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Logline

Barrio Television uncovers the story of fearless activists who disrupted a public television pledge drive in 1972—demanding airtime for “Realidades,” the first bilingual Latino public affairs series to air nationwide. As political backlash and corporate influence threatened to cancel and erase it, its creators—and a new generation of filmmakers—fight to reclaim a revolutionary vision of public media.

Synopsis

The film follows the recovery of a nearly forgotten television movement through the people who created it. As a photographer develops long-unseen negatives, filmmakers revisit places that shaped them, and elders encounter work they believed lost forever, the film transforms archival discovery into a present-day act of reunion. Today, as media power concentrates and institutions retreat from their commitments to equity, BARRIO TELEVISION asks: how do we tend to our communities through storytelling, and guard memory when it teeters on the edge of erasure?
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Christina DiPasquale – Writer/Director/Producer
Christina DiPasquale is a filmmaker and storyteller focused on advancing a more just and participatory media. Christina produced several short films for the Youth First Initiative, Public Welfare Foundation, and Alliance for Safety and Justice, including Demand More and Jim Crow Juvenile Justice. She has led publicity and social impact campaigns for films including Dirty Wars, XYChelsea, When Elephants Fight, and Unmanned. She is a 2022 NALIP Latino Media Market fellow and alumna of the UnionDocs Early Production Lab 2022. Her archival research has been recognized and elevated by the Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting, and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Christina is a senior fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Burn Independent Video Archive and America’s Voice.

Kristofer Ríos – Producer
Kristofer Ríos is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist from New York City. He’s dedicated his career to telling narratives of communities underrepresented or misrepresented in the media. He produced documentary features SCIENCE FAIR (National Geographic) and HAVANA SKATE DAYS (Univision). As a journalist, he’s covered immigration and social justice issues; producing investigative news documentaries for HBO Max, Hulu, The New York Times, The Guardian, and most recently ASYLUM for ABC News Documentaries; a film about two fathers from Honduras seeking refuge in the U.S. Kristofer was the co-director and co-executive producer of MENUDO: FOREVER YOUNG and producer on the upcoming National Geographic docuseries SCIENCE FAIR: THE SERIES. Kristofer is a 2023 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and his work has been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Livia Perini Borraje – Cinematographer
Livia Perini Borraje is a filmmaker who has produced, shot, and edited short films and TV shows for MTV Brazil, HBO Latin America, Food Network, and more. Documentary shorts that she filmed and edited have appeared on CNN, Newsweek, VH1, New York Times Op-Docs and Yahoo Mexico. Livia’s short film Cor de Pele (2018) won the Brazilian Film Academy Award’s Best Short Documentary Prize in 2019 and more than 20 awards worldwide. She is directing the documentary feature Presente!, currently in production, with support from The Sundance Film Institute and Women Make Movies. Livia was a North Star Fellowship Fellow in 2021 and Latino Media Market Fellow in 2022. She holds degrees in journalism, advanced cinematography and digital TV from University Metodista and New York University.

Dita Gruze – Editor
Dita Gruze-Evarts is an award-winning documentary film editor, focused on stories of social importance. Her work has screened at Sundance, Berlin International Film Festival, Hot Docs, SXSW, and the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, and broadcast on PBS and Disney. She was one of the lead editors on the PBS TV series PHILLY D.A., which received Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and Gotham Awards in the Best Documentary Series category. Her most recent editing work includes the documentary series THE PRICE OF MILK which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in 2025.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].