Savi shows us where she slept last summer. With Connor. 2010
AMERICA’S MOST UNWANTED is a video project focusing on LGBT foster youth who have emancipated and what their current lives look like. This inspirational expose will inspire empty-nesters to become foster parents, politicians to change policy and foster youth supporters to feel empowered!
The DVD will be ready to launch in January, 2012 with the official release after Teruko Dobashi’s graduation from Cal Berkeley in May, 2012. All DVDs prior to this will not include the extras component with her graduation.
Baba with Skateboard, 2010.
Digital Downloads will be available soon! To book a screening, find out more, or to book an interview about the film:
Contact the Director HERE: fosteryouthfilm@gmail.com
Click HERE to listen to former foster youth Fresh White & Shani Heckman speak to the difficulties for LGBT foster youth specifically on this radio broadcast w/ KBOO
Listen to this song by HuggyB made for AMERICA’S MOST UNWANTED, called “foster youth RISE ON UP” .. it will get your feet moving and your heart pumping!
LOGLINE:
A tale of endearment, AMERICA’S MOST UNWANTED (AMU) provides a candid glimpse into the lives of LGBT foster youth filtered through a lens of hope. Directed, shot and edited by a former foster youth for her Master’s degree in film production, the film represents an important milestone for foster youth achievement.
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Through interviews, vérité footage, and digital stills, AMU reveals four queer[LG1] former foster youth building their lives after emancipation from state care. With a three-act structure, AMU follows Connor, Savi, and Teruko over their first four years after foster care, juxtaposing these stories with those of Valerie, a successful adult former foster youth. Over the course of the film, we witness these youth in their natural environments, involved in making art, taking care of children and playing instruments in jazz bands. Just like youth outside of the foster care system, AMU’s characters have many talents too, and dreams and hopes to change their futures,
The characters’ resiliency, humor and sensitivity are illustrated by their incredible insights into their own identities and experiences as revealed in intimate interviews in the film. Together, these multi-generational stories illuminate the common struggle for queer foster youth to overcome tremendous obstacles – homophobia, homelessness, isolation – and the new place of strength they reach in this process of survival.
Already ‘unwanted’ as foster youth, LGBT foster youth frequently experience additional harassments in their foster care placements, and many are placed in care because their biological families do not support their identities. More often than not, we take these queer youth from homophobic, abusive homes and put them in even more hostile situations.
As we witness these youth’s lives juxtaposed with success stories from other survivors of foster care, AMU challenges to eradicate the stigma of foster youth in society. The film promotes respect for those coming out of the system and calls upon viewers to take action in caring for America’s queer foster youth, ideally inspiring empty-nesters to become foster parents.
We hope that a unique connection will be created from these candid interviews that will inspire LGBT adults and their allies to become foster parents and change the negative stigma placed on foster youth.
