NEW DAY FILMS BY
Mercedes Coats:

Producer's Web Site:
www.sweetheartaloha.com

MERCEDES COATS has directed and produced the award-winning documentaries Little Stars, about the unpredictable and challenging world of child actors, and Seoul II Soul, about a Korean/African-American family in post-riot Los Angeles (National PBS premiere presented by NAATA, Feb 2002). Her work has been seen on PBS, in educational video series for the California Science Center and others, and in family films and television seen on Showtime and distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures. She is the recipient of several awards and honors, including the Alfred P. Sloan Award, an Entertainment Weekly film scholarship, and the Women in Film/Paramount Pictures Crystal Award scholarship. Mercedes recently collaborated with her USC film school classmate, S. Leo Chiang, to make To You Sweetheart, Aloha which won the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in 2005. She earned her MFA in Film Production from USCs School of Cinema-Television in 1999, and holds a BA in Theatre from Occidental College.