NEW DAY FILMS BY
Theresa Tollini:

Breaking Silence

Still Missing

Stories of Change

Theresa Tollini chose to study filmmaking after working in a graphic design company and realizing the limits of still pictures and text. She enrolled in a two year cinema studies program taught at San Francisco City College. Her teachers were filmmakers that had first hand experience of producing and distributing independent films. In 1977 she entered San Francisco State University.

After several years of working on student films, public service announcements, commercials, industrials, documentaries and independent feature films, Theresa founded Future Educational Films, Inc., a non-profit organization, to produce an hour-long documentary on incest and child sexual abuse, entitled Breaking Silence. The idea for this film grew out of a conversation Theresa had with a police officer who investigated cases of crimes against children. Theresa and the officer were stunned by the number of children who were victims of incest and enraged by a justice system that failed to recognize them. Breaking Silence was funded by 25 organizations and produced over a four year period. Breaking Silence has garnered numerous awards, was televised nationally on PBS and has been subtitled for international television. Theresa self-distributed Breaking Silence to educational institutions nationwide for a number of years before joining New Day Films.

Following Breaking Silence, Theresa made Stories of Change, a documentary film profiling four ethnically diverse women who surmount substance abuse, illiteracy, and cultural barriers. Stories was funded by 26 organizations and took four years to produce. Stories has shown in many film festivals, winning a Blue Ribbon (first place) in the American Film and Video Festival and a Bronze Apple from the National Educational Film & Video Festival. Stories was nationally broadcast on PBS and was subtitled in two native languages for Canadian Broadcasting. Stories of Change is also being distributed by New Day Films.

Theresa recently completed a documentary film on the stranger abduction of children, entitled Still Missingand is raising funds for a documentary film about the work of humane societies, entitled Humane Beings. Outside of her own work, Theresa works as a Director or Associate Producer on corporate, industrial and documentary films.