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COMMUNITY FILMMAKERS BRING SF INDIE "HOME"
Native Chicago director hits Chicago Latino Film Festival with award-winning Mission Movie

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:

Stephanie Lim– 415.533.8085
steph3280@hotmail.com

 San Jose, CA- March 21, 2005

Mission Movie/Una Película de la Misión has screened at seven festivals since its community debut in San Francisco in June 2004, and director Lise Swenson is now guiding the film home to her native Chicago. On the heels of winning a Viewers Voice Award at Cinequest 15 in San Jose, CA this month, Mission Movie will screen for two nights in the 21st Chicago Latino Film Festival.

"The festival will be special," said Swenson, who was born in Hyde Park, on Chicago's South Side.   "Mission Movie is all about community: it was created as a community collaborative, based on stories that community members deemed to be truly representative of the [Mission] district. For me to bring the film home to the first community I lived in completes a really beautiful cycle."

Mission Movie will screen Friday, April 15, 2005 at 9:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 17, 2005 at 7:00 p.m.  Both screenings will be held at Facets Cineamatheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. Additionally, Swenson will hold two collegiate screenings at the University of Illinois-Chicago and St. Xavier's University to discuss the process of community-based filmmaking.

At its U.S. Premiere in July, Mission Movie was named Best Feature Film at the New York International Latino Film Festival and was awarded an HBO cash prize.  Since New York, it has also screened and won awards in Boston, Mill Valley, Madrid, San Francisco, San Jose, and will screen in the Dominican Republic later this year

Mission Movie/Una Película de la Misión  (www.missionmovie.org)
Mission Movie tells five intersecting stories that take place over one summer in San Francisco's most diverse enclave. Based on true life stories from the Mission District, the cast is led by veteran Columbian actor Diego Vasquez and includes many Bay Area actors, including cameos by well-known artists and activists. In true form to the neighborhood, the bilingual film features both Spanish and English subtitles.

21st Chicago Latino Film Festival (www.latinoculturalcenter.org)
The Chicago Latino Cultural Center continues to break the barriers of stereotypes and provoke the audience to challenge mainstream ideals of the Latino identity by showing, through film, that Latinos are defined by more than 20 Iberoamerican countries and come from all social and racial backgrounds.  
Take a cinematic journey and discover the wonders of Latin America, Spain, Portugal and the United States

The Mission District
74,643 Residents
196 Nationalities
2 Square Miles
One Movie
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