For Immediate Release

2009 film schedule

Program Guide

Thank you Sponsors

Venues in Oakland

Oakland filmmakers

Thinking local
reaching international

UPCOMING EVENTS:

OCTOBER 1ST
OIFF PRESS CONFERENCE ON PEACE

STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS


THE EAST BAY EXPRESS PRESENTS:

TASTE OF ART FUNDRAISER FOR MO'BETTER FOOD, THE OAKLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AND RIVER OF WORDS

OCTOBER 2ND


 





NEW AMERICAN SOLDIER

SCREENS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH

New American Soldier follows three immigrant soldiers through the ups and downs of training and deployment, as they take steps towards achieving US citizenship.
Today there are over 70,000 immigrants serving in the military – five percent of the Armed Forces. Roughly half of them are not yet citizens, but a post-September 11 Executive Order has made it faster and easier to apply.

Seth Donkor won the visa lottery and left his homeland of Ghana two years ago. A soft-spoken young man, he is now living out his Rambo daydreams as a Private in the US Army. Clarissa Calderón and her family emigrated from Peru when she was a girl. She never thought of enlisting until a recruiter told her that the Army would pay for medical school. Victor Toledo Pulido and his family walked across the US-Mexico border when he was seven. The Army offered a way out of the farmlands of California's Central Valley, but Toledo Pulido was killed in Iraq a year and a half after enlistıng.

Through the stories of real people on the front lines, New American Soldier gives us a better understanding of the people who are fighting this war, and what it means to be American.

Credits:

Directed, Filmed and Edited by
Emma Cott
Anna Belle Peevey

Additional Crew
María José Calderón

Narrator
Mark Gorney

Advisors
Jon Else
Debbie Hoffmann

Technical Advisors
Karen Everett
Kean Sakata

Content Advisors
Bob Calo
Cynthia Gorney
Margaret Stock

Music
Roy Baril
Library of Congress - Civil War Archives
Calexico

Motion Graphics
David Casper

Archival Research
Bonnie Rowan

Archives
Library of Congress
The National Archives
The New York Historical Society
WOWK-TV

Special Thanks
U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion, Fresno, CA
XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, NC
U.S. Army Basic Combat Training Center of Excellence, Fort Jackson, SC
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Terry Spearman
Jenny MacDonald
Robert Lewis

Translation
Shipeng Guo
Daniel Yaw Twumasi
Made Possible in Part by a Grant from
Margaret and Will Hearst
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism