Film programmer Miguel Rodriguez needs our help

Hi, I'm Dor and I'm creating this fundraiser for friend and colleague Miguel Rodriguez and his family during a time of crisis and great need that is also a time of continued hope – with our help.

About Miguel:

Miguel Rodriguez is a film curator and programmer for San Diego Latino Film Festival, The Film Geeks San Diego, Digital Gym Cinema, and the Museum of Photographic Arts. He founded and was Executive Director of the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, a San Diego-based film festival dedicated to genre cinema, performance, and art. Miguel is a husband, father, and cinephile whose kindness and love of film is infectious, as evidenced in the community he fosters.

And today, he and his family need that community more than ever.

What's going on:

Please read about it in Miguel's own words here.

The gist of it is that, as many know, Miguel has been struggling with severe depression for some time – leading on more than one occasion to an ER visit, on suicide watch. Before this week, he had been on a powerful path to healing thanks to a therapist that he's been working with for a while, but his recovery reached a big setback as mounting financial realities set in.

At present, Miguel's family is also dealing with a significant reduction in income due to an injury his wife Tiffany suffered earlier this year. Debt is growing, making ends meet is becoming a constant source of stress. Now, in addition to worries about ongoing living expenses, Miguel is facing uncertainty as to how he'll be able to continue to pay for his ongoing therapy appointments, just when he was beginning to see huge progress.

Thankfully, Miguel has been courageous enough to share bits of what he's going through, to give folks a way to help out. This campaign aims to alleviate some of the pervasive anxiety around finances – that is, to take acute financial struggles off the list of immediate concerns, making it more possible for Miguel's energy to be focused on continuing on the healing journey he's already begun.

Miguel is most at home uplifting the projects and careers of others, and it's undoubtedly not easy to pivot from that to putting oneself in the spotlight in a vulnerable way. Let's show him how many folks have his back, by contributing (only if you're able) and sharing far and wide.

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Please note: the funds from this GoFundMe are earmarked just for Miguel and his family. His blog post mentions the emotional weight of debts his festival owes to submitting filmmakers, so we wanted folks to know that we're helping Miguel address this debt separately through industry resources within the film festival community so the weight is lifted, but we also want to be very clear that the funds raised here are specifically for his family.