We have reached our funding goal for We Are Alive! The Fight To Save Braddock Hospital with sixteen days to go. THANK YOU EVERYBODY. The money pledged so far will be used to help cover the cost of post-production work. As I mentioned before post-production costs are real dollar costs and for We Are Alive! this would include the final sound mix, color correction, E&O insurance, DVD mastering and the first phase of our outreach campaign.  

We still could use additional funding. These funds will used for poster design,  silkscreening materials, publicity, study guide and film festival entry fees.

Thank you for helping us complete We Are Alive! The Fight To Save Braddock Hospital.

We are also excited to annnounce that Leslie Stem has agreed to design the poster and that posters will be printed at the Neighborhood Print Shop located in the historic Braddock Carnegie Library.

ABOUT THE FILM

We Are Alive! The Fight To Save Braddock Hospital is a documentary feature film about the fight for quality healthcare for all. It is about the fight residents from Braddock, Pennsylvania and the Mon-Valley waged against the ten billion dollar non-profit medical corporate giant University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to keep their community hospital, UPMC Braddock, open. This 'cinema verite' style documentary was shot over a 2 1/2 year period, from October 2009 to June 2012. The film follows the community from disbelief, to anger, to organizing, to taking it to the streets.

To produce a film like We Are Alive! would normally cost over one hundred thousand dollars. But because of the great support we received from the filmmaking community in the Pittsburgh region, we have kept our production costs low. Special thanks to Ron Turowski of Cool Attitude Films for use of his footage.

Braddock, one of the poorer communities in the Pittsburgh region, is surrounded by other communities who are as poor or poorer. Forty percent of area residents do not have an automobile or access to decent transportation. Braddock Hospital was a main source for healthcare in this part of the Mon-Valley. The hospital also served as a community center. The hospital was home to a YMCA, a chapel, the town's only restaurant, and comforting voices of nurses and doctors who everybody knew. The hospital employed 630 people, mostly local. Its emergency room served over 25,000 patients a year - a statistic that cannot be overlooked. Even if only one percent of the patients who went to the emergency room were in critical condition, that means the hospital saved 250 lives a year. 

UPMC claimed that the hospital was underutilized, but what UPMC really meant  was that the hospital was overutilized -  by the wrong people: the working poor, people with no insurance or inadequate health insurance. UPMC closed other hospitals in poor communities without a fight, but in Braddock the people did fight back. "We Are Alive!" celebrates this fight, the citizens of the Mon-Valley and the grassroots organization Save Our Community Hospitals (SOCH)  continuing battle for quality healthcare. 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

I have been making films about Braddock since 1972 and this will be my fourth feature. To see some of my short films and more detail about my work go to www.braddockfilms.com. My films have played at most of the major film festivals including Sundance and have aired on national television.of my work. Anthology Film Archives  in New York City recently had a retrsopective of my films which was reviewed in the New York Times. Some of you may know me from George Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Martin. I was the soundperson on both of these features.

Or from my role as the sombreo wearing motorcycle raider in Dawn of the Dead.

The editor and co-director of We Are Alive! is Tom Dubensky, another George Romero alumnus. Tom's credits as an editor are too numerous to mention here. Tom edited the remake of Night Of The Living Dead directed by Tom Savini and the award winning documentary Struggles In Steel.

STYLE OF THE FILM

Throughout my career as a filmmaker, I have always been interested in experimenting with the documentary form. We Are Alive! The Fight To Save Braddock Hospital combines the immediacy of 'cinema verite' style with live music performances to drive the story forward - eliminating the need for a narrator or a lot of talking heads. Performances by Mike Stout, Steve Pellegrino and Anne Feeney are featured. The link to Steve has nothing to do with this film, but I thought you might enjoy the video.

ALL OR NOTHING

For those who are new to Kickstarter, it is an all or nothing deal. If the goal of the project is not met by the completion date, then we do not get any funding. If by any chance this project is overfunded, we will use the extra funding for publicity, making a poster and upgradeing to a 5.1 soundmix and a HD cam master.

REWARDS

There are several unique rewards available if you donate to this project. One is a five DVD set of my films. This set would make a great gift for you, your family or friends. You can also mix and match. Say at the $500 level instead of taking an Associate Producer credit, you could ask for three DVD sets.

Another is a bonus reward for all Dawn Of The Dead fans. At the $25 level, I can add an autographed picture from DOTD.  Also Martin photos are available.

Finally, there is the pizza party for four. Enjoy antipasto, wine, and pizza baked in a woodfired brick oven at the director's home. If the weather cooperates, we could offer this award in November instead of waiting untill summer. Steve Pellegrino has promised to be there with his accordion to perform.

If you can't donate, then please spread the word about this film. If there are any questions contact me at www.braddockfilms.com. Thank you for your support. A longer version of the preview is available below.