LATEST NEWS

Monica & David by Alexandra Codina May 19th 7:30pm At 92Y Tribeca (New York, NY) Closing out the 2010-2011 season, Monica & David is the love story of two adults with Down syndrome, and the family who strives to support their needs. Full of humor, romance and everyday family drama, Monica and David want what every adult wants—an independent life. Winner of the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, and an audience favorite at festivals around the world. Directed and produced by Monica’s cousin, first-time filmmaker, Alexandra Codina. After the screening, there will be a conversation with the filmmaker and a panel consisting of:

• Andraéa N. LaVant, Youth Development Specialist at National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth.
• Faye Ginsburg, David B. Kriser Professor of Anthropology; Director of Graduate Program in Culture and Media; Director, Center for Media, Culture & History; Co-Director, Center for Religion and Media
• Logan Levkoff, Ph.D, Sexologist, Sexuality Educator and Author

Don't forget to purchase your tickets from 92Y Tribeca before they sell out!

Did you know that over one million kids drop out of high school every year in the United States? When I heard that number I was floored. Thinking of one million young people who won’t finish school this year is overwhelming. The good news? There is creative work being done across the nation to make sure all students complete their secondary education. The folks at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have just announced a bold, new initiative that brings together public media stations across the country, national non-profits like the America’s Promise Alliance, foundations - led by the Gates Foundation, celebrities, community based organizations and educators in a collaborative effort to make sure that every child in the Unites States graduates from high school. Last Tuesday, I eagerly tuned into a live stream of the American Graduate launch event, listening for ways it might intersect with Working Films’ own Reel Education project. Reel Education started with a convening held last February that brought together seven documentary film making teams with educators, non-profits and organizers to strategize about how their films can be used individually and collectively to transform education in the United States. Since then, we’ve been pursuing new ways to make sure their projects are embedded into the ongoing work of educators and activists that are closing the achievement gap, fighting for great arts education for all kids, making sure that high quality after school programming doesn’t get lost in budget cuts and - in general - working for educational equity and excellence. Both Reel Education and the American Graduate initiative are about using media resources to support the existing work of organizers and educators. I was excited to hear that the bulk of the work done through America Graduate will be community based. Through grants provided by the initiative, local public radio and television stations in 20 community hubs will partner with local organizations and schools to engage parents, students, teachers, and others in unique programs designed to lower the drop-out rate in their area. With Reel Education we are also looking to organizations who are leading the charge in the world of education to guide our ideas about how film and new media projects can be put to use. Organizations such as Teaching Tolerance, ASCD, PICO California, Teachers College, and the National Education Association are telling us exactly what kind of media they need and how they can put it to work. It takes a concentrated effort over the long haul to achieve change. During a panel conversation at the American Graduate launch event, Nashville Public Television President and CEO Beth Curley said, “We have been working on substantive, multi-year projects; rather than doing one documentary or one small project on something….” She went on to speak about how they will use their grant funding from CPB to expand their ongoing work related to new immigrants and multilingualism in several local schools. Her description echoes our approach with Reel Education and the other thematic work we’ve been doing lately. Social change doesn’t happen over night or with just one event or action; so the idea is to employ multiple pieces of media in service of education reformers in creative ways. That’s evident in the fact that the collection of films included in Reel Education includes documentaries that are completed and some that are still in production and slated for release in the next couple of years. With so many points of intersection with our Reel Education project I am energized and inspired by the launch of the American Graduate initiative. Congratulations to the folks at CPB, America’s Promise Alliance, the Gates Foundation and all of their allies on launching this amazing effort!

"We're here at Power Shift. We get down to business. We get down to action." - JOSH FOX, Director of Gasland

Before a packed house of 8,000 youth climate activists, Gasland Director Josh Fox welcomed the enthusiastic crowd with his banjo and a call to action. Josh’s message was simple - natural gas is not a transition fuel away from coal, and we must stand united for truly clean alternatives. Josh was at Power Shift, a national gathering of over 10,000 high school and college climate justice organizers. Along with fellow filmmakers, Josh introduced students to Reel Power: Films Fueling the Energy Revolution.

Reel Power films were screened throughout the weekend of Power Shift, culminating in a filmmaker panel. A discussion on the ways film screenings can be used to generate action at the grassroots level energized both the crowd and the directors. The Reel Power team left inspired by commitments from some of our country’s brightest youth leaders and can’t wait to start working with more college campuses to bring screenings and actions that support the movement for a sustainable and just energy future. Will you join us? To connect with Reel Power and learn how to set up screenings on your campus or in your community visit the Reel Power page.

