From director Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza, comes "Know How," an award-winning docu-drama/musical, written by and starring young people in New York City’s foster care system – a non-professional cast of actors and writers that includes Deshawn Brown, Niquana Clark, Michael Kareem Dew, Gabrielle Garcia, Gilbert Howard, Claribelle Pagan and Ebonee Simpson.

First Run Features will open the film in select theaters on May 15, which will be followed by a national premiere on Participant Media’s television network, Pivot, on May 27, at 11PM EST. 

The film, a tale of transience and perseverance, produced by the New York youth-serving non-profit The Possibility Project, looks to the foster care system for stories of each youth’s own life experiences, includes tales of abuse and homelessness, as the worlds of each of the 5 main characters intersect, confronting loss, heartbreak, adulthood and bureaucracy.

Using a hybrid narrative and documentary approach to filmmaking, the stories the film tells are based on real life events, and are written and performed by real foster care youth, giving the film a necessary realism.

Launched in commemoration of National Foster Care Month, the film is accompanied by a social action campaign, spearheaded by Participant Media in collaboration with the California Youth Connection, with the goal being to provide better outcomes for foster care youth by ending the use of group homes and supporting foster parents, including the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR) in California.

As the press release states, if enacted, the CCR would "provide an integrated, comprehensive set of services, including mental health services, and a family foster home rate, based on the child’s needs, as opposed to the placement type, which will contribute to enhancing well-being, permanency and safety for foster children. First Run Features plans to screen the film in order to raise awareness around this legislation, in collaboration with the California Youth Connection to kick off ‘Shadow Day,’ an event in which dozens of foster care youth will go to Sacramento to observe and connect with lawmakers."

"Know How" is executive produced by Paul G. Griffin, and produced by Griffin and Marcus Clarke.

Check out the film’s trailer below: