Based on the bestselling book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky will premiere as a special presentation on Independent Lens in October 2012. The project is a cornerstone of the Women and Girls Lead campaign and was on display at last week’s PBS Annual Meeting in Denver.

Just back from the PBS annual meeting in Denver and was absolutely thrilled by the response from stations to the upcoming Half the Sky series, which will air on October 1 and 2 as a special presentation of Independent Lens.

This project has been several years in the making, taking up the ambitious work of New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn who wrote Half the Sky to highlight the challenges that women and girls are facing worldwide — issues like trafficking, maternal health, female genital mutilation, and gender based violence.

It’s hard stuff, but the approach of both Nick and Sheryl — and by the incredible filmmakers who have taken this book and turned it into a transmedia project — have tapped into the message that ‘women are not the problem, they’re the solution.’

Watch Women Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

The luncheon event to roll out Half the Sky was powerful in itself, with remarks from the CEOs of CPB (Patricia Harrison), PBS (Paula Kerger), and ITVS (Sally Jo Fifer), along with Nick and Sheryl, Meg Ryan and Olivia Wilde — two of the six celebrity advocates who traveled with this project, and two incredible women from the film, Rebecca and Jane, who live in Kenya and shared their personal stories. Plus, filmmakers Maro Chermayeff, Jamie Gordon, Mikaela Beardsley, and Mira Chang were also on hand.

If the response from the conference is any indicator, Half the Sky will have a big impact on audiences when it airs this fall. Stay tuned!

Read another ringing endorsement of Half the Sky and its impact at the PBS Annual Meeting from Current

Find out more about ITVS’s Women and Girls Lead campaign

Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) is a Jekyll-and-Hyde character who began as a mathematics teacher, and then became the commandant of Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia, ultimately responsible for the torture and murder of 14,000 people. Comrade Duch: The Bookkeeper of Death recounts his flight, conversion to evangelical Christianity, and how he was finally brought to justice before an international tribunal. Watch the trailer after the jump.

Comrade Duch: The Bookkeeper of Death airs this Sunday, May 20 on WORLD at 10PM EST.

Many films have been made about street children. Some good, some not. The kids are a thankful target for filmmakers like myself, as we ardently become sponges for their heartfelt stories. With so much done already, why then, I was often asked, make another documentary about one?

The answer is simple: by means of a compelling story which accompanies a young street mother and her baby for over a year, I want to draw attention to the alarming reality of homeless kids who are setting out to start their own families. This is new. During several years of research, we found that the proliferation of a next generation of street children is largely undocumented. Governments, NGO’s, academics, filmmakers… not even Unicef manages data on children who are born on the city streets. Statistically, they are all treated the same, while the social differences between parents and their children are enormous.

In Nicaragua, as in most countries, children and teens end up on the street because they are running away from extreme poverty, domestic violence and/or sexual abuse. Arriving alone in the city, they’ll befriend others their age and are quickly absorbed in a street community that becomes their family. Having enjoyed some years of basic education, kids tend to be between six and 12 years old when they spend their first night on a piece of cardboard under the stars. I always refer to them – quite unacademically – as the first generation. They are the ones who some years later decide to have children themselves.

The second generation – babies like Karla in Karla’s Arrival – are not on the run from some previous life. They are homeless from day one. Unlike their parents, they won’t know what it’s like to live under a roof or have a family in the traditional sense of the word (although the street community haphazardly offers some alternative). They might not ever go to school and won’t be registered as citizens of their country. Chances are that formally they won’t exist and, as a result, will have no right to education or health care.

It’s no small problem either. Estimations are that there are 75 million girls living on the world’s streets. Most of them will at least bear one child before they turn 18. This is an enormous, worldwide, complex yet unknown problem.

Ironically, and on the bright side, the baby can be part of the solution. While a young mother’s low self-esteem might inhibit her from leaving the streets, a son or daughter can mark a turning point. Their babies offer them something which will have been lacking in their own lives – unconditional love – and are seen to be more important than themselves. A desire to offer their child a better life is reason enough to seek help, which generally is not hard to come by.

