"master of making oboe"

According to The New York Times, Paul Laubin was a "master of making oboe the old-fashioned way".

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/arts/music/paul-laubin-dead.html

Enrico Ventrice met Paul Laubin during the filming of the documentary “My Grandfather’s Oboe”. After Paul died in 2021, Enrico collected some unused footage filmed in 2017 in order to edit a short video in memory of this great craftsman.

Paul's hands, which bear the marks of a lifetime spent crafting musical instruments, are themselves evidence of a cultural heritage that must be remembered, especially now that Paul has passed away, although his son Alex continues the family tradition.

At this link you can find the complete history of the Laubin family since Alfred Laubin, Paul's father, built his first oboe in 1931.

https://alaubin.com/about-us/

The Ministry of Caring

The Ministry of Caring is a non-profit organization that assists people in need by providing meals, shelter, housing, job search support, childcare, and education.

In 1976, a young Capuchin Franciscan friar, Brother Ronald Giannone, was sent by his order to Wilmington, Delaware. A year later, realizing the importance of providing help to people in need, he opened the first shelter and promptly began his lifelong commitment to ensure that “the poor should never be treated poorly”.

Nearly 50 years later, this still remains the organization's mission. Today, The Ministry of Caring is an organization of 19 high-quality programs serving the poor, with a current budget exceeding $10 million.

Freedom View recently produced a short documentary to assist The Ministry of Caring with its fundraising goals and apparatus. An opportunity to help fulfill the unmet needs of the poor and homeless, and change people's lives through The Ministry of Caring’s programs and services was all that was needed to assist Brother Ronald’s mission. We interviewed a few of the many people who shared their personal life experiences and recounted how they, thanks to the support of this charity's assistance over the years, were able to build a new life for themselves and their families.

The Otoe-Missouria Tribe

The Otoe-Missouria Tribe is a model of tribal governance and economic development. Working with tribal and business leaders, Freedom View is proud to share the epic journey of the Otoe and Missouria people from their original homelands to their present-day reservation in what is now Oklahoma. Building on their environmental, cultural, and spiritual assets, the tribal citizens, led by their elected Tribal Government, have been able to build a tribal economy in the most unlikely of locations: rural America.

With tribal government gaming, ranching, and eCommerce as the cornerstones, the Otoe-Missouria Tribe demonstrates that migration to better conditions is not the answer to international development. Rather, communities can produce growth in place.

In particular, Otoe-Missouria leaders show that the essential ingredients are:  

1. Sovereignty—a nation’s capacity to make policy and manage implementation themselves instead of yielding to the agendas and approaches of outsiders; 

2. Institutions—the capacity of the nation’s constitutions, commissions, boards, and administrations to resolve disputes fairly, deploy capital effectively, and administer policy professionally; 

3. Cultural Match—the alignment of a nation’s formal institutions with established cultural norms and values {Cornell and Kalt, 2007, #25649}. 

Freedom View was created to start a global conversation about reconfiguring the relationship between governments, individuals. We are honored to share this iconic story of authentic change, led by the Otoe-Missouria Nation, with the world.

Fedora

Winner 4th Dimension Independent Film Festival (Bali)

In 2020, Freedom View, in collaboration with Teatro Grattacielo Foundation, produced Fedora, Umberto Giordano’s Opera, filmed at the Target Margin Theater in Brooklyn, NY and distributed on Vimeo.

After Covid hit, many artists were forced to leave the stage. This production was made to give them hope, to ask them not to give up, to make it clear that, even unlike the standards we have been accustomed to for years, the show must go on. Each of us has a duty to preserve art and make it available to as many people as possible.

Ippolito Leotta: co-producer

Marc Andrew Caruso: director of photography

Enrico Ventrice: editor

Official selection at International Music Video Award (London) and Munich Music Video Award (Munich)

Franca: Chaos and Creation

A documentary filmmaker chronicles the life and times of his mother, Franca Sozzani, the legendary editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue and a fashion-world provocateur.

Ippolito Leotta: co-producer

Distributed by Netflix

Winner “Best documentary” of the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, nominated for “Best Music Supervision for a Documentary” of the Guild of Music Supervisors Awards.

My Grandfather’s Oboe

Enrico Guasti was an Italian artisan renowned for creating woodwind instruments. His talents eventually gained recognition in the United States, thanks to a great American musician. When Camilla, Enrico’s granddaughter, decided to move to New York, her Uncle Roberto made a tempting request of her; she should find and bring back to their family home, one of her grandfather’s instruments. In Italy none remain.

Ippolito Leotta: co-producer

Enrico Ventrice: co-producer, writer, director.

Distributed by Rai (Italy), RSI (Switzerland) and Vimeo (USA)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature and Best Editing at the Top Indie Film Awards, United States.

Mission

Hagos Kidane is a cultural mediator, working for the Italian Navy, as it patrols the Mediterranean Sea. Their mission: save the lives of any migrants stranded on the sea; escaping their homeland for the freedom found on European shores.
Hagos’ contribution is crucial: speaking many languages, including a few Arabic dialects, is sometimes the deciding factor between life and death.

