Screenings, spring and summer 2015

"Domino" will screen in a film festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June of this year (2015).  We will also present it in San Francisco on August 22, in the Mission Cultural Center.  That screening will be accompanied by a flamenco dance by prize-winning dancer "la Tania."

Past screenings include the world release in Jerez de la Frontera on June 20, 2014 (sponsored by the city of Jerez de la Frontera - through its Del. de Tourismo y Cultura - with support from Bodega Gonzalez-Byass - Tío Pepe) and the American release on Jan. 28, 2015 (sponsored by the City of San Francisco - through its Arts & Culture Commission;  the Rialto Cinemas Cerrito;  and the City of Richmond - through its Arts & Culture Commission).

It also screened in the Oakland International Film Festival on April 5, 2015.  Here's a LINK to its schedule in the festival.

FOR MORE, GO TO PalominoPro.blogspot.com

We've decided to consolidate our blogs.  For more about "Domino" and our other projects, please go to our general blog, the Palomino Productions blog at http://PalominoPro.blogspot.com.

Threat of unemployed losing food stamps

On Dec. 2, 2013, USA Today ran this story about the likelihood of millions of people in this country losing both food stamps AND unemployment benefits shortly after Christmas: LINK

Unemployed in Spain and U.S.

Unemployed waiting in line in Spain. Just a few months ago, this could have been Chicago, or New York, or San Francisco!

Gap widens between rich and poor in U.S.

The plight of the ordinary individual is related to the huge and growing gap between the rich, and everyone else. This article published by USA Today in March of 2014 proposes that, instead of looking at the gap between the income of the top 1% and that of the average family (a gap of 41 to 1), we should look at the annual income of the top .1%, whose income is 206 times greater than that of the average family. LINK

Long-term unemployment in the United States

According to an article that ran in the Washington Post at the end of September, 2013, some 4.1 million people in the United States had been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks.  These people are now known as "long-term unemployed."  On Dec. 2, USA Today, using a slightly different standard (6 months rather than 27 weeks) gave the same figure for "long-term unemployed," and noted that many of them had also lost their ability to purchase food stamps on Nov. 1 when that program was cut back.

On Dec. 28, at least a quarter of these long-term jobless will lose their unemployment benefits unless Congress takes action to extend existing programs.  And nearly a million more are slated lose them between January and March.

What will happen to these people?

In "Domino," our unemployed hero tries pawning the family's jewelry.

Well, one of the first things that happens is you try to get help from other family members, and from close friends.  But if you've been out of work for six months or more, chances are that you will already have gone that route and there won't be much help available.

Next thing is you pawn the family's jewelry, take whatever odd job you can find, and try to downsize, but again, you've probably already done all of those things.

Next thing that can easily happen is - you become homeless.

And you become part of an increasingly vicious cycle.  If you're homeless, it's much harder to get a job.  Harder for you to spruce yourself up for a job interview.  Harder for you to have an address to give to a potential employer.  Harder for you to afford a cell phone so that a potential employer can contact you for an interview.

And harder for you to have the frame of mind you need, when and if you can line up a job interview.

Is it right for us to simply push these people, and this problem, aside?  I think not.

And that is the point of my film Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.  We need to really understand what these people are going through, so that we will help find solutions.  It is morally, socially, and economically wrong to throw in the towel on millions of our fellow citizens, on millions of our fellow human beings.

One scene re-shot, then WRAP!

I decided that one earlier scene was a little thin, so we re-shot it. Same actors, same location, with changes in the dialogue and the action. There are a few photos below from the re-shoot. And that was the last of the shooting for "Domino." The editing has also been completed, meaning that we are, as of November 2013, at rough cut stage. The technicians need to go over the sound and the image to correct errors, and then it will be done. I think by the end of 2013, we'll officially have a completed film.

Above is Luis (played by Antonio de la Malena) earning some extra cash by moving furniture for a neighbor. Guess who the furniture belonged to - the widow. But Luis doesn't know.

Here is Luis asking the neighbor what he needs to do next.

Finally, in the very last scene we shot (but not the final scene of the movie), here is the hard-working crew working hard.