Garbage Dreams Wins the IDA/Humanitas Award

The IDA/Humanitas Award, a new prize for 2009, went to Mai Iskander’s Garbage Dreams.  The IDA/ Humanitas Award is given to a documentarian whose film strives to unify the human family by exploring the stories of human beings who are different in culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs in order to break down the wall of ignorance and fear that separates us. As you may know Working Films is directing the Garbage Dreams Tour, a community-based screening campaign aimed at demonstrating the true value of trash and the…

Chicken and Egg gives wings to female filmmakers' projects

by: Lindsay Gibb, Reelscreen This past week the women behind Chicken and Egg Pictures, a New York-based hybrid film fund and mentoring production company for female filmmakers, were given the Loreen Arbus Award at the New York Women in Film and Television’s (NY-WIFT) Muse Awards. Realscreen spoke with Judith Helfand, Julie Parker Benello and Wendy Ettinger (pictured, left to right) about the meaning of Chicken and Egg, what they’re looking for in the projects they support and what plans they’re hatching for the future. Last year the Loreen Arbus Award…

Live from Copenhagen: The Stupid Show

The Age of Stupid hasn’t called it quits now that their film is finished and out in the world. They are broadcasting live from the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen with the aim to make “the most important meeting in human history comprehensible to people without degrees in hot air”. The filmmakers are working in close collaboration with NGOs to distribute the Stupid Show via the internet to a number of audiences and engage a number of global citizens in Copenhagen. You can watch it live on the ageofstupid.net or…

Social Media Special Guest Blog: What’s On Your Plate?

Filmmakers and organizations are coming up with creative ways to incorporate a spectrum of social media into film campaigns, including interactive websites and games, issue-based social networking communities, podcasts and web TV shows. The team at What’s On Your Plate? join us as guest bloggers to share how they’re using gaming to engage young people in the campaign. The What’s On Your Plate? games were designed to engage a broad audience, particularly visitors interested in having fun and exploring more themes of the film. We saw this as an opportunity…

Social Media Special Guest Blog: Going on 13

Filmmakers and organizations are coming up with creative ways to incorporate a spectrum of social media into film campaigns, including interactive websites and games, issue-based social networking communities, podcasts and web TV shows. Filmmaker Dawn Valadez joins us as a guest blogger to share how she and her partners created their own social networking community just for girls. Going on 13 began in 2000 and was an ambitious journey to capture the transformation of 4 pre-teen girls as they became young women. We shot the film for four years and edited for…

Social Media Special Guest Blog: No Impact Project

Filmmakers and organizations are coming up with creative ways to incorporate a spectrum of social media into film campaigns, including interactive websites and games, issue-based social networking communities, podcasts and web TV shows. Associate Director of the No Impact Project, Stephanie Bleyer, joins us as a guest blogger to share how she’s using a widget as part of the No Impact Project’s campaign. The No Impact Project and the Center for a New American Dream have joined together to help communities simplify the holidays this year. During the two-weeks of…

Social Media Special Guest Blog: The Line

Filmmakers and organizations are coming up with creative ways to incorporate a spectrum of social media into film campaigns, including interactive websites and games, issue-based social networking communities, podcasts and web TV shows. Filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman joins us as a guest blogger to share how she’s using popular social media tools to engage young people in her campaign. @thelinecampaign: Sex. Consent. Power. Pleasure. The Line is a film. The Line is a movement. The Line is up to you. “The Line is about building a world where people are free…

How Can My Movie Help the Movement? Forming Authentic Partnerships

In our consultations with filmmakers, at our strategic summits, in our workshops and residencies, and during informal conversations at film festivals we are always trying to hammer home for filmmakers the importance of forming solid, ongoing, mutually-beneficial partnerships with organizations working on the issues featured in their films. From the start of our work ten years ago, we found strategic partnerships – finding the right NGOs, funders, and even brands – to be the one key component for successful film campaigns. If we identified the right partners, the rest came…

Media That Matters Film Festival now accepting submissions!

The Media That Matters Film Festival is now accepting submissions for their 10th Annual Film Festival. The festival showcases short films on various social justice issues. This year they are particularly interested in films on Media Literacy, Human Rights, LGBTQ & Sexual Identity, Youth Activism and International issues. Each year, Working Films presents the Changemaker Award to the film with the most potential to inspire activism. Last year, we presented the award to Exiled in America,  a film about five siblings struggling to support their American livelihoods after their mother…

From the Amazon to the Cape Fear: Linking International Stories to Local Action

What do indigenous communities in the Amazon and a rather prosperous coastal town in North Carolina have in common? Not much you might think, and generally you would be right. There are certainly many differences, but it turns out that folks concerned about the environment and public health in Wilmington, North Carolina have much to learn from communities struggling for environmental justice in the Ecuadorian villages featured in the film Crude. A screening of Crude at the Cucalorus Film Festival in Working Films’ hometown of Wilmington, N.C. gave me the…