Community Cinema
Oakland Rallies Behind The Interrupters
Last week, Community Cinema broke records at the Oakland Museum of California with more than 450 audience members in attendance for The Interrupters. The documentary, by filmmaker Steve James, will premiere Tuesday February 14 on PBS’ FRONTLINE. Watch a clip from the Community screening in Oakland, below:
In partnership with KQED, The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Youth ALIVE!, the Urban Peace Movement, and a host of other youth organizations represented, the film showed to a standing room only packed house in two theaters.
Youth were at the center of the discussion and made up the majority of the audience. The panel included Ameena Matthews and Eddie Bocanegra, Violence Interrupters featured in the film.
Special Screening of “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock” Wednesday in Los Angeles
Community Cinema and The Museum of Tolerance, in association with The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum, will be presenting a special screening of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock Wednesday, February 1 in Los Angeles.
The film will be followed by a discussion with Sharon La Cruise (filmmaker), Terrence Roberts, Ph.D. (one of the Little Rock Nine), and Larry Earl (Executive Director of The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum). › Continue reading
ITVS Heads into High Gear for Black History Month
By Sally Jo Fifer, President & CEO of ITVS
The organization has supported a slate of documentaries that shine a unique light on the history of African American activism. Several of the films will air this month on Independent Lens.
February is Black History Month. It’s an important time for public media, because the heritage months — as artificial as they seem to some, including ITVS-funded filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman, whose film More than A Month tracks his playful yet serious quest to end Black History Month — act as public reminders of our mission to bring underrepresented voices into the mainstream and ensure that the diversity of the nation is reflected on television.
› Continue reading
The Year of the Girl Begins: Girl Scouts of the USA 52nd National Convention
The Girl Scouts of the USA is a major partner for the Women and Girls Lead campaign and last week, they invited ITVS to be a part of their National Convention in Houston, TX. Celebrating the launch of their 100th anniversary activities, the Girl Scouts announced that 2012 will be The Year of the Girl! Women and Girls Lead presented two campaign films: Strong! and Pushing the Elephant, and trained more than 100 girls to use digital storytelling tools. Today’s post from ITVS National Engagement and Education Manager Annelise Wunderlich highlights the digital storytelling trainings.
Photo by Julie Wyman
I have a confession: I was never a Brownie, or a Daisy, or a Girl Scout. In fact, as a girl in grade school I suspected those groups of not being “cool,” and I was intimidated by their uniforms covered with mysterious and colorful badges. Now, that was admittedly a very long time ago — and the Girl Scouts has surely evolved as an organization since then. But nothing prepared me for just how cool the Girl Scouts actually are.
› Continue reading
Community Cinema Shines in Houston
HoustonPBS’s Julie Coan provides some glowing feedback from a recent Community Cinema screening of Deaf Jam. The documentary, by filmmaker Judy Lieff, premieres on Independent Lens next Thursday, November 3.
We had an incredible turnout at the HoustonPBS Community Cinema screening of Deaf Jam with 175 people from all ages and ethnicities. A number of deaf students from Teague Middle School came with their teachers. An organization called Communication Axess Ability Group provided two interpreters for free so everyone could enjoy the evening.
After the film we had a local ASL poet, Jonathan Leach, perform as well as two spoken word poets, Robyn Adams and Marcell Murphy. They were incredible.
› Continue reading
Think Win-Win: Charles Meyer on NCME and Community Cinema
Executive Director of the National Center for Media Engagement (NCME) Charles Meyer outlines his organization’s recently announced partnership with ITVS’s Community Cinema.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephan Covey’s fourth habit encourages, “Think Win-Win.” As Covey points out – and as we’ve discovered in our community engagement work with public media at NCME – Win-Win is a frame of mind that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions that are mutually beneficial and satisfying. In other words, solutions that grow a bigger pie. That’s what effective collaboration is about, too. And collaborating is a key behavior among those with an engagement ethos.
There’s no better example than our new “win-win” partnership with ITVS and its highly successful Community Cinema program. In just six years, Community Cinema has expanded to more than 100 communities across the country, producing more than 2,500 screenings and welcoming over 150,000 participants. Its commitment to bringing communities and local organizations together through the featured documentaries aligns perfectly with NCME’s CPB-funded mission to support public media in working collaboratively with their communities to discover, understand, and address community concerns.
› Continue reading
ITVS in the News
A sampling of coverage from Indiewire, Pop Matters, NCME and more…
Indiewire: Two Spirits Receives the Audience Award from PBS-Independent Lens
Lynda Nibley’s documentary Two Spirits has received the PBS-Independent Lens Audience Award, recognizing its status as the highest-rated film of the 2010-11 season by the measures of online voting and other forms of audience support.
Pop Matters: Cuba, An African Odyssey
El-Tahri’s fascinating documentary, produced in 2007 with the French-German television network Arte and premiering in two parts on ITVS’ Global Voices this month, traces the complicated history of Cuban efforts to help African independence movements during the Cold War.
› Continue reading
Interview: Kim Snyder on Welcome to Shelbyville
Filmmaker Kim Snyder visited ITVS last year to discuss her documentary Welcome to Shelbyville — which airs Tuesday night on Independent Lens. Set on the eve of the 2008 election, the film examines the town of Shelbyville as it grapples with issues of immigration and patriotism.
Taking Root with Lisa Merton on Earth Day
Lisa Merton’s Taking Root was broadcast on Independent Lens in April 2009 and brought together more than 4,000 people to Community Cinema events in 50 cities across the country.
As we ring in Earth Day celebrations across the country, we wanted to highlight some of the extraordinary films that ITVS had the opportunity to take out to communities through broadcast and on-the-ground engagement. On Thursday, we profiled Dirt! The Movie and filmmaker Eugene Rosow. Today we’re featuring Lisa Merton and her documentary Taking Root.
An Environmental Conversation with the Filmmaker of Dirt! The Movie
Eugene Rosow’s film Dirt! The Movie broadcast on Independent Lens in April 2010 and brought together more than 6,000 people to Community Cinema events in 60 cities across the country.
As we gear up for Earth Day celebrations and events across the country, we wanted to reflect on two extraordinary films that ITVS had the opportunity to take out to communities through broadcast and on-the-ground engagement efforts in recent years. Today and tomorrow, we’ll be catching up with filmmakers whose projects continue to have a deep impact on inspiring and sustaining individual and community action on issues related to environmental conservation. Today’s conversation features filmmaker Eugene Rosow.
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