The Campaign: Inside the NO ON PROP 8 Fight

I was energized by the news last week that Christie Herring’s work-in-progress The Campaign was just awarded a new grant from Chicken & Egg Pictures. All week I had been following the related so-called Prop 8 trial, Kristin M. Perry v. Arnold Schwarzenegger, through the Courage Campaign’s Prop 8 trial tracker. Christie attended our MASS MoCA residency in 2009 when her film was in early development. The Campaign follows the daily efforts and emotional rollercoaster of the community of people working to stop Prop 8, the 2008 Constitutional Amendment to…

Barbershop screening of Wet Dreams and False Images

“Barbershops have always been a place where people come not only to get a haircut – but to meet and converse about current events, politics, pop culture, music, sports, WOMEN, relationships and more.” –    Quentin Walcott of Connect NYC We’ve been receiving a lot of inspiring updates from the filmmakers who participated in our Real Girls, Reel Change workshop last October. Jesse Epstein will be screening 2 films from her Body Typed project, Wet Dreams and False Images and 34x25x36, at the barbershop where it all began. Wet Dreams and…

Help our Seneca Falls friends

Over the holidays I received an email from filmmaker Louise Vance of the film Seneca Falls which was a part of the Real Girls, Reel Change workshop last October. The film is about the journey of 9 teenage girls who travel from San Francisco to Seneca Falls, the birth of the women’s rights movement, to perform a play they created which celebrates the women’s movement. I was excited to hear that Seneca Falls will be broadcasting in March on two Public Television stations: KRCB in Northern California, home of the…

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: 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…

Cucalorus Film Festival

Working Films is proud to be coordinating panel discussions after two films at the Cucalorus Films Festival in our hometown of Wilmington, NC. Named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals” by Movie Maker Magazine, Cucalorus runs November 11th-15th at venues across city. Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama that uncovers the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Crude will screen at 10am Thursday November 12th. In…

Reflections on Real Girls, Reel Change

Last week Working Films, The Fledgling Fund and Chicken & Egg Pictures hosted a 3 day workshop where 6 filmmakers came together to create audience engagement plans so that their films result in Reel Change.  All of the films tell the stories of and touch on issues that affect girls and young women. During the first 2 days, the filmmakers worked on their “community engagement mission statement” so-to-speak. Each filmmaker answered the question “What impact do you want your film to have?” We challenged filmmakers to get specific about the…

Chicken & Egg's take on Real Girls, Reel Change: Day 3

Reposted from Chicken & Egg Picture’s Blog By Natalie Difford Wednesday 10/21/2009 Two days of intensive workshops, sharing and, ultimately, caring for one another’s projects at the REAL GIRLS REEL CHANGE retreat made for a riveting final day at the 92Y Tribeca. Here, the six filmmakers were given opportunity to share and “pitch” their projects to interested nonprofit organizations and funders invited by Working Films. Stephanie Wang-Breal (Wo Ai Ni Mommy) takes us through the day: In the morning, each of the six filmmakers were given 10 minutes to present…

Chicken & Egg's take on Real Girls, Reel Change: Day 2

Reposted from Chicken & Egg Picture’s Blog By Natalie Difford Thursday 10/22/2009 There’s something stirring here in Chappaqua on day two of REAL GIRLS REEL CHANGE as six filmmakers begin to move beyond the brainstorming sessions we held yesterday in order to create some very concrete, specific asks to pose to potential partners on the final day of our 3 day workshop tomorrow. When asked how their approach had evolved thus far, the Seneca Falls team exclaimed: “you can outreach all you want but I realized that the people you…

Real Girls, Reel Change Workshop

We just wrapped up  Day 1 of the Real Girls, Reel Change, a collaborative workshop between Working Films, The Fledgling Fund and Chicken & Egg Pictures. The first day has been high energy and really productive. Each filmmaker was asked  to share what impact they want their film to have. There were some great ideas that came from the discussion and we were able to narrow down some broad concepts to concrete and realistic goals. From there, we explored the targeted audiences of each film and different ways to plug the films into those groups. The…