For me, it goes without saying that becoming a parent is the most basic of human rights which should be available to all. Making Karla’s Arrival was all about opening a debate which revolves around the question of how we can create the conditions to make this a reality for everyone. And besides that, luckily, we came across a touching and hopeful story.

Koen Suidgeest (Amsterdam, 1967) is a Dutch filmmaker based in Madrid (Spain). He is the director of the ITVS-funed Karla’s Arrival, which will air on Link TV’s Doc Debut in May.

ITVS’s Kate Sullivan Green sits down with Theresa Loong to talk about the documentary Every Day Is a Holiday, which begins airing on Public Television May 1st.  

Filmmaker Theresa Loong

After finding her father’s secret diary from the time he was a P.O.W., Theresa Loong knew she had a story to tell.  In Every Day Is a Holiday, she documents her father’s path from being a Chinese Malaysian teenager serving in the British Royal Air Force, to being held as a P.O.W. in Japan during World War II, and his long, complicated path to U.S. citizenship that followed.

Kate Sullivan Green had the opportunity to sit down with Theresa and talk about making her first film, the ups and downs of documenting a family member, and what she learned about the challenges so many Chinese faced immigrating to America.

What stood out to you about your dad while making Every Day Is a Holiday?

His fierce, fierce, fierce determination.  I always had a sense he had a really interesting life, but one of the things I’ve taken away is how much struggle he went through to become a citizen.  That gives me more appreciation for him and for people in general who go through hardship.  I consider myself an empathetic person, but this really puts things in perspective when I am feeling down.  I have a deep respect for what he went through.

One other thing is that I didn’t realize how difficult it would be for him to relive the past.  I guess I thought he was ready to share his story, but there were times when he would say, “Oh, that’s enough” or get up and walk away.  Sometimes it was just because he was tired, but other times I’d see his eyes go to a far away place as he was actually reliving the moment.  Especially with first person narrative, we have to balance wanting to know history with sensitivity.

Does he like the film?

I was afraid to show him for a long time.  When he finally saw a fine cut of it, he laughed about certain things – nodding and laughing.  After one screening he said, “It’s the truth.”  I couldn’t quite figure it out, it seems like veiled praise, but yeah, I think he likes it.

Paul Loong salutes prior to the Memorial Day Parade in Clark, NJ

Your dad’s story is inspiring on so many levels as we see his perseverance, charisma, optimism, and ultimate success.  More broadly, this is also a story about the immigration system in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. What’s one particularly interesting thing you learned about while making this film?

I didn’t know much about the Chinese Exclusion Act and the fact is, that after that, from 1943-1965, only 105 Chinese people were allowed to become U.S. citizens, no matter where you lived.  That was a great deterrent to getting to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion act of 1882 halted Chinese immigration and prohibited Chinese from becoming U.S. citizens.  This law was replaced with others barring Chinese immigration, until the Magnuson Act in 1943, which permitted a national quota of only 105 Chinese immigrants per year.   That was finally replaced by the Immigration Act of 1965.

The other takeaway was that during World War II, the Japanese did not sign the Geneva Convention, so even though my dad had some Red Cross packages at the camp, there were a bunch of packages they were not able to distribute.  They did have a Red Cross person visit once, but it was only meant to seem very nice.  I show those propaganda photos in the film.   

What do you hope viewers takeaway after watching?

One is to gain a greater appreciation from people who may look a certain way in everyday life.  My dad could be seen as some older fellow, a non-descript Asian guy, but if one is to perhaps take the time to listen and ask, who knows what kind of stories they have.  It can be an enlightening thing to do.

I also hope people see that Chinese-American or Asian-American identity can be complex.  My dad is ethnically Chinese but comes from Malaysia and my mom comes from Taiwan.  In the mass media, we tend to have very stereotypical viewpoints of ethnicities and religion.

The other is for viewers to walk away with a bit more knowledge about the struggle of Asian-Americans and a greater understanding of the history in the far east. It’s a politically charged issue but it’s this idea that, for instance, in Japanese textbooks they downplay the significance of what happened in World War II.  One goal with this film was to open that dialog and explain that these things actually did happen.

I hope people see that this is an American story too.

Do you have any advice for others who are making a film with a parent as the main subject?

