Short documentary film, With Love, brings to life the story of a foster family in Chicago.

Executive Summary 

For the third year, Association House of Chicago has partnered with our film production team to produce a short documentary about one of the programs that exist within the nonprofit. That short documentary aids in fundraising, grant writing, nonprofit strategy, marketing efforts and advocate networks that lobby for change. With Love follows the Venegas family on their foster journey with humor, fart jokes and lots and lots of love.

Challenges + BTS Photos 

The film is co-created with the family and the community. We worked closely with the team at AHC and the community to make sure our story was rooted authentically. The Foster Care system is complex and has a host of problematic systemic issues. That web was the topic of many discussions on how to talk about a system that both helps and harms. In addition, our foster family was in the middle of an adoption process. The rules for talking about the kids were strict and for good reason. Consent to tell the story was nuanced. Our team offered two cuts of the film at no additional cost to the client to make sure that we were in integrity in protecting the narrative for the kids. We felt strongly that to exclude one child from the production would do more harm than good. Filming is a lot of fun and seeing themselves removed from the process could cause additional trauma. So we worked to create an environment that included all the children in filming but gave us options to remove the likeness of one of them for legal reasons. To make sure the family could celebrate each other, we provided film stills for them to add to their albums. In production we made the filming as fun and easy as possible. We played with the family and the results shine on film. We produced both cuts for the client to navigate the adoption process with the lawyers. In the end, we got permission to use the full cut and we credit the process of storytelling for that success.

We centered our story on the foster parents as a way to protect the narratives of the children. Should they come back to the film some time in the future, when they can give consent to the full telling of their own stories, we wanted them to have that option. We called out the imperfect systems. We attempted to present community empowerment versus a solo savior story and we did not shy away from the beauty and the trauma of a foster family. As Jessica says in the film, "Adoption is both the most beautiful and the most traumatic day in a foster child's life."

How our services were used

Our client utilizes our script to screen production in addition to our community facilitation. We spend time with the community before any cameras come out. This ensures that our stories are told with integrity and patience. We also donated two films in-kind for the event that celebrate awards given to the community. We are very selective about in-kind work and were excited to offer that to the AHC community this year.

Results, Return on Investment and Future Plans 

The film aided in fundraising well over Association House's goals for their annual gala. The family in the film spoke at the event after the film screened. Our film team was so proud when they came up to us afterwards and said how touched they were by their portrayal. How it felt like them. That is the highest praise of our work. We hope to submit this project for future awards and see it aid in bringing awareness and change to a system badly in need of reform.

Team: Writer, Director Melissa Fox. DP Brian Carey and Codi Palm. Editor George Medina. Award film editors: Codi Palm and Connor Goodrich