Award-winning documentary film-maker, Tara Veneruso’s newest project, RISK: At-Risk Girls Behind the Camera, launches into production this June in Kansas City and St. Joseph Missouri. She will explore the question, “What are the pressures of being a teenage girl today?” Ms. Veneruso’s look at teenage girls participating in a summer film-making program will observe girls from different races, cultures, and socio-economic conditions from the Kansas City and St. Joseph areas as they create movies that tell their own personal stories. The audience we will get to watch the students learn how to tell their stories on film through workshops with Ms. Veneruso and her colleagues, such as John Serpentelli who specializes at working with at-risk youth through his company Animation Stewdio, whose work has been featured and commissioned by HBO Kids, Nickelodeon, and the up-coming Discovery Kids Network. Risk, a new film, in the style of popular documentaries such as Mad Hot Ballroom, Our Town, and Spellbound further describes the difficulties and woes of being a teen in today’s society. The film will also include Veneruso’s personal journey to becoming a film director despite being an at-risk girl herself. “A single teacher reached out to me when I was 15 and taught me it was fantastic that I was different and that I could make a positive difference in the world regardless of the negative and horrible things I had experienced in my life. This film will capture this experience with a new group of girls and hopefully encourage the audience to reach out to teenagers who need our support and guidance.” Production Dates: production for Risk: At-Risk Girls Behind the Camera begins June 11th, 2007 and will complete principal photography July 10th, 2007. The film will be released in early 2008. Director, Tara Veneruso is a graduate of NYU (Tisch School of the Arts-Film Directing), Tara Veneruso began her directing career with the award-winning and internationally distributed documentary JANIS JOPLIN SLEPT HERE (1994). Many films and music videos have followed, screening at film festivals and museums around the world. All of the movies directed by Veneruso have been picked up for distribution. Fueling her interest in digital features and emerging technologies, Veneruso served as a consultant for Next Wave Films, a company of The Independent Film Channel. She has edited MTV/VH-1 top-ten music videos, shows for Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet and two documentaries for New Line Cinema’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS - TWO TOWERS Special Extended DVD edition. Based in Los Angeles, Veneruso currently directs films as well as music videos and documentaries for bands including Spoon, Fastball, Rufus Wainwright, Mojave 3, and The Idaho Falls. The Director’s short film SIDEWALKERS, distributed by Warner Bros. Home Video, was an official selection at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Gen Art, and the Hamptons International Film Festival and other festivals. She is in production on her newest short, A NEW DAY (UN NUEVO DÍA), which is being shot in Mexico City through the end of 2006. Veneruso serves as an expert on digital filmmaking for panels, universities, and film fests including Sundance, Los Angeles Film Festival, SXSW, and AFI Film Festival. She has also spoken at the Ireland Film Centre, German Digitale, and in Seoul, South Korea, providing news and insights from the front lines of the digital revolution. She has taught courses at UCLA Extension on DV filmmaking and has written articles for Filmmaker, Sight and Sound, Film Ireland, IndieWire, and has contributed to Scientific American Magazine.