From street to screen: Menlo Park filmmaker tackles female homelessness in upcoming documentary

Local resident Laura Ferro aims to shine a light on the plight of unhoused pregnant women. Laura Ferro, a Menlo Park director making a documentary about women who are homeless and pregnant in the Bay Area, is photographed in Menlo Park on Jan. 12. Photo by Magali Gauthier. Menlo Park resident Laura Ferro is raising funds for a project to complete a documentary she is directing about women who are homeless and ...

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Peninsula talent shines bright on the international stage at this year’s United Nations Association Film Festival

Annual documentary festival goes all-virtual for 2020, featuring local and international stories by Peter Canavese “Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani” profiles the late Stanford University mathematician. (Image via UNAFF) Even in a global pandemic, the nonprofit United Nations Association Film Festival endures, presenting entirely online this year (its 23rd) a program of 60 documentaries over 11 days, beginning Oct. 15. UNAFF Founder and Executive Director Jasmina Bojic continues to think ...

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The Stanford alum behind Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma” wants you to stop scrolling

Jeff Orlowski’s must-watch doc is an urgent wakeup call for a nation consumed by technology (Screenshot from The Social Dilemma via Netflix) Jeff Orlowski’s must-watch doc is an urgent wakeup call for a nation consumed by technology Director Jeff Orlowski (Chasing Ice; Chasing Coral) spent the better part of his early film career focused on the fossil fuel industry: amazed by the vast power its executives wielded, horrified by the consequences it was ...

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15 Bay Area-focused documentaries to watch during the shutdown

Meet the locals who would die for Mavericks, kidnap for revolution and rob banks for Batkid via these stranger-than-fiction docs. (Image via Getty) We get it. These days you want to escape reality. When your routine takes on the repetition of Groundhog Day and you feel trapped in the same day over and over, it’s tempting to check out. Why settle for the banality of reality, when fiction offers 31 flavors of larger-than-life? Whether it’s ...

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