ITVS Indies Showcase Audience Award Winner – A Panther in Africa

Your votes have been counted and the ITVS Indies Showcase Audience Award goes to  A Panther in Africa! 

To bring closure to the inaugural ITVS Indies Showcase festival which just wrapped up, viewers were asked to select a favorite film for the always-coveted Audience Award. Well, the votes have been tallied and the Indies Showcase Audience Award winner is A Panther in Africa.

The documentary by filmmaker Aaron Matthews, which originally aired on POV, tells the story of  Pete O’Neal, a Black Panther living in exile in Tanzania who commits his life to activism and community service.

Congratulations to the filmmaker and thanks to everyone who voted!

Click her to watch a trailer >>

Tags: Africa, Audience Award, black panthers, documentaries, film festival, independent, Independent Lens, P.O.V., PBS

World Mourns Passing of Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai, the first environmentalist and African woman to win the Nobel Prize, passed away while having treatment for ovarian cancer on Monday.

Wangari Maathai, the first environmentalist and African woman to win the Nobel Prize, passed away on Monday while having treatment for ovarian cancer. Maathai was the founder of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization encouraging women and families to plant trees.

She was recently the focus of the Independent Lens documentary Taking Root: The Story of Wangari Maathai and was featured in DIRT! The Movie. Maathai will be remembered for her work in women’s rights, democracy, and the environment.

Watch the trailer for Taking Root: The Story of Wangari Maathai >>
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Tags: activism, Africa, environment, international, Kenya, women's empowerment, women's rights

Now on Indies Showcase: Lost Boys of Sudan

Emmy Award-nominated documentary from  Jon Shenk and Megan Mylan follows two young refugees of Sudan’s civil war through their first year in America. Lost Boys of Sudan streams free until Sept. 7th on ITVS’s Indies Showcase.

Orphaned as boys by Sudan’s civil war, Peter Dut and Santino Chuor survived lion attacks and gunfire to reach a Kenyan refugee camp with thousands of other children. After a decade in the camp, they come to America. Lost Boys of Sudan  follows them from Africa through their first year in the United States as they are confronted with the abundance and alienation of contemporary America.

Watch Lost Boys of Sudan now on ITVS’s Indies Showcase >>

Tags: Africa, america, civil war, documentary, Emmy, Free, immigration, Kenya, refugees, streaming, sudan, USA

ITVS Announces Funding and Production of Half the Sky for Primetime PBS Broadcast

Based on the bestselling book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the series will premiere as a special presentation on Independent Lens in Fall 2012. The project is a cornerstone of the recently announced Women and Girls Lead campaign.

ITVS announced today that it, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has made a significant investment in Half The Sky, a primetime television special and multi-platform project based on New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s widely acclaimed book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
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Tags: Africa, half the sky, nicholas kristof, sheryl wudunn, the new york times, women and girls lead, women's empowerment, women's leadership

Letter from Rose

Rose Mapendo survived a Congolese death camp and lived to reflect on the experience in the documentary Pushing the Elephant, airing tonight on Independent Lens. Prior to the film’s national broadcast, Rose wanted to share her personal perspective with viewers.

I thank God for what He has done to keep me alive until this day. I am very happy that this movie made by Arts Engine is going to air this month allowing more people to see and know unspeakable struggles of a mother forced to separation with her daughter and a woman whose husband was tortured and executed leaving her to care for 9 children in a death camp without help and hope to survive.

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Tags: Africa, congo, Pushing the elephant, rose mapendo

Pushing for an End to Gender Based Violence

By Celia Richa, Family Violence Prevention Fund

Violence against women and girls is a horrific and widespread human rights and global health crisis that demands an immediate response.

Far too many women and girls around the world are trafficked into sex slavery, attacked as they attend school, and endure violence in the home or rape as a weapon of war.

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Tags: Africa, global health, Human Rights, violence prevention, war Congo, women

Explore our Interactive Timeline: History of the Congo

Independent Lens has created an interactive timeline of the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo to help bring viewers up to speed ahead of Tuesday night’s documentary Pushing the Elephant.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has a tragic history marked by invasion and brutality by imperialists and occupiers. Give yourself a primer on the African country and trace the Congo’s history with the videos, photographs, and resources on this interactive timeline, provided by Independent Lens.

Tags: Africa, congo, history, Pushing the elephant, rose mapendo, timeline

AfroPop Series Continues with Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter

The ITVS funded film airs this month on public television
Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter tells the story of one mother’s fight for political asylum in the U.S. to protect her daughter from female genital cutting, a traditional practice in her home country of Mali.

The documentary, by filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater, airs throughout February on Public Television. The film is part of the series AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, produced by NBPC and co-presented by American Public Television (APT).

Tags: Africa, AfroPop, american public television, apt, mrs. goundo's daughter, NBPC

The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, Tonight on AfroPoP

The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) keeps the premieres coming at you this season with their series AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. Tonight starts in Columbia with a single-mother fighting some big odds in Uprooted and ends with Soweto train surfing in Sanza Hanza (King Surfer). Stick with AfroPoP tonight on your local WORLD station at 7 PM EST / 9 PM PST.

Tags: Africa, Black History Month, National Black Programming, public television

Pushing the Elephant Goes to DC

Rose Mapendo, Congressman Ted Poe, Ritu Sharma, Ambassador (Ret.) George Ward, Samantha Mathis

This past Wednesday and Thursday, September 15^th and 16^th, the filmmakers of Pushing the Elephant (PTE), Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel, and their main subject, Rose Mapendo, traveled to Washington DC  — in cooperation with ITVS — to raise awareness around violence against women and girls internationally. Also along were Rose’s brother, Kigabo, and outreach coordinator, Kim Borba. Filmmakers Davenport and Mandel filed this report for BTB.

Our first stop was the World Bank. In an event hosted jointly by the Bank’s Social Development Department and the World Bank Institute Fragile States Program, we generated concrete dialogue among fifty World Bank staff and partners on the role of leadership and reconciliation in response to violence in fragile and post-conflict countries. A panel that included Fragile States staff, Rose and the filmmakers followed the screening. The discussion focused on ways Rose’s experience could help Bank staffers better understand the communities in which they are working. Tamara Gould (vice president, ITVS International) introduced the program, contextualizing the value of social-issue media in inspiring action. Our advisory council member Kury Cobham, an operations officer in the Social Development Civil Society Fund, at the World Bank, organized the event and supported its success within the Bank. › Continue reading

Tags: Africa, congo, d.c, docs, documentary, drc, Independent Lens, international film, ITVS, kerger, PBS, pushing the elphant, rose mapendo, washington