Social Justice Award for Documentary

We are so honored that "Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?" has been nominated for the Fund for Santa Barbara's Social Justice Award for Documentary Film during the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Heist screens at SBIFF on Friday January 27 at 1p and Saturday February 4 at 10am. When Co-Director Donald Goldmacher and I first began working on the film, we knew something was deeply wrong with the country. We spent years researching and reading many books by authors who were way out in front of this crisis. Donald has a deep, personal and vast historical understanding of the importance in a capitalist system of the need for a social safety net like the New Deal which has now been all but totally eradicated by both Republicans and Democrats alike.

As a lifelong social justice activist, Donald has dedicated his life to observing, documenting and bringing about social change. His example has changed my life. As a journalist, it was constantly drilled into me to be objective and to not bring my personal politics into whatever I produced.

However, in the long process of making Heist I am proud to say that I too am now an activist and public interest journalist, truly believing in my heart that no American can afford to sit on the sidelines and allow a very small number of people to continue to destroy our middle class and democracy. As a result of the last 40 years of policy making in the U.S. a record number of Americans--nearly 1 in 2--have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. Those in positions of power to make change are disconnected from this reality and under the ruse of the mythical free market they have shamelessly turned their backs on millions of Americans.

It is up to us to force change through whatever talents we possess. Our greatest hope for Heist is that grass roots democracy groups will use our film as an educational tool to help bring about this critically needed social and economic change.