Success Story
Filmmaker Marlo Poras was kind enough to share the following; a proposal that was successful in landing her funding from the LEF Moving Image Fund. Although the film didn't end up being produced, Poras was awarded the grant nonetheless, and was able to apply the funding to a different project.

Accompaniment to the article "Show Me the Grant Money"

Application for a Project Development Grant from the LEF Moving Image Fund
The Cambodian Deportee Project:  Project Narrative

By Marlo Poras

I am writing to request development funding for a new documentary film about the deportation of Cambodian-Americans which I am currently beginning to research.  I'm trying to meet as many potential subjects (individuals whose lives I'll follow) for the film as I can. I've met a few compelling people so far, but the story of one particular couple has already grabbed my interest.  I've outlined their story and my ideas for the film below.

Yutea was three years old when he and his parents fled to America seeking a safe haven from the murderous Khmer Rouge. Yutea and his family found a measure of freedom in the States, but the violence of the Cambodian genocide seemed to follow them. When Yutea was a teenager, thugs broke into his home and his father was killed trying to protect the family and their meager possessions. With no one to turn to for protection, Yutea joined a gang. When he was 18, he held up a bank and landed in a federal prison for five years. Because Yutea is not an American citizen, he was held for another 2 years in an INS detention center.

Yutea at age 30 looks at the green card that identifies him as a "Permanent Resident" and remembers when he believed those words meant he belonged in the only country he has ever known. But he has been told that he does not belong in America and that the years he spent in prison to pay for the crime he committed as a teenager, 12 years ago, count for nothing. Yutea and everyone who cares about him must pay again for that crime. Yutea has been banished from his home and family and sentenced to spend his life in exile in the country his parents risked their lives to escape from -- Cambodia; a country in which the lingering effects of the war and genocide they fled are inescapable.

Jacinda is Yutea's wife. A Los Angeles native, she is a passionate, articulate young woman who grew up with a black father and a white mother. She has no plans to abandon her husband and is determined to go with Yutea to Cambodia. There, they plan to begin their own family in one of the poorest countries on earth, where the average yearly income is $260. But first Jacinda has to tell her mother.

Yutea is one of approximately 1400 Cambodian-American non-US citizens waiting for their final deportation orders. Each one has been incarcerated for committing an aggravated felony (which includes shop lifting and drunk driving) or a felony.  Cambodia signed an agreement with the US last spring to allow these deportations.

The story of America is spun from the collective stories of all of the people who dared to make the dream of freedom a reality. Sometimes alone, sometimes en-masse, immigrants came with hopes of a better life for themselves and their children. The film will seek to address a number of questions, including: How does the fabric of America change when people who find freedom and a better life are sent back "home"?   How does deportation effect both the deportees and the international community's view of America?  What are the day to day and long term differences between living in the first and third worlds?  How can the deportees, their families and friends reconcile their feelings for both the country they fled and the country that sent them away?

I plan to chronicle Yutea and Jacinda's journey over the next couple of years, as they leave everyone and everything they hold dear, try to forge a new life for themselves, and begin their own family in a country where Yutea will be labeled as both a criminal and a "wealthy American"?  I hope to begin filming this summer or fall by trying to capture as much as I can of the life they are leaving behind in the States.  And then I'll follow Yutea and Jacinda to Cambodia (Yutea believes he'll be deported within the next ten months) and continue filming their lives for approximately two years.  The film will be an intimate portrait of Jacinda and Yutea, in the same style as MAI'S AMERICA, and will allow viewers to experience the couple's journey first-hand, as it happens.

Editing will start during production, hopefully by next winter/spring and will last until approximately six months after shooting ends (in late 2005).  While I believe the film would be a natural fit for PBS, and will attempt to get funding from ITVS and other grant organizations, I might also pitch the show to HBO.  I aim to raise money to develop a study guide for the film to compliment both outreach and educational distribution.  And I'll start gathering materials for the companion website for the film during production (Yutea and Jacinda's diaries, essays from people directly affected by deportation and from lawyers and academics).

The Center for Independent Documentary will be the fiscal sponsor for the project.  I've met with Cambodian community and youth leaders in Lowell and Long Beach, CA who will serve as advisors to the project.

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