The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, is bringing the Good Pitch to NYC on May 20th 2011. The pitch will be hosted at the Ford Foundation as they join the Tides Foundation, the Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Impact Partners, Crosscurrents Foundation and a number of anonymous donors as supporters. Working Films will continue to provide campaign development for the invited filmmakers. Eight documentary projects were selected out of hundreds of applications. The selected filmmakers and their projects are: Gideon’s Army Dir. Dawn Porter Gideon’s Army is the story of new public defenders working in the South. With long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads, many will not last. But now they have an advocate. Super-lawyer Jonathan Rapping, founder of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, is revolutionizing criminal defense by mentoring and supporting those who represent the people society would rather forget. We The People Dir. Soniya Kirpalani United Arab Emirates, 2010: 17 Indians are given the death penalty for murdering 1 Pakistani. Further investigation reveals 1,785 more Indians languishing behind bars, 200 of whom face capital punishment. As Arab defense teams and India’s Lawyers for Human Rights challenge the Sharia Law Processes, We The People highlights the plight of migrant workers in repressive environments. Who Is Dayani Cristal? Dir. Marc Silver An anonymous body is discovered in the Arizona desert. The only identifying feature is a tattoo reading ‘Dayani Cristal’. To unravel the mystery we must go on an epic journey beginning in a tiny Honduran village and ending in the corridors of power in Washington. Who Is Dayani Cristal? is a groundbreaking fusion of drama and documentary, starring Gael García Bernal, one of the most exciting actors of his generation. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Dir. Alison Klayman Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is an intimate portrait of an international art star during two tumultuous years of his life. A “dissident artist” in the headlines, an online god to liberal Chinese netizens, Ai Weiwei blurs the boundaries of art and politics. But can an artist change China? Untitled Partners In Health Documentary Dir. Kief Davidson Partners In Health is a remarkable global public health organization, insisting on quality health care as a basic right. This film delves deeply into their methods and beliefs, exploring the controversial characters that refuse to ‘choose one life over another, when there is all this wealth in the world.’ Brooklyn Castle Dir. Katie Dellamaggiore Amidst financial crisis and unprecedented public school budget cuts, Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York, has assembled the best junior high chess team in the nation. Brooklyn Castle follows five young teens for one school year as they struggle, grow and challenge themselves both on and off the chessboard. Not In Our Town III: Light in the Darkness Dir. Patrice O’Neill Not In Our Town III: Light In The Darkness follows a community in crisis after the fatal attack of a local immigrant resident. Stunned by the violence, diverse community stakeholders openly confront the crime and the divisive atmosphere, and commit to ongoing actions to prevent future hate crimes and intolerance. Crime After Crime Dir. Yoav Potash Crime After Crime is the exclusive documentary on the legal battle to free Debbie Peagler from prison two decades after her connection to the murder of the man who abused her. The film premiered at Sundance 2011 and has been acquired by OWN. Debbie’s Campaign is the accompanying campaign designed to spark public awareness and changes in domestic violence law. Check out the activity that happened on twitter during the Good Pitch: To receive updates on future Good Pitch events, please join our email list. For more information about The Good Pitch, visit workingfilms.org/goodpitch.

"New generations of people in this country should see disability as just a natural part of the diversity of our culture." - Filmmaker of Including Samuel, Dan Habib Including Samuel: The Power of Youth brings us behind the scenes of a youth summit, inspired by a Working Films strategy meeting and co-organized by filmmaker Dan Habib. This summit created an audience engagement campaign for Including Samuel that has extended the life and reach of the film. Teen-focused and teen-led, the "I am Norm" campaign was developed by young people for the full social and educational inclusion of people with disabilities. This peer-to-peer effort demonstrates how to empower youth in a way that is truly authentic and meaningful. As you will hear in the video, Working Films collaborated previously with Habib and the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, to shape the overall audience engagement plan for Including Samuel. The idea of a youth summit is one of the ideas that were sparked at this meeting. IMPACT is a series of videos created by Working Films and The Fledgling Fund focused on spotlighting film campaigns that ignite social change. Previous videos include “Deep Down: Make it Local,” “No Impact Man: Activating Your Audience” and “IMPACT: A Funder’s Perspective.” For more information, go to https://www.workingfilms.org/impact and http://www.thefledglingfund.org/impact.