One is perseverance and two is sensitivity.  The perseverance is that you want to tell the story, and know you should.  But you have to be sensitive to whatever they are going through, and whether they feel like talking or not.  Remember, first and foremost, that it is a family member and be loyal to that.  It’s perseverance combined with sensitivity.

Maybe three is to learn when to ask for help.  Since things can be extra personal with a family member, if you are going to be protective then you have to find the crew that you trust, or develop the skills to do it yourself.  It was great to have another camera person but it also does change the dynamic, sometimes for the better, but occasionally I would see my dad being more guarded in a moment than if it were only me. 

Paul, Anna, Joseph and Theresa Loong, 1981

As a new filmmaker, what are some important lessons you learned while making Every Day Is a Holiday?

I didn’t have much of a budget, but I didn’t let not having a skill or saying I cannot afford something stop me.  Money is a factor, but you have to figure out a way.  For instance, I couldn’t really shoot that well, so I learned.  I didn’t have much money for archival footage and research, so I went to the national archives myself.   It was a great chance to learn about how the archives work.  Once I even went with my family and found a board from one of the camps showing what the prisoners were assigned to do.  So I was able to make that part happen.

Another is to prepare and plan as much as possible, even though things crop up unexpectedly.  I don’t always follow this rule, but the more you do the easier it is.

And always follow your curiosity.

Every Day Is a Holiday begins airing on Public Television on May 1.  Check local listings. 

Nationwide, Latino students face an increased risk of dropping out of school. 41 percent of Latinos ages 20 and older do not have a high school diploma, compared to 23 percent of blacks and 14 percent of whites. To address the growing high school dropout crisis among Latinos, the largest and youngest minority group in the U.S., Independent Television Service (ITVS) – the leading funder of U.S. independent public television productions – is launching American Graduate Latino as part of the national public media initiative, American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Launching in November 2012 with a series of shorts, American Graduate Latino will provide the core American Graduate initiative with broadcasts and online programming in both Spanish and English to engage viewers, teachers, and community leaders in identifying and implementing solutions to the high school dropout crisis.

Statistics on the U.S. Latino dropout crisis as reported by Pew Resource Center, 2010. Courtesy of ITVS.

ITVS joins other public media producers and more than 65 public radio and television stations around the country that are working to bring together parents, teachers, business leaders, and community organizations to highlight the issue and create solutions to the dropout crisis.

“Public broadcasting’s commitment to telling complex, in-depth stories is more essential to our democracy than ever,” said Sally Jo Fifer, ITVS president and CEO. “Through American Graduate Latino, CPB, ITVS, and independent producers have come together to help unravel a problem deeply affecting the Latino community – and the future of America.”

At the heart of American Graduate Latino are two documentaries executive produced by award-winning director Bernardo Ruiz (American Experience: Roberto Clemente) slated to air in 2013 on the award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. The documentaries, produced in association with Latino Public Broadcasting, explore why Latino students are dropping out in such large numbers, tell the stories behind the statistics, and grant viewers unique, first-hand access into the lives of students, teachers, and education reformers. Created by a fully bilingual team, the documentaries will be produced and distributed both in English and Spanish.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with ITVS on this critical issue and hope that the documentaries will build awareness and encourage educators, parents, and community leaders to explore innovative solutions to engage young children in education at an early age, and empower them with the knowledge that will allow them to succeed,” said Sandie Viquez Pedlow, executive director of Latino Public Broadcasting.

“My team and I are very excited to be a part of this innovative public media initiative,” said Ruiz. “The educational outcomes of Latino students matter, not just to the Latino community but to the country as a whole. Our two programs, each with a Spanish-language version, will examine in an honest way what prevents many Latino students from graduating and what can be done to create successful educational outcomes for Latino students.”

American Graduate Latino will also feature five short-form documentary films executive produced by ITVS to target Latino audiences through multiplatform distribution including broadcast on PBS, V-Me, and commercial cable outlets and digital platforms like YouTube, SnagFilms, jaman, and pictv in both English and Spanish. The shorts, made by a select group of veteran and emerging filmmakers – including Betty Bastidas, Madeleine Bair, Xochitl Dorsey, Heather Ross, Jim Mendiola, Raymond Telles, and Angela Reginato) – will highlight the dropout crisis, focusing on risk factors and innovative solutions through the lens of Latino youth.

