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 CARISSA (23 minutes) USA Director/Producer: David Sauvage Description: Years ago, Carissa was abandoned in the lobby of the juvenile hall in Fresno. She ran away from group homes and ended up on the streets. Homeless and alone, she begged and stole to feed herself. Foster care ignored her. The juvenile justice system failed her. With no one to turn to, she was taken to "Motel Drive," a street in Fresno known for prostitution, and told what to do. She was twelve years old. Amazingly, Carissa turned her life around. She graduated from UCLA with both a law degree and an MBA. Today she is a national spokesperson on the issue of youth homelessness for Virgin Mobile's RE*Generation campaign. She is also starting a nonprofit foundation and developing a fund for community economic development in Fresno. Biography: David Sauvage, director/producer, was a classmate of Carissa's at UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he focused on entertainment and entrepreneurship. A graduate of Columbia University, he has written and produced several plays in New York and Los Angeles. Cheyenne was named a Top 10 Play of the Year by Frontier Newsmagazine; The Burning House earned a rave from The Hollywood Reporter. David also wrote a short film entitled Artifact, which has been accepted to numerous film festivals. While Carissa is David's first documentary, he grew up around documentary filmmaking. His father, Pierre Sauvage, is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker in his own right and has worked with David as an advisor on the project. Contact Information: David Sauvage Tenth Street Films 8217 Blackburn Ave., #2 Los Angeles, CA 90048 E-mail: dsauvage@gmail.com Web site: http://www.carissaproject.com/ |
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