a documentary film production company
Dedicated to creating documentaries of the highest caliber, 42nd Parallel Films is driven by a commitment to dynamic, experiential storytelling that consistently engages, informs, entertains and inspires. At a time of rapidly-shifting demographics in the United States, we are likewise pledged to capture the diversity and dimension of the Spanish-speaking world with high-impact films that explore its connections to the American experience.
Founded in 2010, in Madrid, 42nd Parallel represents the culmination of a longtime artistic collaboration between veteran documentarians Michelle Ferrari and Rafael de la Uz—a team with nearly four decades of experience and dozens of critically acclaimed films between them.
As an Emmy-winning screenwriter, story editor and producer, Michelle has contributed her skills to some thirty hours of television programming: her credits include nine films for the celebrated PBS series American Experience, including the highly rated Seabiscuit, Primetime Emmy winner for Outstanding Writing; the Emmy-nominated PBS series Reporting America at War; and numerous films for POV and HBO, among them two-time Emmy nominee Blue Vinyl.
Renowned cinematographer and producer de la Uz, a graduate of Cuba's illustrious Escuela International de Cine y Television, meanwhile has overseen the cinematography on more than a dozen independent documentaries, among them El Juego de Cuba, winner for Best Documentary at the Malaga Film Festival. In addition to his frequent collaborations with acclaimed Spanish director Manuel Martín Cuenca—which have been featured at film festivals all over the world and widely distributed in Europe and Latin America—de la Uz has lent his singular cinematic vision to scores of films for the American television broadcast market, including PBS, MTV and HBO.
Based in New York City and Madrid, 42nd Parallel is currently at work on feature-length documentary about the Spanish Civil War and the leftist American writers who dedicated themselves to la causa. Framed by the experiences of literary giants Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos as they set out to make a documentary against the backdrop of besieged Madrid in 1937, the film tells the story of the bitter feud the war and the murder of Dos Passos's friend José Robles provoked between them—a feud that not only destroyed their decades-old friendship, but also prefigured the fracturing of the entire American Left.