Click here to learn more about American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen.

The National Endowment for the Arts has selected two ITVS interactive projects to receive funding through its Arts in Media Grants.

This week, the National Endowment for the Arts announced projects selected for funding through its Arts in Media Grants Program. We’re proud to announce that two interactive projects, funded through ITVS’s Project 360 Initiative, have garnered NEA support.

Power Poetry, inspired by the film To Be Heard by Roland Leigardi-Laura, the world’s first mobile poetry community for youth, encourages youth to write poems and take action through text and micropoems. Our Mother Tongues, inspired by the film We Still Live Here by Anne Makepeace, provides an interactive journey through Native American languages and the burgeoning movement among American Indians to save them.

We’re thrilled that these innovative projects and the talented, independent makers responsible for them will receive additional support from the NEA. We also congratulate many of our colleagues in the field. See the full list of grantees here.

The filmmakers and stars of the ITVS-funded documentary The Revolutionary Optimists were models for social change at TEDxChange and the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where they introduced Map Your World, the new transmedia project inspired by the film.

A short piece from the film was created for TEDxChange, an event co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED in Berlin on April 5, 2012, where participants were encouraged to apply new perspectives to pre-existing big picture issues. The short, introduced by Melinda Gates, showcased the evolution of Map Your World, a cross-platform project inspired by the documentary.

The Revolutionary Optimists follows “The Daredevils,” a group of youths in one of India’s most notorious squatter’s colonies, who have made a dramatic improvement in the health of their community, a place that cannot even be found on a map of the region. Determined to make a geographic and meaningful map of their colony, the Daredevils have been painstakingly tracking and collecting data around health issues that impact them – water, sanitation, and infectious diseases. In 10 years, they have made dramatic improvements in their area: They’ve turned a trash dump into a soccer field, lobbied for electricity, and decreased diarrhea and malaria rates in their neighborhood.

Salim reviews the map he and his fellow Daredevils made of his community in India.

Thousands of people — at the event and online — were able to follow Sikha, Salim, and the other Daredevils as they worked together to “map their world” by putting their small community on the map and using GPS technology to track and record polio vaccination.

The filmmakers behind The Revolutionary Optimists, Nicole Newnham and Maren Grainger-Monsen, have spent the past couple of weeks with the subjects they filmed years ago. In addition to the TEDxChange, Grainger, Newnham, social entrepreneur Amlan Ganguly, and 14-year-old Daredevils Sikha Patra and Salim Shekh, were invited to the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford in late March.

Sikha doing some field testing with a water survey for Map Your World.

The 2012 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship focused on seizing momentum and driving change, aptly themed “FLUX.” The Forum invited delegates to explore the “dynamic environment within which social entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty in their pursuit of large scale change.” The Revolutionary Optimists crew participated in the “Stories of Change” event presented by the Sundance Institute, celebrating film’s role in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship. It was Salim and Sikha’s first appearance outside of their native India.

According to Newnham, “[Salim and Sikha] were so poised and eloquent, inspiring many social entrepreneurs to come up to us and say that seeing them was inspiring and brought them back to the core of the work they were doing.”

The Skoll Foundation also invited the teens to speak on a panel dedicated to youth leadership, “Young People – The New Superheroes Leading Social Innovation.” The panel featured individuals who are making significant changes and are inspiring a new worldview for all. Subjects ranged from sex trafficking to the continued establishment of social media to support the youth movement in Egypt.

Sikha, Salim, and Amlan traveled from India to Oxford to present at the Skoll World Forum.

Rounding out its European tour, this weekend, The Revolutionary Optimists will be screened at a special event in Geneva. The 2012 Geneva Forum on Social Change will provide a platform to discuss and showcase models of development in times of economic crisis and persistent social divides. Learn more about the the Geneva Forum on Social Change.

ITVS has announced the lineup for the fifth season of Global Voices, the international documentary television series airing on the WORLD channel, with select episodes available online on PBS Video. Showcasing documentaries from Uganda, Indonesia, Russia, Chile, and Pakistan, this season of Global Voices presents the U.S. broadcast premieres of 13 documentaries funded by ITVS International, and encore presentations of acclaimed programs previously broadcast on Independent Lens, POV, and on Link TV.

