This is the video blog about the making of The Grand Cafe, an educational soap opera, that the Media Factory is producing for the Oakland-based nonprofit organization C.E.O. Women. The Grand Café is an innovative distance learning series that uses the telenovela (Latin soap opera) format to teach business start-up and English skills to immigrant and refugee women. The series is directed by the Media Factory’s Marissa Aroy and produced by Niall McKay.

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“This beautiful and moving film will haunt you for years.” Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker Niall McKay’s charming and witty “cycle of life” tale takes us on a journey from the depths of suicide and depression to the heights of new beginnings, marriage proposals, and homecomings. The story explores Niall’s relationship with his bass-playing, jazz musician father Jim, who in the 1970s raised his two young sons on his own in Dublin. Masterfully told, beautifully shot, and scored by Jim’s jazz music, The Bass Player questions what it means to be a son, a husband and a father.

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Media Factory’s Marissa Aroy and Niall McKay garnered an Emmy award for their documentary, “Sikhs in America,” in the category of Best Historic/Cultural Program. The 26-minute PBS documentary profiling the Sikh community in the United States will air nationwide in May as part of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and will be broadcast on KQED on May 19th at 7.30 PM.

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The Delano Manongs tells the unknown history of a group of Filipino farmworkers in Delano, California who toiled under the yoke of racism for decades, then rose up in their twilight years to fight for fair wages and ethical work conditions.

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The Media Factory produced a short video for the Purple Silk Music Foundation, an Oakland-based nonprofit that provides music education program for inner-city youth. This video shows the extraordinary work Purple Silk does in creating the Oakland Chinese children’s orchestra and youth chorus.

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