For Your Oscar Consideration - UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality

 UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality is in consideration for the Academy Awards and the deep consideration starts TODAY! Please pass this along to any and all Academy members that you know, as I really can't think of many more important topics than making sure our fellow humans are housed. It's THE most basic human right, yet we allow so many of our citizens to sleep out on the streets in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It's just not right. And we all need to be talking about it until we can really be called a decent civilization, by providing the very least anyone can ask for - shelter. It was an honor and a privilege to help produce this film, and our team, led by director Colin Gray, is all in on doing whatever we can to help make it a world where the most basic needs are being met ... by raising the roof!

 

Many, if not most, Academy members live in Los Angeles and can see the massive and outrageous problem of people living on the streets every day. One can complain about it, or one can do something about it. We chose the latter by making this film. The intent we set out with was to at least start the conversation to find solutions, rather than look the other way, as so many do when faced with this situation. 

A good starting point with any tough subject is always EMPATHY. The NIMBY people who don't care what happens as long as they don't have to see houseless HUMANS in their neighborhood don't seem to realize how quickly it could be them. You lose a job, a family member gets an illness, your rent gets raised, and BOOM.  I've seen it happen to more than one person I know, and no one is as stable as they think they are. We have to start CARING more, because we truly are all in this together. 

 

 

We held a screening at Beyond Baroque on Monday night for Oscar voters to consider UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality as a worthy competitor for the Academy Awards, and to raise awareness for our #RaiseTheRoof Impact Hub.  This is a resource that goes beyond the film to help people find help and resources in their area, as well as for those who want TO help and OFFER resources. It was clear that this topic truly affects us all, and it's high time we all did something about it. That is why we're pushing hard for an Oscar nomination. It's not about any personal glory for any of us. but a means to get the word out on a much larger scale, not only about the film, but the ISSUE - and the ways we can all work together to ENSURE that Housing is enshrined as a basic human right. Because it is. 

UNZIPPED is also a finalist for the Anthem Awards in the Awareness and Media category, and we'd be so honored if you would help this project by voting for us there too (anyone can, no need to be in the Academy!). It's nice that we're in the Awareness category, because that's exactly what we're trying to raise - along with roofs. Please vote here - https://celebrate.anthemawards.com/PublicVoting/#/2024/humanitarian-action-services/awareness-media-categories/. Thank you!

I know there are a lot of qualified documentaries, and a lot of very deeply important topics covered, but I really wonder which affect Los Angeles more than our homeless pandemic? Or the world, for that matter. I think about the Olympics coming up in L.A. in 2028, and wonder how they'll erase the inescapable sadness that is the homeless situation all over town? How they'll justify housing an entire Olympic Village for the athletes when they can't find affordable housing for our full time citizens? It's pretty heavy.  I'm currently in Minneapolis taking care of family, where it is starting to get cold. There are major homeless encampments in the city, and people with signs for help at freeway exits and busy intersections all around the Twin Cities and their suburbs. It's the holiday season, and I just don't know how any of us can feel good about any of us sleeping out in the cold. It's truly time to RAISE THE ROOF (that is a hot link for you to follow and get involved!!) for everyone, and I hope so much that you can all help us make it a reality where everyone has safe shelter and enough to eat. This is America, and we need to do far better by our People. We CAN. And we MUST.

UNZIPPED is available to watch now on Amazon Prime and Vimeo, and eligible for you to consider it for the Academy Awards right NOW! Thank you so much for helping us to #RaiseTheRoof!!! We truly appreciate it, and so will all the people we can help together. 

Season's Greetings to All! I miss you, Venice!

The Venice Premiere of UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality - A True Venice Reunion!

The Venice Premiere of UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality was held last weekend at the Mishkon Temple on Main Street, on a beautiful night in a historic building filled with friends. 

 

I had never been inside the Temple, and you would never know how big it is inside ... and how full it would soon be with all of our Venice loved ones. A long line formed outside, and the buzz was building as friends happily greeted each other and caught up as fast as they could before the movie was to begin.

 

The long road to getting this film out into the world began in Venice, and was made for and by Venetians. To finally get to see it in a room jam-packed with people that also care deeply about our chosen home was both very exciting and very moving. I was close to tears the entire evening. 

As I'm still deep in caregiver mode for my family in Minnesota, I had to just zoom in for the event. That made it even more special and emotional, because I had to soak it all in for just one night, and try to get to see and talk to everyone at once who I miss so dearly. Of course, that was impossible, so please consider this both my thank you note and my love letter to all of you who were there to support us and our Venice movie. 

