Documentary film producer Phillip Rodriguez has been named a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

As Senior Fellow for Documentary Filmmaking, Rodriguez will collaborate with other Justice and Journalism fellows on films and other projects exploring criminal justice, issues of race and ethnicity, post-9/11 security and liberty, the U.S.-Mexican border and immigration, said Steve Montiel, director of USC Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism.

Rodriguez is founder of City Projects Productions. He describes his most recent documentary, Los Angeles Now, as an "evocation of Los Angeles at the end of its Anglo Century." TV Guide described the hi-def PBS documentary as an "edgy, atmospheric (but essentially optimistic) piece of urban pulse taking."

Other works by Rodriguez include a previous PBS project, Mixed Feelings: San Diego/Tijuana, which offers a new look at distant neighbors, and Manuel Ocampo: God is My Copilot, featuring Dennis Hopper and Julian Schnabel, in a reconsideration of multiculturalism in the contemporary art world. Another documentary, Pancho Villa & Other Stories, won an award for best documentary at the 2000 San Antonio Cinefestival.

Rodriguez' endeavors are not limited to film. He wrote the story and title song for the Grammy-nominated "Papa's Dream" by Los Lobos. He also founded, published and edited Avance, a national Latino magazine of arts and culture.

Rodriguez is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and has an M.A. in Latin American Studies and an M.F.A. in Film and Television from UCLA. He also studied Art History and Spanish Literature at Universidad Cumplutense de Madrid. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at The Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Created in the year 2000 with Ford Foundation funding, the Institute for Justice and Journalism supports in-depth journalism about justice and injustice through professional fellowships and partnerships with other journalistic organizations and institutions of higher learning.

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Institute for Justice and Journalism