One year ago, Yolande left the island of Jamaica with her mother and siblings to join her grandmotherin Colorado Springs. In FINDING HOME, Yolande tells the story of what it means to leave your homeland and everything that you know and love to explore new opportunities in a strange new country. She recounts her story as a new immigrant and the challenges and successes involved in finding a new home.
Angel, and his three siblings, were raised in Colorado Springs primarily by their mom, Alice Valdez. Angel explores the absence of a father and the compensatory ways his family made due. The result is FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, an intimate and loving account of one mother’s fierce love and respect for her kids and a family whose respect for their mother provides a model for what makes a family successful.
For climber, skier, and guide Leighan Falley, the mere sight of the Alaskan wilderness elicits an insatiable wanderlust. To reconcile her adventurous spirit with the demands of parenthood, she would need to learn to fly.
This is a story of rediscovering the joys of community again in older age, and in the longing for ritual, however unorthodox it may appear. There are themes of love, of ritual and of community — all within the context of an adorable scene at Wendy’s
The Youth Documentary Academy will present two programs. First, AFTER WAR is an unvarnished account by Bailey Francisco of his father’s PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury and the impact these had on his family. Second, we will show an episode from the upcoming television series OUR TIME about youth suicide in the Pikes Peak Region. Filmmakers will be present in conversation with YDA Director Tom Shepard to discuss mental health, PTSD and suicide prevention.
Marlise Muñoz was 33 and 14 weeks pregnant when she died. She suffered a pulmonary embolism and was pronounced brain-dead in Fort Worth, TX. Marlise had previously told her family that she never wanted to be on life support, under any circumstances. And since a brain-dead patient is in fact legally dead, that should have been the end of this sad story. But the Muñoz family was forced to keep Marlise on mechanical support against their will for 62 days, because of a little known law stating “a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment… from a pregnant patient.”
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Colorado Springs, CO 80907
