Community Cinema Gears Up for February

Starting next week and throughout the month of February, Community Cinema will hold free preview screenings of  Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story in over 95 cities across the U.S.

The documentary by filmmaker Daniel H. Birman, follows the story of Cyntoia Brown, who is serving a life sentence for murder at the age of 16. Me Facing Life challenges our assumptions about violence and explores how factors such as biology and family history can doom some young people from the start. Watch a preview after the jump.

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Tags: academy awards, cyntoia’s story, docs, education, Independent Lens, ITVS, me facing life, prison, violence, youth

ITVS Takes Engagement Behind Bars and into Schools

A Village Called Versailles was one of the films screened before inmates

As we gear up for another season of Community Cinema, BTB is highlighting some recent coverage of how this program has been adapted to engage inmates in San Francisco and Los Angeles. These pilot initiatives are furthering our mission of reaching underserved communities, including the incarcerated.

This past year, Community Cinema screenings were incorporated into two educational programs: the Five Keys Charter School in San Francisco — the first charter high school based in a prison — and the M.E.R.I.T. Program in L.A., which provides educational and life-skills courses for inmates.

Read more about these programs from this recent profile by the National Center for Media Engagement.

Tags: A Village Called Versailles, community cinema, community classroom, education, engagement, prison

Behind the Scenes: Girls On The Wall with Filmmaker Heather Ross

This month, Girls on the Wall airs on public television (check local listings). The film follows a group of incarcerated teenage girls who are given a shot at redemption in a most unlikely form: a musical. Learn more about filmmaker Heather Ross’s professional background, how she discovered this unique story, and some of the recent press coverage the film has been receiving.

Heather Ross spent much of her childhood on the floor of an edit studio, watching as her mother finished her MFA thesis film. Somehow undeterred, Ross studied documentary filmmaking as well –– obtaining degrees in film/video and psychology at UC Santa Cruz.

The five-year journey of Girls On The Wall began during a slow commute to work. Heather happened to tune into a radio segment featuring a musical production staged inside a juvenile detention center.

“The voices of the girls performing under lockup were exuberant, brazen, yet achingly vulnerable. They were unlike anything I’ve ever heard before,” says Ross.

Shortly thereafter, Ross moved across the country to Chicago to shoot a nine-month cycle from concept to completion. The film looks at three female inmates as they write, rap, and rehearse the harrowing events leading up to their crimes. In the process, they’re challenged to find their own voices, reclaim their humanity and take a first step toward breaking free of the prison system.

Special permission from the governor of Illinois allowed the production team including unprecedented access to the teenage residents and the facility that housed them. The resulting film recently premiered at Chicago International Film Festival where it won a Special Mention jury award. It was also singled out by Roger Ebert and Time Out Chicago as a festival pick.

The film has gone on to play at the Hot Springs Documentary Festival, the CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival in New York, the Santa Fe Film Festival, and the Anchorage International Film Festival. Critics have called the film “amazing” (Time Out), “outstanding” (Chicago Public Radio), and “an unforgettable portrait detailing the empowerment to be found in self-expression … one of the most stirring films you will see all year.” (The Anchorage Press).

Heather continues to keep in touch with many of the girls in Girls on the Wall, the making of which she calls a life-changing experience. Watch this special behind-the-scenes video with Ross as she attempts to gain the trust of the film subjects and documents their journeys.

Girls on the Wall airs this month on public television (check local listings)

Tags: behind-the-scenes, crime, Illinois, music, musical, prison