Ippolito Leotta: producer

Enrico Ventrice: director

Official selection at New York Short Film Festival, Docfest (Netherlands) and finalist at AS Film Festival (Rome).

I Figli Della Shoah

Children of the Shoah

A feature-length documentary about a man who goes on a journey in search of other children of Holocaust survivors in hopes of bonding over their shared experiences.

Ippolito Leotta: producer

Enrico Ventrice: executive producer

Distributed by Rai Cinema

Official Selection Rome Cinema Fest

Amigos Del Tren

Marcelo, a Bolivian man living in Mexico, dedicates his life to helping migrants from Central America who are traveling North riding on freight trains. Every day he brings food and clothes to the train tracks together with Lucero, a Mexican woman, and Mia, from Bolivia.

Ippolito Leotta: producer

Distributed by Rai Cinema

Official selection San Diego Latino Film Festival.

Crisi di classe

Middle class crisis

After the devastating global economic crisis, which started in the United States, some analysts have begun to consider taking into consideration, in addition to gross domestic product, new metrics to evaluate the progress of a society, such as the well-being of citizens and certain factors such as air quality, health, education and social relationships.

Ippolito Leotta: producer

Enrico Ventrice: executive producer

Marc Andrew Caruso: director of photography

Distributed by Rai Cinema

Official Selection Rome Cinema Fest

“Stakeholder Capitalism in Indian Country.” iGaming Business Magazine. April 21, 2021. Available at: https://igamingbusiness.com/stakeholder-capitalism-in-indian-country/

Stakeholder capitalism is the latest term for businesses with a purpose. The fact that tribal government gaming is used to fund the services and programs in tribal communities is often highlighted as the sector’s clearest differentiator from commercial and corporate gambling interests. This article argues that the model of capitalism developed by the tribal nations could be viewed as a blueprint for other nation states to take a more active role in developing and operating legal gaming enterprises, taking political risks but also reaping the financial rewards.

“The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Its Effects on American Indian Economic Development.”  (with Randall Akee and Jonathan Taylor).  Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3): 185-208, 2015. Pdf available from www.katespilde.com.

The focus of this paper is on Indian Country, a broad term often used to describe tribal lands in the United States. The term also has specific meaning in US law (18 USC §1151). Paper provides in-depth analysis and overview of policymaking leading up to the political and legal fights for Native self-determination, of which Indian gaming is an outgrowth. While on average there have been large improvements, the effect of Indian gaming varies tremendously across tribes. In addition to the variation arising from differential access to markets, corporate governance and managerial skill, there are instances where state-tribal conflict has held Indian gaming below its potential.

“Identifying Opportunities To Inform And Inspire: Tribal Casino Employee Perceptions Of Tribal Self Sufficiency And Philanthropy.” (with Sandra Ponting and Jess Ponting).  UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 20(2), 2016.  Available at https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/grrj/vol20/iss2/5/

While the business case for employee engagement and the cost savings of employee retention are easily quantified, the means to achieving these related goals in the casino industry is not well known. The pathway to employee engagement and satisfaction is even less well known in the tribal government gaming industry. This paper finds that employees in casinos that are owned by tribal governments in the United States find particular pride in sharing the tribal government’s self-sufficiency, community engagement, and philanthropic activities with casino guests, who often wonder “where the money goes.”

“Seizing the Future: Why Some Native Nations Do and Others Don’t.”  In Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development. (with Stephen Cornell, Miriam Jorgensen, and Joseph P. Kalt.) University of Arizona Press. Pp. 1-42, 2007.

Paper and link available at https://hpaied.org/publications/seizing-future-why-some-native-nations-do-and-others-dont

Both research and the experience among Native nations drive home the conclusion that the so-called “nation building” approach holds the keys to self-determined social, political, and economic development for indigenous communities. This study examines the question of why is it that some Native nations seize upon the nation building strategy and take effective control of their futures while others do not. We find that foundational change in a community arises when the external and internal conditions a people face interact with their interpretations of their situation, producing a new, shared “story” of what is possible, and how it can be achieved.

“The Work of Indian Nations: Tribal Governmental Gaming and Nation Building.” Global Gaming Business Magazine. (Nevada: Las Vegas.) August 1, 2003. Available at www.katespilde.com

Tribal government gaming works because it recognizes that creating an economy and building a nation are mutually reinforcing activities. This article explains that tribal government gaming has been successful where other businesses have failed because it has four core features: 1) Tribal governments initiated tribal gaming rather than having it imposed upon them; 2) tribal gaming recognizes tribal sovereignty and pushes tribes to exercise their sovereignty as a development resource; 3) tribal gaming creates a de facto tribal tax base, allowing tribal governments to fully fund their social programs; 4) tribal gaming supports “nation building” activities, encouraging the creation of strong institutions of self-governance and partnership building for diversification.