A filmmaker who has experienced both a bankruptcy and big tax bills due to previous successes before losing a house to the mortgage meltdown turned these experiences into two short films. One is the Bankruptcy Blues – a humorous video in which the singer describes how he plans to get rid of his debts by going bankrupt and finally will be free as a bird as birds fly in the distance.  The other is Forgive Our Taxes: The Highlights, based on the campaign for fairer taxes for once successful people now struggling http://www.forgiveourtaxes.com). The documentary features three interviewees talking about how they ended up with big tax bills after losing a house, a business, or a job, and then two lawyers and an accountant talk about how the current tax and bankruptcy law affects such victims.

Both films have been selected to be in the Scary Cow Film Festival in San Francisco at the Castro Theater on March 1 starting at 3 p.m., with Bankruptcy Blues starting off the festival with a bang at and Forgive Our Taxes playing around 5 p.m.

The writer/producer is Gini Graham Scott, the founder of Changemakers Publishing and Writing http://www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com, who has been inspired by the recent economic crisis to create a series of films and books based on economic turmoil and loss.

Ironically, one of the most successful of these films is the Suicide Party: Project O, which started off as a short at the last Scary Cow Film Festival and now is being filmed as a feature in Los Angeles with a top director, Jack Skyyler, and two lead actors who have over 30 feature film credits between them. The film deals with the issue of inequality as the story of a once successful man facing the loss of his house and living on the street, so he decides to put on a suicide party with the help of friends who are struggling financially, too. If he raises enough, he'll live; if not pay the ultimate price, resulting in a media frenzy and unexpected results. http://www.suicidepartyfilm.com).  

Scott has also produced several other short films dealing with the mortgage meltdown including the music videos: Bad Bad Banks and Credit Card Rap, and two short documentaries: Middle Class Homeless; Families in Trouble and Middle Class Homeless: The Crisis.

Besides making films, Scott is the author of over 50 published books with major companies and 30 books published by Changemakers Publishing, her own publishing company. She also writes books and scripts for clients and has been a guest to talk about her films and books on hundreds of radio, TV, and Internet talk shows, Good Morning America, Oprah, and CNN.  Besides a PhD in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley, she has four MAs from Cal State, East Bay and is pursuing a fifth MA there in Communications.