Note to editors: Reporters are welcome to attend the screening. To arrange interviews or other assistance, contact Cal State L.A.’s Public Affairs Office at 323-343-3050 or [email protected].
MEDIA ADVISORY: Friday, Dec. 5, 7-9 p.m.
‘Through the Eyes of Eastside Youth’
High school students get hands-on lesson on filmmaking
by Cal State L.A. student mentors
Los Angeles, CA – Using film to tell their stories while learning the art of filmmaking, Los Angeles eastside teenagers will present their video works produced under the mentorship of Cal State L.A.’s television and film students TOMORROW, Dec. 5, 7 p.m., at the Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center, 3540 North Mission Road, Los Angeles.
The special premiere screening, “Through the Eyes of Eastside Youth: An Evening of Community Films Created at Plaza de la Raza,” is free to the public. A reception will follow the screening.
The films—Get Back, Girl Drama, Payback and Documentary—were made possible through the “Community Filmmaking” service-learning course at Cal State L.A. in partnership with the Plaza.
The following Cal State L.A. students served as mentors: Victor Castaneda, Valentin Duran, Kahlea Humberm, Palvinder Jagait, Angela Miranda, Jennifer C. Miranda, Monica Montero, Jose Rios, Salvador Vargas, Saul Vargas, and Christie Young. The high school students are primarily from Lincoln High.
Jonathan Pope Evans, CSULA class instructor and independent commercial/film producer/director, said, “My work as a professor involves changing lives and reaching out into places that have not been exposed to visual art and filmmaking. I believe storytelling can change people’s lives. By teaching young people how to have a voice, I am teaching them how to communicate with the world around them. I believe that should be the number-one goal of any educational institution.”
Situated in the century-old Lincoln Park, Plaza de la Raza is the only multidisciplinary cultural arts center serving Latinos in Los Angeles. The organization was founded as a non-profit cultural arts and educational center in 1970. Through the arts, Plaza provides services and programs that bridge geographic, social, artistic and cultural boundaries of Los Angeles and beyond.
For more details, please contact the Department of Communication Studies at Cal State L.A., (323) 343-4207, or Michelle Hawley, faculty director of service learning at Cal State L.A., at (323) 343-5815.
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Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 205,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu