood abandonment, adolescent drug dealing, a DEA bust where a federal agent was shot, and a subsequent 5-year narcotics sentence at Arizona State Prison in Florence, one of the most violent prisons in the country. Jimmy survived by exploring deep within himself, discovering poetry at his soul's core. His writing liberated him from the death and decay that surrounded him, healing the wounds of his childhood and opening him to a new future. |
|
|
| |
| |
|
THE PURPOSE |
|
| We aim to demonstrate and inspire the possibility of individual transformation and growth. In presenting Jimmy's metamorphosis, we want to plant the seeds of hope, to illustrate that personal transformation is always possible, even behind bars. We will distribute the film to prisons and schools in furtherance of this goal.
Further, we aim to demonstrate the importance of education and its power to change lives. The United States is plagued by the world’s highest incarceration rates, and they are only rising. At the same time, our educational system is falling farther and farther behind. We are not providing for our children, and when they struggle, when they exhibit their dysfunction, we focus on punitive rather than transformative, empowering solutions.
A Place to Stand directly addresses the connection between these two trends and demonstrates how the acts of reading and writing can reduce street and prison violence, decrease recidivism rates, and help individuals confront trauma, abuse, anger and addiction. Jimmy - himself a product of family dysfunction, homelessness, drug abuse, institutionalization and incarceration - speaks directly to those disaffected segments of society who still languish in their illiteracy and resulting sense of inadequacy. |
| |
|
WHERE WE ARE |
|
| We have completed 70 hours of interviews with Jimmy, his family, former cellmates and friends, and have compiled them into a full rough cut of the film. We have an extended trailer that can be viewed on the home page. |
| |
|
WHAT WE NEED |
|
| We are looking for $250,000 to complete the film. This will be used in part to finish production, but largely to support post-production: hiring editors, color artists, musicians, animators, etc. |
| |
|
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE |
|
To make a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, the Center of Southwest Culture (http://centerofsouthwestculture.org), write a check to Center of Southwest Culture, put A Place to Stand in the memo and mail the check to:
Center of Southwest Culture
500 Copper Avenue NW
Suite 103
Albuquerque, NM 87102
We are deeply grateful for any level of support. Every dollar raised will go directly towards the completion, distribution and programming of A Place to Stand. |
| |
|
| |
|
|
