Women’s Empowerment Event Draws a Crowd in Seattle

From the lobby of Pigot Hall at Seattle University

National Community Cinema Coordinator, Patrick Baroch, reports out on another successful Women’s Empowerment Screening, this one, from Seattle.

Seattle’s first ever Women Empowerment Film Event & Meetings (WE FEM) packed in men and women along a broad spectrum of ages, genders, and ethnicities. Seattle University hosted the event at Pigott Hall, where the power of the films resonated in lively and impassioned discussion afterwards.

After the screening of A Girl’s Life the blunt question, “Why are girls so mean?” became a topic of much discussion and observation. The hit of the night was a Lieutenant from the Seattle Fire Department donning her full gear in 60 seconds. She also gave a fascinating tour of her tool belt.

After each film and workshop, the participants mingled in the atrium. At the end of the night, people continued to talk about what they had seen.

Tags: a girl's life, indie films, ITVS, PBS, public television, Seattle, seattle university, women's empowerment

Revisiting Sentenced Home and the Case of Many Uch

Filmmakers Nicole Newnham and David Grabias

Sentenced Home aired back in 2007 on Independent Lens and put a human face on a controversial immigration policy. The film followed three young Cambodian Americans, raised in inner-city Seattle, each of whom faced deportation for mistakes they made as teenagers. Filmmakers Nicole Newnham and David Grabias provide an update on the case of Many Uch, one of the three subjects featured in Sentenced Home.

In June, 2007, Many Uch decided to apply for a pardon for his 1994 crime from Christine Gregoire, the governor of Washington State. Although we knew it was a long shot, it was something that we had been hoping he would do for quite a while. We met Many while filming Sentenced Home in 2003, and we were struck by his gentle soul and his extraordinarily thoughtful perspective on his difficult situation: in limbo, living with the constant threat of an order of deportation to Cambodia.

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Tags: deportation, documentary, immigration, indie films, ITVS, PBS, Seattle, sentenced home

Community Cinema Presents COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS in Seattle

KUBE 93 FM is Seattle's #1 Hip Hop and R&B Radio Station

This past Saturday, Community Cinema Seattle presented COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS at the SIFF Cinema at Seattle Center, a 74-acre campus at the north end of downtown home to more than 30 cultural, educational, sports and entertainment organizations.

The film, which looks at sampling in music and who really owns a sound, resonated deeply in a town with so many musical interests. Seattle is the birthplace to grunge but is also one of America’s urban centers where positive hip-hop is drawing a large following (Blue Scholars, Gabriel Teodros and others). Music in Seattle is a true mash-up. We screened COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS in the lecture hall theatre shared by the Seattle Opera, the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle International Film Festival.

One of Seattle’s foremost hip-hop DJs, DJ Hyphen of KUBE 93 FM, talked to us about a few of the film’s topics in the lobby before the film. He observes, “There is a fine line between borrowing and stealing.”

The film suggests that sampling is similar to other forms of reproduction in art, but DJ Hyphen suggests that because the art – in this case – is hip hop music that the same rules do not apply.

DJ Hypen also introduced the film for the entire audience and left them with a few things to consider while watching the film.

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Tags: DJ Hyphen, KUBE 93 FM, music, sampling, Seattle

Community Cinema Screens TULIA, TEXAS in Seattle

A crowd gathers at the SIFF Cinema at the Seattle Center for a free Community Cinema screening of TULIA, TEXAS

Over the weekend, a crowd gathered at the SIFF Cinema at the Seattle Center for a free Community Cinema screening of TULIA, TEXAS, directed by Cassandra Herrman and Kelly Whalen.

A big hit at last year’s Seattle International Film Festival, some audience members came with questions in mind to ask the panel of local community members, which included Harry Williams, one of the lawyers who worked on the Tulia case and currently works at the ACLU of Washington as a staff attorney. Before coming to Seattle, Williams worked in Texas with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project and was a staff attorney at the Texas Fair Defense Project. As a member of the legal defense team in Tulia and a Seattle resident, he was able to bridge connections between these seemingly very distant communities. Williams was also joined by Alison Holcomb, director, ACLU of Washington’s drug policy, and Jacque Larrainzar, policy and outreach manager at the Seattle office for civil rights and a member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

Together the panel fielded questions related from local race relations to Seattle’s initiative to identify institutionalized racism in the city government to felon rights and the legalization of marijuana. Hildy Ko of KCTS, the Seattle PBS station, was also at the screening and gave out information about the film and other KCTS materials such as bumper stickers and program guides.

Want to join the discussion and attend a free screening in your area?
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Tags: African American, Seattle