Whew! This year’s Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBoston) was a whirlwind, with so many amazing feature films, shorts, and appearances by filmmakers, cast, and crew. It was really inspiring to meet so many talented people and hear them answer questions about their craft, their creative process, and current and future projects.  The festival had great energy, with screening rooms packed with enthusiastic audiences and an incredible staff of volunteers to keep things running smoothly.

I had so much fun documenting the festival, not to mention getting to see lots of great films. Some of my personal favorites: Sleepwalk With Me, by Mike Birbiglia; Julia Delpy’s 2 Days in New York; One Night Stand, a documentary about the 24 Hour Musicals project; Lauren Greenfield’s Queen of Versailles; and the incredible short film Mondays at Racine by Cynthia Wade.

Check out a gallery of my images from the week here; and make sure to come out to next year’s IFFBoston!

Gerardo Ortiz (left) and Isaac Hodes refused to leave the Chase Homeownership Center on Wednesday evening, demanding to talk to a Chase representative about Ortiz’s case (more on the Ortiz case below). Outside, a crowd of around 100 from Lynn United for Change, the Chelsea City-Wide Tenants Association, Springfield No One Leaves, City Life/Vida Urbana, and community allies rallied in support. Both Ortiz and Hodes were arrested.

The Ortiz family is just one of three families at the rally who are facing eviction by Chase even though a nonprofit lender has offered to facilitate the repurchase of their homes at current market value. See more pictures from the rally here.

Gerardo and Blanca Ortiz bought their 2-family Framingham home 8 years ago.  In 2008, due to temporary loss of income and family medical problems, they were at risk of falling behind on their mortgage. They hired a lawyer to help negotiate a modification, but the most they were offered was a reduction of $12 per month on their payments. In the end, their house was foreclosed on September 8, 2010. In November 2011 Boston Community Capital made a market rate offer to purchase the house, but Chase has turned down the offer and is moving to evict the Ortiz family. They will go to housing court on May 3 to fight the eviction.

Tonight was opening night at the 10th annual Independent Film Festival Boston! I’m excited to be working with the Festival to help document this year’s movies and events, and tonight was a special treat: opening night featured Mike Birbiglia’s hilarious  new film, Sleepwalk With Me, followed by a Q&A with none other than Ira Glass! Stay tuned for more images from the Festival over the next few days — can’t wait!

From their website: “Feast Mass is a recurring dinner party in Boston. During the night, people present proposals for creative, community-based projects that need funding. Everyone votes, and the winner receives a grant funded entirely from the night’s ticket sales.”

Feast #6 was hosted at 549 Columbus, our new studio space in the South End, and it was a full house and a great night, with over 100 people and 11 proposals for awesome community projects. I had fun putting together this quick video to give you a taste of the evening; check it out, and check out Feast’s website to learn more about them and come out to a future event!

The big winner of the night was Alaina Gurdak who presented about the Big Class Boston project — hoping to post more on that soon, so stay tuned…

I’ll have a video coming soon that will fill in more of the story, but in the meantime, you can check out some photos from the project in this gallery. Stay tuned!

For those of you not familiar with Shelterforce, it’s a great housing and community development magazine put out by the National Housing Institute. From their site: “For more than three decades, Shelterforce has been a primary forum for organizers, activists, and advocates in the affordable-housing and neighborhood revitalization movements…We are dedicated to providing the tools (information, analysis, resources) for advocates, activists, and community members to organize their communities, rebuild their neighborhoods, and create decent housing and living-wage jobs for the families who live there.”

The article does a great job of illustrating the ground-breaking work CL/VU is doing to keep people in their homes by fighting evictions after foreclosure. Check out the article, and to learn more or get involved with City Life/Vida Urbana, check out their website: www.clvu.org.

This month I’m partnering with Springfield No One Leaves/Nadie Se Mude to transform a vacant commercial space in downtown Springfield into a community-inspired gallery. In addition to work from my on-going project We Shall Not Be Moved, this collaborative exhibit will feature images and video by local media-makers who have been documenting the growing anti-foreclosure movement in Springfield and western Massachusetts.

Where: 176 Worthington Street, Springfield
When: November 21–December 18
Gallery hours: Wed 11-2, Sat 12-5, and by appointment

Opening Reception: December 2, 5-8 pm
The reception will feature testimonies from members of the Springfield No One Leaves/Nadie Se Mude Bank Tenant Association. Program begins at 6 pm. Join us for a great evening!