The series premieres on Sunday, May 6 at 10 PM with Peace vs Justice, which reveals the role of the International Criminal Court in the trial against rebel leader Joseph Kony, whose Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has spread death and destruction in Uganda for more than 20 years, and who was the subject of the recent viral video KONY 2012.

Harleen Walia (center), assistant director of Sanlaap, a rescue and rehab center for young girls in Calcutta. The Day My God Died premieres this season on Global Voices.

New this season for Global Voices is the inclusion of six documentaries from ITVS’s Women and Girls Lead catalog, a campaign that celebrates, educates, and activates women, girls, and their allies across the globe to address the challenges of the 21st century. Notable documentaries include Afghan American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi’s Motherland Afghanistan (May 13), in which she follows her father to his native Afghanistan, where he brings desperately needed medical attention and expertise to the women most susceptible to maternal mortality; The Day My God Died (June 24), Andrew Levine’s unforgettable examination of the growing plague of sex trafficking of Nepali children in India; Pickles, Inc. (August 12), by Nitza Gonen and Dalit Kimor, following eight widows that challenge social conventions and establish the Azka Pickle Cooperative, seeking financial independence for themselves and their children; and Samia Chala’s Chahinaz: What Rights for Women? (September 30). Through her curiosity and self-discovery, Chahinaz, a 20-year-old Algerian student, begins to wonder what life is like for women in other Muslim countries and around the world and why things are slow to change in Algeria.

Additional season highlights include Katherine Huang’s Tales of the Waria (June 3), following four transgender individuals in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, in search of love and acceptance with unexpected results; Town of Runners (June 17), Jerry Rothwell’s documentary following three young runners from Ethiopia as they move from high school track to national and Olympic competitions; The Collaborator and His Family (August 5), Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz’s cinema-verité look at a Palestinian family torn apart by its patriarch’s collaboration with Israel;  Nima Sarvestani’s award winning I Was Worth 50 Sheep (September 2), a look at an Afghani 10-year-old bride fight for her freedom six years later; and The Boy Mir (October 7), Phil Grabsky’s look at the generation of Afghans who have grown up since 9/11, specifically tracking the irrepressible and lovable Mir from a naïve 8-year old to a fully grown adult.

Sabereh, Farzaneh and her stepfather Khalegh from the documentary I Was Worth 50 Sheep.

Global Voices broadcasts are supported by a number of online engagement opportunities — including online screenings, discussions, commentary, and opportunities for viewers to participate in live chats to discuss the issues presented in each episode. For up-to-date information on these events and opportunities, follow Global Voices on Facebook here.

For the complete lineup and schedule, visit www.itvs.org/series/global-voices.

Watch Meet the Man Behind Elmo on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

When Kevin Clash was a boy, he built his own puppets and staged shows for the neighborhood. Today, he is living his ultimate dream as the big man behind the little, furry Muppet Elmo on Sesame Street. Being Elmo premieres April 5 (and can be seen again on April 9) on PBS. Check local listings.

Ever wonder what is Elmo’s favorite food? Elmo himself answers after the jump!

Kevin Clash, Elmo puppeteer and star of the documentary Being Elmo, answers the question: what’s the most unusual time you’ve done Elmo’s voice outside of Sesame Street?

Congratulations to the filmmakers on this incredible achievement! This brings the total of Peabody awards for ITVS films to 22.

Bhutto by Duane Baughman, which aired on Independent Lens, takes an intimate look at one of the most fascinating and important world leaders of our time, Benazir Bhutto.

My Perestroika — a film directed by Robin Hessman and co-produced by Robin Hessman and Rachel Wexler. The documentary aired on P.O.V. and follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times — from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia.

Who Killed Chea Vichea by Bradley Cox, an ITVS production, is a feature length documentary focusing on the mystery behind the assassination of a Cambodian labor leader set against the backdrop of the international garment trade.

The Peabody Awards will be presented May 21, 2012 at a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City with Sir Patrick Stewart as the Master of Ceremonies.