2021 Cucalorus Works-in-Progress Lab

The Works-in-Progress Lab (WiP) is a partnership between Cucalorus and Working Films that supports the audience engagement and impact strategies of social issue documentaries being made by Black filmmakers. The week-long residency is a key program of the annual Cucalorus. Five filmmakers receive extensive community feedback during a series of public and private screenings, workshops, and one-on-one consultations with expert mentors. The following documentary films were selected for the 2021 WiP lab: 2021 Works-in-Progress Lab Participants Little Sallie Walker by Marta Effinger-Crichlow Play is a lifeline for Black girls across the…

Announcing the 2020 Works-in-Progress Lab

The Works-in-Progress Lab (WiP) is a partnership between Cucalorus and Working Films that supports the audience engagement and impact strategies of social issue documentaries being made by Black filmmakers. The week-long virtual residency is a key program of the annual Cucalorus. Five filmmakers receive extensive community feedback during a series of public and private screenings, workshops, and one-on-one consultations with expert mentors. We’re thrilled to announce that the following documentary films have been selected for the 2020 WiP lab: 17 Days directed by and about Christine Varisse, is a dissection…

Democracy for Sale Travels to Virginia

A border and barbeque aren’t the only things Virginia and North Carolina have in common. The two states also have some of the most gerrymandered districts in the country. Cozy relationships between regulators and industry are another commonality. A new film called Democracy for Sale featuring NC native and comedian Zach Galifianakis puts a spotlight on the ways big money political interests have influenced the drawing of district lines and led to a lack of environmental protection and tax cuts for the upper class and corporations, education cuts, gerrymandering, and laws…

Robert West Awarded the Frank Harr Community Service Award

Working Films’ Co-founder, Robert West was awarded with the 2013 Frank Harr Community Service Award, presented by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington LGBTQIA Office. The award recognizes a person or organization promoting visibility and understanding of LGBTQIA issues and who are working towards improving the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Wilmington, NC and surrounding areas. Robert was nominated for the award because of his tireless effort with Working Films’ Reel Equality campaign in 2012, launched in response to the proposed ballot…

Reel Education Updates!

Working Films is still hard at work with the filmmakers of the Reel Education collective. We’re excited about plans we have in the works to bring the Reel Ed films to cities across the country, where they can advance education organizing and advocacy on important issues such as arts education, the achievement gap, after school programming, and positive approaches to school discipline. We’re also delighted to announce that we’ve added two new films to the collective, A Community Concern which tells the story of how community organizing can be a…

Women, War & Peace

On Tuesday, October 11th, Women, War & Peace, a 5-part PBS series, will premiere at 10pm (in New York City, but please check your local listings.) The series continues every Tuesday night ending on November 8th with a final overview hour written and produced by Peter Bull (of Dirty Business), titled War Redefined. Watch the clip below: Watch the full episode. See more Women War and Peace. In the second week, October 18th, the series will spotlight Pray the Devil Back to Hell which features Nobel Peace Prize winner, Leyman…

Gen Silent Filmmaker Comes to Wilmington

“The generation that fought hardest to come out is going back in to survive” Gen Silent is a critically-acclaimed documentary from filmmaker Stu Maddux that explores the challenges of six LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi, trans) seniors who face the difficult choice of hiding their friends, their spouses and their entire lives in order to survive in the health care system. For Family Fest 2011 the Frank Harr Foundation will open the event with a meet & greet reception for Gen Silent director, Stu Maddux, on Thursday, September 29, 2011, at…

A Homecoming for "Our School" A Guest Blog by filmmaker Mona Nicoara

After starting in festivals in Europe and the US, Our School finally had its premiere in Romania – a homecoming of sorts for the film and an event that we have been anticipating for almost six years. We shot in a small town in Transylvania, a very real place in Northern Romania. Our intention was to begin to understand, and hopefully improve, race relations between majority Romanians and the Roma ethnic minority by showing under a magnifying glass the story of three spirited Roma children involved in a school integration…

The Good Pitch heads to NYC

The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, is bringing the Good Pitch to NYC on May 20th 2011. The pitch will be hosted at the Ford Foundation as they join the Tides Foundation, the Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Impact Partners, Crosscurrents Foundation and a number of anonymous donors as supporters. Working Films will continue to provide campaign development for the invited filmmakers. Eight documentary projects were selected out of hundreds of applications. The selected filmmakers and their projects are: Gideon’s Army…

The Fence (La Barda) Story Leads to Action: Activism and Art Working Together

On November 11th, Working Films, Chicken & Egg Pictures and The Fledgling Fund screened The Fence (La Barda) for November’s Story Leads to Action. Natalie Difford of Chicken & Egg gives us some highlights on how activism and art are working together: A new HBO film by Rory Kennedy, The Fence (La Barda), was screened and followed by an invigorating discussion with guest panelists Andre Segura, Staff Attorney, Immigrants’ Rights Project, The American Civil Liberties Union and Christina Baal, LMSW, Immigration Advocacy Field Coordinator, The New York Immigration Coalition and…