STEPHANIE BLEYER produces engagement campaigns and raises funds for social issue documentaries. Some of her current and past clients include Academy Award nominees Gasland and Sun Come Up, BBC’s Why Poverty?, The Documentary Group’s 10x10, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, Planet Green’s No Impact Man, PBS’ To Be Heard and OWN’s One Lucky Elephant. Stephanie has studied organic farming in Italy, bicycled across Cuba on a grant to study sustainable energy, created a documentary for Oxygen about her social action bicycle trip from Seattle to Washington D.C., produced a 35-city bus tour for the Eat Well Guide to promote family farming, produced an international conference for a 9/11 family group, produced the opening of Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger, worked at a performing arts school for street boys in Kenya and managed displacement camps for thousands of tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka. Stephanie holds a Masters of Public Administration from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. Stephanie Bleyer has a lot on her plate. How does she keep up with it all? Here’s what she told us: I always have at least four interns working with me; they are my tentacles, my foot soldiers and my secret weapon. On average, 25% of the tasks I assign my interns are administrative and the rest of the work is challenging, creative and cerebral. To keep them engaged, I know I need to build their skill set and give them a sense of ownership over their work. I give them a lot of responsibility with minimal oversight, which empowers them and saves me a hell of a lot of time. There’s usually a one-month learning curve, I start out slow with them and then build up so they take on more and more responsibility and require less and less of my time. Many social issue filmmakers involved in outreach and engagement campaigns would like to work with interns but are worried about quality control. How do you give meaningful work to interns and assure excellent outcomes? The quality of interns can vary pretty widely but I’ve figured out a few simple ways to insure some quality control: 1. I only hire grad students, never post-grads and rarely undergrads (unless they are experienced and exceptionally mature). Post-grads will either quit on you once they find a paying gig or they will expect you to start paying them within a month of working. My interns work virtually so it doesn’t matter where they live but it does matter to me that they are current students enrolled in quality programs. 2. I don’t hire film students because they rarely care about learning about outreach and engagement. I hire writers and organizers, students studying marketing and communications and young people who are very passionate about the issue that the film addresses. 3. I post my job ad on career boards for the top schools in the country, never on craigslist or on filmmaking job boards and rarely Idealist. I also distribute the job ad through my social network and on the Facebook page for the film so I can find interns who are already familiar with the film. During a number of our recent trainings and consultations, filmmakers have expressed concern that it takes too much time to train and manage interns. How extensive is your orientation and training of interns? If you choose the right interns you shouldn’t need more than a one-hour orientation. I require them to read every page on the film’s website before the orientation and I expect that for the first month they’ll need some guidance and that it will lessen over time. How often to you check-in with them and how do you make sure they are “on track”? My interns check in every Monday morning and Friday afternoon. We email throughout the week and they call me when they’re stuck. We meet face-to-face maybe once or twice during the internship. How do you create incentives for unpaid interns to stick with a project? I incentivize interns in three ways: 1) I organize career building brown bag luncheons twice throughout the semester. During the brown bag I give them an hour lecture about getting, finding and keeping a job. Part two of the career-building luncheon is a one-on-one session where I rip their resumes to shreds and help them rebuild it. They love this. 2) I challenge them. 3) I only ask that they work 10 hours/week. Are there pitfalls that you have learned to avoid in your experience with interns? Top 5 lessons: 1) Commitment. I just lost two interns in a two-week time period. Two of these interns were grad students but weren’t receiving credit, and mid-semester they felt overwhelmed with the internship and school and work. If they were receiving credit, it would have prevented them from leaving. I make it very clear up front that I need a four-month commitment, and 99% of the time the interns live up to their commitment. 2) Generation Text. Most of my interns are afraid of calling people up on the telephone and I have to constantly push them to pick up the phone if they haven’t received a response to their emails. 3) Communication. Because my interns all work virtually, I need them to over-communicate with me. I constantly have to remind my interns to let me know where things stand. 4) Overwork. I have a tendency to pile work on my interns expecting they’ll get it all done efficiently and well. I’ll have the rare intern who can’t meet deadlines and ultimately creates more work for me with the quality of their work. They don’t last. 5) Dear Stephanie Bleyer. This is not a pitfall; it’s just a funny thing that every single one of my interns does when they first start with me. They think the proper way to address someone in an email is Dear first name, last name. To inquire about Stephanie Bleyer's audience outreach and engagement services, contact her directly at bleyer@gmail.com.

Sun Come Up is an Oscar-nominated short documentary that follows the relocation of some of the Carteret Islanders, a peaceful community living on a remote island chain in the South Pacific Ocean, and now, some of the world’s first environmental refugees. When rising seas threaten their survival, the islanders face a painful decision: they must leave their beloved land in search of a new place to call home. The film follows a group of young Carteret Islanders led by Nick Hakata as they search for land in Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea 50 miles across the open ocean. The move will not be easy as Bougainville is recovering from a 10-year civil war. Many Bougainvilleans remain traumatized by the “Crisis” as the civil war is known locally. Yet, Sun Come Up isn’t a familiar third world narrative. Out of this tragedy comes a story of hope, strength, and profound generosity. The educational non-profit, Rethiking Schools, has just released their Spring Issue of the Rethinking Schools Magazine focused on “Climate Crisis in the Classroom.” Two Reel Power films, Deep Down and Dirty Business, are spotlighted in the issue and Sun Come Up fits in perfectly with the teacher guides and recommendations these progressive educators provide. Make April the month you bring Sun Come Up and the issue of Climate Change to your campus or classroom. Order an educational copy of the Oscar-nominated Sun Come Up today. To place your order email info@suncomeup.com. For those of you that want to screen the film at home, be sure too look for it on HBO this Fall.

Reel Power is excited to announce that our films will be part of the 2011 Power Shift program from April 15-18 in Washington D.C. This year's Power Shift will feature Vice President Al Gore, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Green Jobs leader Van Jones, 350.org founder Bill McKibben, and a Reel Power film festival! Power Shift is the world's largest youth gathering and training for climate change solutions. This year the conference will serve as the largest grassroots organizing training in history with the goals of catalyzing the clean energy economy, initiating more clean energy research on college campuses, and moving communities beyond dirty energy. Reel Power films will be featured during Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening programs and Reel Power filmmakers will participate on panel discussions throughout the weekend about our world's most important climate challenges. Check out the write up on the PowerShift blog about Reel Power! Be sure to come to Washington D.C. and join over 10,000 youth leaders from across the country as we take a stand for the planet - Register for Power Shift today!