GIVING TUESDAY FUNDRAISER FOR MARIPOSAS DEL CAMPO

by Mariposas del Campo

Help us keep our young collaborators' voices at the center of all discussions surrounding Mariposas del Campo screenings by donating for honorariums and travel expenses.

Our feature documentary Mariposas del Campo follows a group of indigenous teenagers from Mexico who are striving to change their families’ destinies in the strawberry fields of Oxnard, California. Through a stormy year of sanctioned racism and anti-immigrant policies, their journeys are captured—with help from their own videos—as they navigate cultural identity, parental expectations, economic challenges, and the justice needs of their migrant farmworker community. For these young people whose lives have always been lived in the shadows, it takes a tremendous leap of faith to chase a dream.

We just celebrated our World Premiere at the 26th Red Nation International Film Festival in Los Angeles—the largest Native and Indigenous festival in the country—where Mariposas was honored with the award for Best Documentary Feature.

As filmmakers we consider ourselves and our filmmaking skills to be the conduit through which the young people in Mariposas del Campo were enabled to tell their own stories in their own voices. To support their agency, during Production we taught them to record their own material with three circulating cameras, reviewed clips together, and discussed the direction of the film, all in a loose workshop setting. In the film you'll see much of what they contributed, combined with our own footage.

This "centering" should be equally in place when it comes to panel discussions and Q&As accompanying screenings. It remains critical that their indigenous voices be at the heart of any and all discussions about them.

As you will know after seeing the film, our young collaborators have many familial duties beyond working and doing well in school. It can be tough to take time off from these responsibilities. Fair compensation for time away can help bridge that gap, especially after the hardships their essential worker families have endured to keep food on our tables over the past twenty-one months of pandemic.

This Giving Tuesday, we're raising funds so we can provide fair honorariums and travel stipends to enable the characters' participation in all screening activities in California (and beyond wherever possible).

Your donation is tax-deductible. Mariposas del Campo is a fiscally sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions in support of Mariposas del Campo are payable to IDA and are tax-deductible, less the value of any goods or services received, as allowed by law.

Please give what you can, and remember every little bit helps fill the pot. And if you can't give this time, your social shares of our emails and posts over the week of our campaign will be so appreciated.

Warmly,

Robin Rosenthal & Bill Yahraus

Pony Highway Productions

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