“Red Bird” is an inspiring story of friendship between Dana, a young and tormented painter who moves dangerously close to self-destruction, and Louis, a WWII veteran who rents a studio to Dana. Art is the background that allows us to explore love and compassion, human interaction and confrontation, in what becomes a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Mal is a University of Miami alumnus, graduating in the class of 1951. Before graduating, Mal was cast as the lead role in his first play ever entitled “Hasty Heart” by John Patrick. The play proved to become one of the most celebrated and complimented events at UM.

Mal continued getting jobs in the Miami area and became approximately the ninth member of the Screen Actor’s Guild in the south. Shortly after, Jerry Lewis brought his production of The Bellboy down to Florida and Mal was cast as a day player. He then decided to move to NYC in 1964 to further pursue his acting.  After arriving In the Big Apple, he got four national commercials.

Mal has appeared in almost 20 feature films throughout his career, including "The Truman Show"(Paramount), "Cocoon II" and "Porky's II" (20th Century Fox). Aside from movies Mal has also been successful both in the TV world and on Stage. He has played such characters as Cal Clayburn in the show "Miami Vice" and Peterson in the MGM series "Flipper". He has also appeared CSI Miami, America's Most Wanted (as an actor of course) and Rescue 911. He's played the lead in "Under the Yum Yum Tree" in the Ruth Forman Theater and "Remembering Oscar" in the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Mal has been a working actor for the past 40 years and received the Bruce McLaughlin Lifetime Achievement Award, conferred by the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) for his inspired leadership and distinguished service. He is the 2 nd person to receive this honor. A director once described Mal as a “guy I’d like to sit down and have a beer with.”  Mal is a natural for the natural stuff, and we definitely concur.  

Theadra Taylor was born in Washington, D.C. and was raised primarily in Miami, Florida.  She has an extensive dance background; she began as early as the age of five with a concentration on ballet, modern ballet and jazz. She has studied many forms of varied ethnic dances. For the past 10 years she has been performing a self-expressive variety of belly dancing which incorporates fire, veils and sword balancing.  Theadra performs regularly and teaches belly dancing in Hollywood, Florida. In addition, she is a certified Yoga teacher who has been teaching classes in Aventura, Florida for the past two years.

Theadra has attended a performing arts school where she was exposed to the surroundings of the dance, art and drama departments. She went on to spend six months in Inatori, Japan performing sword balancing fused with belly dancing as an art form.  After her contract ended, she flew to San Francisco, California and won second place in the Miss America of Belly Dancing Competition. 

Currently, Theadra is actively pursuing a lifelong interest in acting.  She has studied various aspects of acting such as improvisation and scene study at The Acting Studio in Hollywood, Florida.  She has also done extra work in commercials and motion pictures.

Raquel Almazán is from Madrid, Spain and is also of Costa Rican descent, she’s lived most of her life in the States and is now an emerging interdisciplinary artist. She holds a B.F.A. in Theatre from University of Florida and is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts Conservatory where she developed work as a writer, director, actor and dramaturge. She has developed original work in South Florida with grants for her writing/ performance roles including her one person-multi-media production of She Wolves: A Hybrid Journey of Women Through Time. She has been touring She Wolves at many arts conferences around the country, working with women in prison and creating short films based on its themes. Raquel teaches acting classes at John Robert Powers and starred as the lead in Escaping Juarez in New York City. She was recently selected as part of the Latino Writers Lab with the National Association of Latin Independent Producers for her screenplay Death of the Doll, her short film that screened at the first annual Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza in L.A. and future film festivals.

www.raquelalmazan.com

Konstantin was born in 1993 in Athens, Greece. He was only 5 years old when he appeared in his first commercial for Publix (a supermarket chain in Florida).

Soon after that he went on to do many other commercials for companies like McDonalds, Bell South and K-mart. A year later he joined Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1997.

Konstantin has starred in over 30 commercials independently and over 25 commercials with the Union, being one of the few American child actors to have a commercial on air with the Union for over 7 years. He now has an upcoming SAG commercial for Pepsi alongside Alex Rodriguez, a Yankees baseball player.

Konstantin has also ventured in the Spanish soap opera industry in the United States with memorable performances such as (“Leobardito” on “Gata Salvaje,” for Venevision International, “Felipe” in “Soñar no cuesta nada” and “Cheito” in Angel Rebelde for Venevision Intenacional)

In addition, Konstantin has worked in American television for series’ like “Going to California” directed by D.J Caruso and played the main character role “Pablo” for the Nickelodeon cartoon “Me and My Friends” and modeled for print advertisement with companies such as Tommy Hilfiger and Nautica to name a few.

