LA LUTTA NEW MEDIA COLLECTIVE, INC.
La Lutta NMC, Inc. is a nonprofit organization based in New York City providing production support and technical assistance to groups that promote social justice, public art and community-based media. Founded in 1997 by Antonino D’Ambrosio, with a six-member board of directors, the organization produces documentary and independent films, develops performing and visual arts programs, and promotes grassroots activities to encourage progressive social change.

LA LUTTA NMC’S SCOPE
To date, La Lutta has provided assistance to more than 3,000 nonprofits, grassroots groups and individual artists and activists. La Lutta’s community-outreach database contains more than 70,000 members. Performing and visual arts events and community outreach activities organized by La Lutta have served about 50,000 audience members. Since 2001, the organization has screened at least 60 films by independent filmmakers and activists worldwide. Each year, the organization has offered internships for four to six youths, ages 14 to 18.

LA LUTTA NMC PROGRAMS
La Lutta NMC’s Technical Assistance Program (TAP), created in 1997, has provided new media support, information systems building and strategic planning resources for thousands of groups. They include the Brecht Forum, the Nation Magazine and Institute, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the New York Foundation, the Monthly Review magazine, the Taxi Workers Alliance, Paper Tiger Television, Konscious Media, the tenants’ advocates group Community Training and Resource Center, and El Puente, an alternative school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

La Lutta NMC produces and supports production of documentary and independent films that can be used for issue advocacy and movement building. Since 1997, La Lutta NMC has directed, photographed and shot more a half dozen films, and sponsored or co-produced films by at least a dozen films by grassroots and activist filmmakers.

The Visual Liberation Film/Talk Festival, created by La Lutta NMC, the Brecht Forum, and the Institute for Mass Communications in 2002, annually screens about 30 films, documentaries and shorts aimed at challenging cultural, historical and political representation. Screened at the Wesbeth Arts Center in the West Village, the annual summer festival has, to date, attracted more than 25,000 attendees.

La Lutta sponsors two internship programs to educate high school students in activist media, the Creative Activist in Residence (CARE) Program and the Active Youth Knowledge Program.

Additional La Lutta program activity includes producing media campaigns, fiscal sponsorship and fundraising support, graphic design, independent publishing, public art advocacy, and educational outreach.

SELECTED LA LUTTA NMC ACHIEVEMENTS
As a consultant to The Center for Court Innovation, a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York State Office of Court Administration, La Lutta created two documentary films about two alternative-to-incarceration programs. The films, focusing on drug courts and integrated domestic violence courts, are screened worldwide to promote models of alternative to incarceration.

In partnership with People-Link and the Institute for Mass Communication, La Lutta created the “The Road to a New Contract” campaign in 2002 to support 35,000 members of Transit Workers Union Local 100, during its contract negotiations with the City of New York. TWU leadership hired La Lutta to help develop the campaign, to build a Web site for TWU membership, and to produce two short documentaries focusing on contract issues, screened by members and the press.

La Lutta hosts ongoing community forums around issues of economic justice. For example, the organization sponsored the Fight Against Sweatshops, a series twelve community forums from 1997 to 1999, bringing together immigrant workers, union leadership, policy makers, local politicians, advocacy organizations and artists to create a dialogue about sweatshop labor to help cast a spotlight on abuses in the workplace.

In August 2000, La Lutta organized a performance event, “New York City Youth Respond To Police Brutality,” bringing together 30 youth advocacy and art and culture groups from around the city for a ten-hour performance event at Charas Community Center on the Lower East Side. The event resulted in the creation of a broad-based youth coalition to respond to police brutality and a youth watchdog group to monitor police misconduct in New York’s low-income communities.

Since April 2002, La Lutta has been a media consultant to the Movable Museum at the American Museum of Natural History, creating promotional materials for the department.

In 2002, La Lutta NMC became the Film Programmer for the Brecht Forum.

In 2003, began work as technology consultant to the Central Park Conservancy.

In 2004, La Lutta worked with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to design a youth immigrant education multimedia program, “The Immigrant Experience.”

In 2004, La Lutta designed a media campaign for Harold Holzer, Senior Vice President of External Affairs for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 2005, La Lutta continues to expand its global reach. Director Matt Pascarella participated in the World Social Forum in Brazil, and La Lutta sponsored photographer Lila Lee on her trip to Indonesia to document the devastating impact of the tsunami. La Lutta director Antonino D’Ambrosio has lectured on art, culture and the politics of social change throughout the U.S. and in New York. He has been invited to lecture in Rome, Italy.

DOCUMENTARY AND INDEPENDENT FILM PRODUCTION
“Piccolo Coli,” documentary directed by Antonino D’Ambrosio, in pre-production

“Desapericidos,” documentary directed by Antonino D’Ambrosio, in production

“Saffarrian,” documentary directed by Matthew Nicolau, in post-production

“Freedom Demo,” directed by Antonino D’Ambrosio, in post-production

“Machetero,” independent film directed by Vagabond, released 12/04

“Integrated Domestic Violence Court,” documentary for the Center of Court Innovation, 11/04

“The Treatment Court Story,” documentary for the Center for Court Innovation, 5/03

“The Contract and Beyond,” documentary for the Transit Workers Union, 10/03

“The Road to the Contract,” documentary for Transit Workers Union, 9/03

“Back in the Days,” produced in association with book of the same name, 2/00

“Once There Was a Village,” produced in association with book by Yuri Kaprolov, 9/98

LA LUTTA NMC GRANTS AND AWARDS
F.B. Heron Foundation, Special Needs Grant 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
Nation Institute Developmental Grant for Dispatch Alternative Media Project, 2001

Nation Institute Investigative Fund Grant, 1997, 1998, 2000
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Art Development Fund Grant, 2001

Pfizer Family Foundation Community Media Grant, 1997, 1998, 1999
Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields Office, Borough Needs Grant, 1998

LA LUTTA NMC ACCOLADES
The New York Times, called La Lutta’s programs “…heroic work, creating true democracy,” 9/01
The Nation selected as one of the “Top 25 Independent Media Organizations,” 1/02
Clamor Magazine, called La Lutta “innovative, empowering, fresh and hip,” 6/02
Get Underground, an online news source, called La Lutta “a worthwhile revolution,” 09/02

TECHNICAL SKILLS PROVIDED

Streaming Audio/Video; Final Cut Pro; DVD Pro; Windows (98, 2000, NT, XP) and Mac (OS 9 and X) operating systems; Novell NetWare; MS NT/2000 Server and Workstation; MS Office (97, 2000, XP) and Corel Suite; Multi-relational databases (FileMaker, SQL, PHP, CGI); Internet administration (TCP/IP, DSL); Remote access technologies; HTML, XHTML, JAVA Script, ASP; Macromedia Studio, MS Frontpage, PhotoShop, Illustrator, QuarkXpres.