The story has evolved into a story of people working together which is larger than the sum of its parts.  Tapping into the success of Muhammad Yunus after winning the Nobel Peace Prize (2006), Grameen America has opened in Queens, NY replicating his banking model after the program he started in Bangladesh. Opening in a developed country soon has its challenges for Dr. Yunus, the new bank workers and the women who hope to change their lives with the money-generating collateral-free loans that offer them hope to live better lives.  The film portrays the integrity of the poor and the fixed mind-sets of the rich in an economic environment that ultimately reveals a deeper view of what really works.

Project Status

We are working towards a fine cut and hope to lock picture the first week of October. Check out a recent series of posts by Gayle Ferraro from the 2009 Skoll World Forum at Filmmaker magazine.

Suggested links for additional information

Aerial Productions
Berkeleymedia.com
Grameenamerica.com
Grameenfoundation.org
Microcreditsummit.org
Gangesrivertoheaven.com

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Logline: Poor Consuelo Conquers the World tells the story of popular soap operas and telenovelas, now being used to combat the effects of poverty around the world.

It all started by accident in 1969, when a Peruvian telenovela character worked her way out of poverty using a sewing machine; and suddenly sewing machines flew off the shelves by the thousands all over Peru. That incident, combined with the social modeling theories of psychologist Albert Bandura demonstrating the power of fictional media characters to act as role models and affect behavior of viewers, inspired a brilliant Mexican director named Miguel Sabido to create popular telenovelas designed both to entertain and to address urgent social issues. His first series was a huge commercial hit and demonstrably contributed to a significant decline in birthrates in heavily overpopulated Mexico. He revised and refined his formula until it became a scientific methodology that soon spread around the world with success after success, and ultimately helped create an entire field, now known as Entertainment-Education. Sabido essentially created an affordable, exportable model for socially sustainable development, all while creating hit show after hit show. Like Sabido’s work, our documentary Poor Consuelo Conquers the World is both entertaining and solution-oriented in its approach to social change.

In the Spring of 2009 we filmed the creation of a radionovela produced by Radio Atipiri and Media Impact, in El Alto, Bolivia, one of the poorest cities in South America. Radio is cheap to produce and reaches people who can’t afford TV. The station we filmed even reaches people who can’t afford radio by simultaneously broadcasting from loudspeakers on the roof of their station! Excerpts from this footage helped Poor Consuelo win the award for Best Project Presentation for Cinema at the 2009 Sunny Side Documentary Market in La Rochelle, France. YLE-TV Finland then joined our team, with others soon to follow. Stay tuned! Development support provided by ITVS.

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• Green Shall Overcome

We’ll interweave Jones’ national efforts with the local stories of men and women enrolled in the Oakland Green Job Corps training program. We’ll follow them during the 16-week program, where they will gain green construction skills that they hope will change their lives. The trainees are primarily African-American and Latino men who struggle with common barriers to employment: lack of formal education, lack of job skills, and history in juvenile/criminal justice system.

Project Update

Green Shall Overcome was one of eight films selected by The Good Pitch to present our film at AFI/SILVERDOCS. The response was tremendous. There was a unanimous sense of excitement about Jones’ work, the trailer, and the incredible timeliness of the conversation. One of the funders sitting at our table was so inspired they made a contribution of $10,000 in the middle of the presentation.

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