From Bogota to Beverly Hills

When the Spanish-language short En Tus Manos (In Your Hands) screens June 12th at the DeadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City, it will mark a triumphant return for locally based producers Brent Green and Jeff Goldberg, co-founders of non-profit Toy Gun Films. Since debuting in OKC in January, the dramatic tale of one Columbian man's struggle with a drug gang initiation task has played festivals in Cartagena, Puerto Rico, Erie, PA, Newport Beach, CA and most recently Beverly Hills, where it won Best Actor (Santiago Diaz) and tied for Best Short. En Tus Manos has also just been accepted into the New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF).


Among those recruited by Green and Goldberg for last fall's Bogota shoot were commercial director Ron Jacobs, cinematographer Tom Marvel (music videos for Lil' Wayne, Tom Petty, and more), actress Paulina Gaitan (Sin Nombre) and screenwriter Oscar Torres (Innocent Voices). Toy Gun Films is working closely with Columbian schools, churches and community groups to screen En Tus Manos locally and will begin production in June in Japan on a second short, directed by Green, about the phenomenon there known as "compensated dating."

[En Tus Manos, Toy Gun Films]