Documentaries Produced

We are proud of the documentaries we do, and the awards we get for production and content. Our thanks go out to the many women and men who help make all this possible for us.

Foxcatcher: The Forgotten Five (coming soon)

A Homeless Story: Bagging Life (coming soon)

A Hero’s Words: Being one of the first-ever black Marines. (2024) Multiply award winner.

In His Own Words: A Tuskegee Airman’s Story (2022)

Say My Name: Honoring the first Slaves (2020)

Benson’s Hope: Looking to Stand Tall (2017)

Hollywood: Below the Word (2013)

This documentary is about the effervescent Rande Zell. Well, he may live on the streets and be homeless, but to Rande, he has a home, be it temporary, but it’s his home. He actually has the 101 freeway as his backyard view.

In his nook of the world, he lives inside and under a camper shell setup perfectly as a home. Now here is the bright news: he has a corner of his stead as a guest sleeping area.

When he’s not reading his books or drinking his favorite cherry Coke drink, you can find him on his bike. His bike takes him to the local freeway on-ramp where he solicits change, as he entertains the drivers with his theatrics. That’s just how he rolls. Most of us can’t handle that without some kind of blowback from our minds, to bring us back to reality, that we have a non-conventional home.

But we are not Zede, and we may not think that way. It’s how he is, and if he’s happy, I’m happy for him. He wakes up each morning to the big Hollywood sign viewable just outside of his camper shell.

The Silent Killer: Prostate Cancer (2009)

The state of California gave the producers an award of recognition for spreading light on how this affects these men as well as their families.

Many men are medically undeserved in this country, and this documentary focuses on just that. But this time it is about the stigma of being detected for prostate cancer. Without knowledge or medical insurance, many men can go undetected for prostate cancer, which can be cured around 90% of the time if found early.

The documentary talks to several men, who with the help of prostate screening organizations, are taking that first step into testing for the disease early and not worrying about the stigma or the procedure.

From the man responsible for the screening who himself was a prostate cancer survivor, to the medically professional who treat these undeserved men.

WE BELIEVE STRONGLY (2006)

This “Award-Winning Documentary” was mostly shot in Thailand, with some interviews in the States, and posted in Hollywood, CA by 139 West Productions. With the backing of Planned Parenthood, Los Angeles, this exciting documentary was made possible. The subject matter is about sex education in Thailand, where the old meets the new.

In this case, new is thousands of condoms trying to make their way from village to village, from the hills to the City. People believe strongly that with less of a population or smaller families, food can spread out longer from families in the thick of things. How do you take a community and try to teach new things, or should we just leave them along and let nature take its course?

The idea is to go to the community, because they won’t come to you. An effort has to be made by the city council to agree that there is a problem and it’s not going away. So they needed to find the funds to actually circulate condoms to the community in the City and into the hills.

Thrown Away Babies (2003)

http://www.gardenofangels.org/

An “Award-Winning Documentary” of the plight that is happening in Los Angeles as well as in the rest of the country. This plight is about newborn babies that are being found in trash bins or something similar. These babies can be found alive if they are lucky, or they don’t survive the night.

This documentary focuses on one woman, Debi Faris of Yucaipa, CA. She is the founder of the Garden of Angels Foundation, an organization responsible for reaching out to the county coroner’s office when they find babies in dumpsters or washed up on beaches; her organization takes them and gives them a name and a proper burial.

This all started one day for Ms. Faris when she was watching a newscast of a newborn baby found dead in a dumpster, then put into a box and buried alone. She felt they deserved better. And she decided to give them better.

She started an organization, the “Garden of Angels.” She used her own money to buy burial plots for infants found dead. With the cooperation of the coroner’s office, who gave her these dead newborns wrapped in plastic.

This broke her heart to see the baby die alone and be buried alone. With the support of her family, she went to the coroner’s office to see if she could take the baby and give it a respectful burial.

After some red tape, she was allowed to take the baby, put it in a nice coffin, and have a decent burial with people who care.

She went to her local cemetery, and they gave her a plot of land for burial. This became her mission, and she started an organization focused just on this

These babies without names are given names and a wonderful resting place after the ceremony. This is a wonderful and warm story to watch.

Link to New York Times news article:

The Color of Success (1993)

This documentary looks at several African-American women who are entrepreneurs living in the Los Angeles area. These women all have the same thing in common: the drive to work their business.

They may have started off differently and run into bumps and red tape. But they all had made it to a point where they said they could do this.

Having the support of their family members creates a foundation that they can stand on and reach beyond areas they never thought they could reach.

This wonderful documentary shows these women achieving their goals by different routes. And how they are passing it to the children and to the classes they teach.