Journey to Peace – a documentary in production:

There are moments in life, defining moments, where we are confronted with a challenge we feel is larger than ourselves – larger than our experience – larger than our understanding – but a challenge so compelling it can't be ignored. In these moments, our character is defined – not by the challenge itself, but in how we respond.

Max Cerda, a Mexican-American living in Chicago, Illinois is struggling against a flood of violence. Max's defining moment came in prison, where he was incarcerated having succumbed to the violence that surrounded him. As a 16-year-old gang member, he participated in retaliation violence that resulted in the death of the young man who killed Max’s best friend.

While in solitary confinement, Max realized that the violence had to stop. After 19 years in prison, he now devotes his life to preventing neighborhood violence. Journey to Peace will document Max's work as a “violence interrupter” and the formation of the Latino Cultural Exchange Coalition (LCEC), a grass-roots effort in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to stop violence through street-level outreach.

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For decades, differing Latino gangs have fought for identity and control of the turf in Humboldt Park. The LCEC, originally formed to bring peace behind prison walls, is made up of former gang members from various gangs. Each is committed to helping youth stop the violence that they themselves perpetuated when they were young. Now, when conflict threatens, as Max explains, he “steps in the middle and just starts talking.”

Members of LCEC walk a razor's edge of credibility between their former gangs, local police and the youth with whom they work. Journey to Peace will chronicle the attempt to reduce violence in Humboldt through the frustrations, dangers and potential victories that Max encounters in his own journey.

In Journey to Peace we will experience the optimal response in the face of a defining moment. Through Max's story, it will become clear that as his world began to change – our world began to change. We can embrace peace in the face of conflict, we can answer violence with non-violence, and we can speak out even when no tangible results are seen. Max's story makes it abundantly clear that we all have the opportunity to resist the status quo and we can change both the way we interact in the world and as a result, the world in which we live.

Journey to Peace is currently in post-production .

 

Mrakulous Media Arts Group

3550 N. Lake Shore Drive #1426 Chicago, Illinois 60657

P (773) 528-8341 F (773) 528-8326 email: journeytopeace@gmail.com

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