Konstantin is now attending South Miami Middle School where he is enrolled in the Magnet program for Musical Theatre and Drama. His other talents are dancing Hip Hop and Jazz.

Emilia Huerta has directed dramatic programming for television, including prime time “novelas,” and has produced and directed shorts, documentaries, commercials and industrial films in Venezuela and the United States. Emilia is the president of Andromeda Productions, Inc., in Coral Gables. She studied fine arts in her native Chile, and is pursuing her Master’s degree in Screenwriting at the University of Miami, where her short film “Red Bird” was produced as an independent study. She founded the Chilean Film Festival in Miami, and is currently developing feature-length films for television.

Bill Garcia was born and raised in Miami, Florida. A Cuban/American with a rich Hispanic heritage, he is a Director/Cameraman for commercials, documentaries, music video’s, and television programming with a rock solid reputation for creative imagery, lighting, and camera techniques in both studio and location settings.

Bill started his career in the early 1980’s while attending Miami Dade’s Film program in Miami, Florida. In the 1980’s Bill worked as a soundman for ABC-TV in Miami, Florida working on special projects, sports, and news for local and national television networks, including special projects on Princess Diana, British Airways Concord, Panama, Russia, and NASA Shuttle missions.

In the early 90’s Bill represented ABC-TV in Tampa, Florida for a journalist exchange program with the former Soviet Union. His work for Glassnoradio Network led to a South-East Emmy for best documentary and a national award from The Radio and Television News Director Association. During Bill’s career he was a Finalist for Television Photography, from the Atlanta Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalist, Green Eye Shade Award. In 1992 won a Southeast Emmy for Entertainment Feature for Hot Shots, a documentary on the fashion industry in Miami.

In the mid 90’s Bill moved to Director/Cameraman for commercials, television programming, industrials, and music video production. Bill won 2 New York Film Festival Awards for Best TV Spots for ABC-TV “ Keep It On Ten” campaign, and a nomination for Musical Video Spot. Bill has worked on great projects like Lenny Kravitz, “Dig In”, “Stillness of Heart”, and “Believe In Me” for Virgin Records. R  Kelly TP-2 concert tour, Unsolved Mysteries, Afterthoughts for the Sundance Channel, Telemundo Network  fall promotional campaign, VMA 2001 Edition show with “Eve”, Michael Jackson EPK for Epic Records, MTV Real World Miami, MTV Making The Video, Nehimier hit music video “Wham Bham” for Universal Music Japan,  and the Caribbean’s  hottest Reggae group Square-One and their hit single “DJ Ride”.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Alejandra Huerta received a degree in Visual Communication from Creapole-Esdi, a prestigious design school in Paris, France; and a Cum Laude BFA in Graphic Design, minoring in Art History, from the University of Miami, USA.

She worked as a broadcast designer and editor for MTV Latin America and was the Production Designer for the award-winning short Red Bird.

In May 2004 Alejandra joined Andromeda Production as a partner and relocated to New York City, where she worked as an editor for episodics for shows such as SpongeBob Squarepants, Unfabulous, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide and Teenick (Nickelodeon;) as a producer-editor for long-format TV shows such as Sucker Free Latino (MTV Tr3s,) and editor for magazine-format shows as Videofashion News, Designer Marathon and Elements of Style (Videofashion,) and as and art director for several show packages.

As a freelancer, she edited promos for clients such as Oxygen Network and Food Network, and marketing presentation tapes for MTV International. She created the concept and directed the pilot of the TV showRadar, produced by Andromeda Productions.

Joshua Caraballo was born in Staten Island, NY in 1977.  As a child, Josh would direct "shows" for family functions, his favorite being the bible stories he would recreate with other family members.  His artistic endeavors continued with him into his college years, culminating into a B.A. in Theatre Performance at Florida Atlantic University and an M.F.A. in Motion Picture Producing from the University of Miami.  In the Fall of 2003, Josh created Minerva Films(tm), LLC, a full-service production company based in south Florida.  Josh is an award winning producer/director who is currently working on a feature documentary for the Miami Performing Arts Center, story development for the feature film Hipopcracy, and his sixth short film.  Red Bird marks Josh's third short film as a producer.