How Libertad Was Born
February 28, 2008 by Laura
Project Libertad is the brainchild of Tucson born filmmaker Pablo Toledo. The project has evolved organically over nine years, originating from Pablo’s critical film studies at USC’s Film School and his post-graduation work with Youth Opportunity and the cable based Access Tucson teaching film-making classes to South Tucson’s at-risk teens, most who came from impoverished neighborhoods and were struggling to stay off the street and finish high school.
The experience of watching his lesson of hard work and their exploration of personal creativity empower many of his students to fight harder for their dreams inspired Pablo to write and shoot Runnin’ at Midnite, a feature film from 2003 exposing the hard reality for many teenaged boys in South Tucson whose single beacon of hope is the midnight basketball league run by a lone policeman trying to counteract the lures of drugs and gang life. The film was a big success, breaking local box office records in Tucson and being selected to screen at several notable film festivals, including the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival and HBO’s Underworld Film Festival.
During the filming, Pablo and his executive producer (and most importantly, father!), Lawrence Toledo, never lost sight of their commitment to involve the local community and its youth at every level of production, creating the cast and crew almost solely from Tucson’s population. This unique model of making the production of the film as important as the end result affected a huge positive change on the community – one cast member whose life had been a measure of days skipping school and nights on the street even went on to be selected Arizona’s Boys/Girls Club Youth of the Year after production.
After watching his city’s press headlines transform from murders and drugs to civic pride and the celebration of Arizona culture, Pablo turned his attention to another side of southern Arizona life, that of the bitter reality for the orphans struggling to survive on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. Since the making of Runnin’ at Midnite proved to Pablo that offering at-risk kids the chance to take part in something larger than themselves can spark a willingness to make the right choices as they struggle to grow up in impoverished conditions, Pablo wrote a new script, titled Libertad, for the children living on the border. His goal then became to perfect a prototype of film production that would benefit the community that inspired him on several levels. The positive effects he seeks will be produced by exposing theatre audiences to people and cultures that need to be brought to awareness, and by directly helping the inhabitants of the very communities explored by incorporating education, creative opportunity and personal involvement within the film-making process.
With the development of the youth education workshop prior to production and the gained cooperation of local non-profits, Project Libertad now stands determined and ready to provide deserved attention and support to struggling communities and move forward in the industry as one of the most innovative and relevant production companies today.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Comments
Translator
