RISK: At-Risk Girls Behind The Camera

2008 Spring Update from Director Tara Veneruso

Dear Team, Girls, and Website Guests:

I am so grateful that 2007 is past us finally. It was literally the most difficult year of my life. The greatest part of the year was working on my feature film “Girls Behind the Camera”. The worst part was the numerous health issues I faced including a massive surgery in February to get a metal pump and then finding out I nearly did myself in on my film because I didn’t know I was suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis – a very lame name for something extremely serious – your immune system and white cells are basically at war and attacking my own self. I couldn’t walk up 1 stair by August, 2007 and it’s taken me until February 6, 2008 to receive proper treatment for it. I’m now finally starting to have my old energy back and now I can tackle more than two things in one day. It’s certainly been a battle and I really fought to not let down any of the girls in our project.

My biggest job these past 5 months has been working to raise the funds to shoot the reunion and June 6 day shoot to do follow-ups with the girls. It takes a lot longer than we want to make the funds required! I’ve also been hard at work setting up the blog for our girls at Girls Behind the Camera. I am still searching for a few of our participants that I fell out of touch with. I really want to see everyone again when we come out in late April for a reunion. We are in the planning stages right now.

Also, we’ll be sending each girl their DVDs out in the next 2 weeks and we’ve considered sending a few off to a film festival or two. If you have not been in touch with us and you were in our program in any capacity please drop me a line so we can include you in upcoming events.

There are so many great things we’ve been working on that I want to share with you. I’ve no idea where I found the energy to do even one of these but here goes: We began a new audio podcast on moviesbywomen.com. It’s a lot like a radio show with 4 hosts. We have a lot of fun and teach our listeners about making films. We also started our blog at http://blog.moviesbywomen.com which is a companion to the podcasts.

This project made a huge difference in my own life. It gave me the will to live when things seemed very grim in August, 2007. I love the girls in our project truly from my heart and I can’t wait to see them soon!

-Tara Veneruso, Director “RISK: At-Risk Girls Behind the Camera”