NEW DAY FILMS BY
Cynthia Mondell:

Beauty in the Bricks

The Teen Years: War or Peace

Who Remembers Mama?

Producer's Web Site:
www.mediaprojects.org

Cynthia Salzman Mondell is an independent filmmaker who is committed to making films and videos that she feels have something to say about the world she lives in.

Her first documentary on housing and the lack of it, Promise and Practice, aired on public television in l977. She then teamed up with Allen Mondell to form Media Projects, a non-profit production and distribution organization. They have since produced over thirty documentary films and educational videos. Some of their work includes: Beauty in the Bricks, a positive portrait of four African-American teenage girls growing up in an urban housing project; West of Hester Street, about Jewish immigration to America in the early 1900's; Who Remembers Mama?, about the emotional, economic and legal problems facing displaced homemakers; The Henderson Avenue Bug Patrol, an environmental film for children combining live-action and animation as it follows a group of neighbor-hood kids uncovering a mystery in their own backyards; and SMACKER$: Elementary Entrepreneurs, a film teaching children the value of money and how it can be made.

The Mondells wrote, produced and directed Films from the Sixth Floor, six films on the life, death and legacy of John F. Kennedy for the Dallas County Historical Foundation's permanent exhibit, The Sixth Floor Museum. Two million people have viewed these films at the former Texas School Book Depository.

In the summer of 1993, they completed a film about women's rights for the National Park Service's National Women's Rights Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York. It is a film that she feels represents the issues and ideas that she strongly believes in and has struggled with in every stage of her life. The film will be seen by every visitor to the park. Cynthia says the film, Dreams of Equality, is supposed to make the "beer belly" gentleman as well as the enlightened feminist re-examine the every day issues in their lives and re-think how society values women.

She and Allen completed in early 1993 another docu-drama that aired on commercial television--Channel 8 in Dallas. Guts, Gumption and Go-Ahead: Annie Mae Hunt Remembers is the poignant story of a feisty 83-year-old African American woman who re-defines the word "independent." The film shows how self-esteem and skills enabled one woman to change her life around. She and Allen also produced Beauty Leaves the Bricks, a follow-up to a 1980 film about what happened to four black teenagers who grew up in a housing project. In 1994, they completed a biography-documentary of a woman's life. Thinking Like a Woman spans the years in the life of cosmetic entrepreneur Mary Kay Ash from 1920 to today.

They have also produced several educational videos about violence prevention, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and parenting. These videos, including Handguns: Made for Killing, Not for Kids, A Wasted Breath: Kids on Inhalants and Smokeless Tobacco: A Spittin' Image, have reached young people across the country and the world.

Currently Cynthia is completing a documentary about Jewish matchmaking. She is also in production for a short film about women comedians, which will be part of The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future in Dallas, Texas. Finally, in response to the growing problem of kids using heroin, she and Allen have just completed a new educational video, Heroin Kids: Dying for Help.

Just some of the awards and festivals that have honored the Mondell's work have been the CINE Golden Eagle, American Film Festival, Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, Jerusalem Film Festival, FILMEX-Los Angeles, National Educational Film Festival in San Francisco, The Jewish Film Festival, the USA Film Festival in Dallas, Houston International Film Festival and The Birmingham Film Festival and the Women In Communications' Matrix Award. She is also active in the American Jewish Committee.