All of the happy reunions and catching up of course meant that the film had to start on "Venice Standard Time" - which is always a little later than stated. Once we got everyone seated, there was a land acknowledgement and welcome from Carol Levy, the Mishkon President, as well as an update and welcome from Kristina von Hoffman, President of the Venice Heritage Museum. The VHM was one of our chosen beneficiaries of the evening, as well as a valuable resource throughout the making of our film. We all learned that it looks like the VHM will have a home as soon as this year! Great news! It will be a wonderful place for people to learn all about our beloved town that has given so much to the American culture. Venice Family Clinic was also there as a beneficiary and partner, and the good they do for our community is on full display in our film. THANK YOU, VFC!

UNZIPPED is not a documentary trying to tell you how things should be. It is a vehicle to get a conversation started about how we can all find solutions together for the unhoused situation that has gotten out of control in Los Angeles in recent years. And get a conversation started it definitely did - even DURING the film! In true Venetian fashion, audience members were shouting back to the screen, cheering for faces they know and love, jeering at others who maybe are missing that empathy chip that is so crucial to any hope of harmony in our world. It was awesome. 

Cheers rang out as Run The Jewels kicked in and the credits ran, and then it was time for more socializing and catching up. As hoped, there was much discussion about the homeless issue, and what everyone thinks is best for Venice. PERFECT. Keep it up! We need to not look away, and we need to look out for each other - whether we have housing or not. It's a very complicated issue (as the audience let us know), but we don't have the option of looking away. We can all do better. We all MUST do better. And we don't want it to stop with seeing the film and having discussion about it. There are SO many ways to get involved in our #RaiseTheRoof campaign ... there are so many ways to help in the world - just pick ONE. 

It was all over way too soon, and I didn't even nearly get to talk to everyone I wanted to, but I saw your faces and felt your love, and carried it all back with me the next day (after the crucial and glorious beach afternoon, followed by Hinano's!) with a smile on my face and in my heart. 

If you weren't able to join us at the Venice screening, you're still in luck! The Oscar qualifying run of UNZIPPED begins TODAY at the Santa Monica Laemmle for one week. There will be a Q and A with our director, Colin Gray, after the Tuesday screening (that I will HATE to not be at), and I hope you can get there to see it in a proper theater. There will also be a New York premiere in May, and a big Hollywood red carpet whole deal premiere on June 1st, and a streaming release that will make it available in 192 countries right on your own tvs. Please stay tuned for all of the developments regarding the film, and please try to get involved in your own way. 

 

Affordable housing needs to be enshrined as a HUMAN RIGHT. It is unconscionable that there is even one person living on the street in a country this wealthy, never mind whole tent cities. It's really embarrassing, and as one of our interview subjects in the film says, other countries in developing parts of the world look at US as backwards. As they should. And we all know we can do better. 

There was a lot of work and heart and emotion put into this film, and our whole team has a deep love for Venice that is up on the screen for all to see. I miss our groovy old Venice, and anyone who lived there in those times knows what I mean. The magic is still there in Venice, it's just maybe a little harder to find than it was back in the day ... unless you know where to look. And all you had to do last Saturday was sit down in a darkened theater among your COMMUNITY gathered together to know that you were surrounded by that only in Venice vibe that will always be kept alive in each one of us, wherever we may go. 

THANK YOU, VENICE!! I LOVE YOU! Now go see UNZIPPED, let us know what you think, and let's roll up our sleeves together to make our Community - and the WORLD - a better, even MORE magical place. 

#RaiseTheRoof !!!!

Happy International Women's Day!

 Hi Friends and Readers I haven't yet met ...  !

Blogtown has been on a little hiatus while I work on bigger writing projects and care for my family in Minnesota ... but it will all be worth it one of these days when I can share the work with you. In the meantime, read some golden oldies and be sure to join us for the VENICE premiere of our VENICE film, UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality on March 25, 2023 at the Mishkon Temple on Rose. 

 

Information below - Please come! I can't wait to catch up with all of you! LOVE! VIVA VENICE!!!

Unzipped: An Autopsy of American Inequality Has Its World Festival Premiere In Newport Beach - And Wins!

The journey to bring our feature documentary UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality to the big screen kicked off on October 24th, 2021 at the Newport Beach Film Festival. This is just the beginning of our larger mission to catalyze debate, awareness, and action around the already massive - and growing - affordable housing (and humanity) crisis in the United States and around the globe with this film.

When we set out to make UNZIPPED in 2018, we could never have predicted how much the world would change with the Covid-19 pandemic as we were filming ... or how much worse the affordable housing crisis was going to get. We who have lived and loved in our beautiful home of Venice, California (an "INTENTIONAL Beach community of color" - Naomi Nightingale, as quoted in the film) have been watching the outrageous and growing income inequality and lack of affordable housing (THE issues of our time, along with the climate CRISIS - which are all related) push our friends and neighbors out of their homes for years, all while gentrification continues to demolish the very soul of our town in real time. This isn't new. 

