LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER AND THREE STUDENT FILM-MAKERS SPEND THEIR SUMMER TAPING DOCUMENTARY TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT HOMELESS VETERANS
September 5, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HERNDON, VA (September, 1 2008) – While summer is usually a vacation from work for teachers and students, one local high school teacher and three of her student film-makers spent their summer taping a documentary about homeless veterans.
Co-producer Nancy E. Mantelli, a third year Television Production teacher at West Potomac Academy in Alexandria, VA and three of her recent graduates, Cory Jones, Marcus Clarke, and Nathan Baer lent their professional and creative talents in the making of Beyond the Wall: The Homeless Zone, a documentary that seeks to explore the contributing factors that relate to and/or lead to homelessness experienced by our country’s former servicemen and women.
For Mantelli, also a member of the Washington, D.C. Women in Film and Video, the experience to work the trio of award-winning students on such an important project was deeply gratifying.
“To see the boys apply the knowledge and skills they learned over the last two years, and to take direction as paid professionals was an incredible experience and a teacher’s dream. They not only gained invaluable real-world production experience, but real life experience.”
Stressing the importance of exposing her students to professional work situations, in accordance with West Potomac Academy and Fairfax County Public School System’s mission of providing opportunities for students to acquire academic and professional knowledge related to career fields of interest, Mantelli believes the opportunity will greatly benefit her former students as they pursue higher degrees in film and media production and later, the work force.
Cory Jones and Nathan Baer are now freshmen at Columbia College in Chicago, IL, a comprehensive college for the visual, performing and media arts, while Marcus Clarke is attending the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts, School of Film-making.
About the Beyond the Wall: The Homeless Zone, a social documentary
Over 150,000 American veterans are homeless; living in shelters, temporary housing, or on the streets, comprising nearly twenty to twenty-five percent of the overall homeless population in this country. We not only verify the methodology that accounts for this statistic Beyond the Wall: Homeless Zone reveals the first-hand experiences and knowledge of the Americans providing support to these displaced former servicemen and women, and the journey of a displaced veteran seeking to rebuild his personal and spiritual foundation.
Relevant, real and raw, Beyond The Wall: Homeless Zone is a social documentary that takes an un-skewed look into the issue of veteran homelessness, depicting the stories of veterans living in a Washington, DC shelter and sharing insights gleaned from interviews with organizations, charities and individuals providing crucial support to better understand the factors that contribute to and/or increase the risk of homelessness among veterans.
Scheduled for its online debut Veterans Day, November 11, 2008, Beyond The Wall: Homeless Zone weaves these people, profiles and places into a story-telling triumvirate of video, journalism and new media narrative via a platform website to reach a regional and national audience.
The Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies is hosting a screening of the documentary and sponsoring a light reception to follow in early November.
For more information, visit the project blog: www.beyondthewallmovie.wordpress.com
Media Contact:
Alivia C. Tagliaferri
Ironcutter Media, LLC
Ph: 570.220.0026
Email: alivia@ironcuttermedia.com
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