Horse Opera Receives PIC Open Call Award

January, 2004

Horse Opera Productions is pleased to announce that The Insular Empire: America’s Pacific Frontier has been awarded a $50,000 award from Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), from their Open Call media fund. Based in Honolulu, Hawai’i, PIC is a member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s minority consortium, and has a mandate to produce innovative national media by and about Pacific Islanders.

PIC support will pay for the production phase of the project, and will give The Insular Empire: America’s Pacific Frontier access to the PBS national network. PIC funds, however, will not be released until Horse Opera Productions has raised 80% of the total budget needed to complete The Insular Empire. Horse Opera currently has approximately 70% of the total budget in place, and is therefore continuing its fundraising activities to ensure that the important stories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will make it to national public television.

The production team plans to return to the Mariana Islands for a final production trip during the summer of 2004. Productions funds will also go toward a research and production trip to Washington D.C.