UNZIPPED follows the artists and stakeholders of Venice as they struggle to remain both housed and committed to their art, and to their/our community. We interviewed those on all sides who have been impacted by lack of affordable housing, homelessness, and rapid gentrification in our neighborhood. The overwhelming realization upon finally watching the finished film all unfold on the screen is that no matter what, we are all connected. All of us. We are ALL affected by the heartbreaking situation of families living outside on the streets, of people being evicted from their homes, of people struggling to remain in their community - and we can all do far better. We are one human family, and though some in our family are sorely lacking in empathy, it doesn't change that absolute fact. 

A fantastic crowd from Venice made the trip down to Newport Beach to see all of our hard work manifest into something beautiful there in the darkened theater of the NBFF. It was a joy to see all of the familiar faces, as well as most of the cast and crew of our movie, led by writer/director, Colin K. Gray. If you have lived in Venice for any amount of time in recent years, you will recognize many people in it, as we filmed in and around Venice for the last three years (including over 55 shoot days, 80+ interviews, and hundreds of hours of footage). It is a very heated issue, and that comes across in the film. We tried to give voice to the different opinions on these staggeringly complex issues - in search of actual, positive solutions - so that maybe Venice, CA. 90291 can be more than just a cautionary tale of how NOT to let byzantine zoning laws, developers,  and divisive rhetoric run roughshod over a town, and possibly find a way to maintain the beauty of its character. There is still time. Time to remember - and honor - that Venice is the PEOPLE'S beach.

 

Venice is one of the most vibrant and exciting places in the world, with a rich history of pop culture forming within its boundaries. Art, music, surf, skating, style, writers, and eccentrics all combined to be the creative vortex we were all drawn to. I truly believe that will never fully change, but landlords and corporations and just plain greed are trying their very best to wring the cool out of it. Well, we're not having it. Hence, this film. Hence, all the organizations and good people rallying around it to make things a little more righteous ... a hopefully a little more just, equitable, and compassionate going forward. To that end, we filmmakers have teamed up with The Illumination Foundation, an O.C. based homeless advocacy organization, as well as the co-host of our NBFF premiere. We will also be rolling out a comprehensive social impact campaign along side the film release - #RaiseTheRoof - which will support other local and national affordable housing initiatives.  We will also be donating 10% of the film’s proceeds to leading organizations active in the affordable housing, anti-displacement and homelessness spaces. 

We're also excited to announce Cargo Film and Releasing will now be representing UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality for both domestic and foreign sales, as we all know that this issue has reached global proportions. Lack of affordable housing is a truly global crisis with over 1.6 billion people living in sub-standard housing.  UNZIPPED is a deliberately local lens on this growing national and global issue and we’re excited for it now to be shared with a worldwide audience. We're also thrilled to announce that Lucy Liu recently came on board as one of our Executive Producers, and that the incredible rap duo Run The Jewels has graciously allowed us to use their music for our opening and closing tracks ("A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters" and "Sea Legs", respectively)! 

It was so wonderful and emotional to see it all come together in such a heartfelt and beautiful way at NBFF after the eye-opening journey of working on this film. I really hope everyone will embrace our film, and I also really think it can help. The key way to gain progress on any issue is opening up the discussion, and our film is both a provocative and intimate starting point. Once communicating openly, we as a nation can begin to both heal and advance our causes in a humanitarian way. And we MUST. 

After the applause died down, and the tears were wiped away, we all assembled at a restaurant nearby to celebrate and catch up, as many of us had not seen each other throughout the pandemic (it was the first indoor movie for many!). The overwhelming feeling was not one of despair, but of hope. Hope that there is still time for America to fulfill its true destiny, as a nation by and FOR the PEOPLE. A nation that cares about ALL of its citizens, including the marginalized, and not just the ones with money. UNZIPPED: An Autopsy of American Inequality holds a mirror up to our country's collective face - and right now, it's actually kind of ugly and in need of a total makeover. We have the means, we just need the will. Our planet and its People are dying in front of our eyes. It doesn't have to be this way. We can do better. We must do better. We WILL do better. 

 

JUST as I was about to send this in for global publication, we got the news that UNZIPPED won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival! That's the one that's voted on by the people in attendance, not the industry panel of judges, which is even cooler, because this is a film for the PEOPLE. YES. Onward. UPward. Until it's totally normal that everyone has the basic human right of housing. C'mon.

UNZIPPED will next be in competition at the American Black Film Festival November 3-28, 2021, showing virtually from Miami this year. You can register at ABFFPlay.com for free to see the film, as well as a wide range of scripted features, documentaries, and short films. Following that, we anticipate a Venice premiere and national release in early 2022. Tremendous thanks to all involved who helped to make this important film possible. Please see it as soon as you can, and let us know what you think, follow our socials @UnzippedMovie, and get more festival screening, release, and social impact information at www.UnzippedMovie.com . Our hope is that it will touch your heart and move you to become involved in the growing movement to enshrine housing as a human right. Thank you!

#RaiseTheRoof!!!