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

Women’s Empowerment Screenings Trigger Plans in Nashville

Chiquita Fields of Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee talks with audience members after a screening of Troop 1500

Our Women’s Empowerment Screening was a spirited collaboration of organizations and individuals. Series partner Nashville Public Library hosted us in its elegant auditorium and conference center. Nashville Public Television and the Nashville Film Festival – under the leadership of President and CEO Beth Curley and Director Sallie Mayne — who were both in attendance — helped fill the audience with PBS enthusiasts and independent film lovers. And the organization, Hands On Nashville, supplied us with more than a dozen enthusiastic volunteers.

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Tags: community cinema, ITVS, Nashville, PBS, public television, wei, women's empowerment

In the News: The Latest on ITVS Programs

Film Series to Empower Women
Independent Television Service, producers of Emmy-award winning documentaries for public television, has teamed up with the Chicago Foundation for Women, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Chicago Public Media to present the Women’s Empowerment Summer Film Series — a free series of screenings highlighting issues facing women in the U.S. and around the world. A 45-minute discussion with representatives from local organizations serving women and girls will follow each screening.

Littlefeather recounts price of native activism
Sacheen Littlefeather, the actor who stood in for Marlon Brando at the 1973 Oscars, says she paid a high price for her criticism of Hollywood portrayals of First Nations people. Littlefeather, now 63, said that act of advocacy cut her acting career short and put her life at risk. She was speaking to TV critics in a promotion for Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian, a Canadian-made documentary that is to air on PBS’s Independent Lens in November.
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Rosie O’Donnell returns to daytime TV on Oprah’s net
Oprah Winfrey announces that Rosie O’Donnell is returning to daytime TV in a talk show (gak) on The Oprah Winfrey Network, in the middle of PBS’s day at Summer TV Press Tour 2010 when, if she’d waited until the next morning, she could have announced it during Discovery’s day at the tour — Discovery being Oprah’s partner in OWN. So instead of listening to Benazir Bhutto’s cousin Mahin Hemmat, and Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani talk about a new PBS Independent Lens project, Bhutto, they were madly typing on their laptops about how the sometimes polarizing Rosie…
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Brando’s 1973 Oscar Stand-in Recounts Fallout
Sacheen Littlefeather says she paid a price when she decried Hollywood’s stereotyped portrayal of American Indians at the 1973 Oscars… She spoke Thursday during a presentation to TV critics on “Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian,” a documentary airing in November on the “Independent Lens” series.
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Tags: ap, cbc news, Chicago Tribune, film screenings, Independent Lens, indie films, ITVS, PBS, public television, Washington Post, women's empowerment