D-Day Sacrifice

In the summer of 2003, John Munro swam 36 hours from Sackets Harbor, New York to Kingston, Ontario to help his wife, marathon swimmer Vicki Keith, raise money for the Kingston Family YMCA's adaptive program for children with disabilities.

Artist/Film Maker Jon Whitaker set out to explore the creation and purpose behind a 'Monument,' and soon found that this path would open his eye's to a history that is all to often readily forgotten, along with a group of people that would not except that fate.

This movie describes, with one hint after another, the daily life of a particular house, located on the outskirts of Quito, where 12 children and 12 adults live. For 6 years, they've all been experiencing a new life. It's the home of ill-treated or rejected children. In that house, children can start a new life and go back to their past, even if very short. They can restore ties with their parents, their family, so that one day, their return becomes possible. This is a film describing social ties and filial ties, which are fragile and almost invisible, except for the camera that tells, shots after shots, encounter after encounter, a whole weft of life.

What if people where able to grow their own vegetables and share them with others? In 2008 Kay & Frank Whatley wanted to make a difference in an economy where people where having to choose between buying food and paying their bills. This is the story of how Grow & Share started with this simple idea and grew it into a organization that brought communities together. You will meet the people whose lives were touched by Grow & Share and see how the organic process of growing food brings people together. This documentary follows the second year of Grow & Share from seeds to celebration.

Puppet is about a secret love between a German girl and an Iranian boy who use Sighe ( a kind of temporary marriage in Iran). and their love to be challenged by a middle aged woman because she understands that the girl doesn't know anything about the low of Sighe in Iran. Indeed Sighe is for divorced women and the boy didn't tell to her.

John Steinbeck was born near Chinatown in Salinas, California, a place where people of all races and nationalities gathered. He played there as a boy, even more so as a man, and its people inspired some of his best characters. I composed the music and sound for three Exhibitions at The National Steinbeck Center about the people who lived in or were touched by this place, inspired by stories as ancient as the spice trade, and as new as the great-grandchildren now being born to its elders. People of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican and mixed ancestry have been coming to the Monterey-Salinas area since the 1500s. The sounds and music they heard narrates their journey and this film.