The Content + Intent Documentary Institute

(UPDATED ON 2/15/08)

Working Films is pleased to announce the selected participants for the 2008 Content + Intent Documentary Institute, a five-day residency for filmmakers.  This year’s Residents are filmmakers of compelling and crucial documentaries that brilliantly expand our understanding of the “American story.”  Participation in the Institute has become increasingly competitive. Working Films selected 11 films out of 39 submissions.  The Residents will create an audience engagement plan for their films and identify potential social justice organizations with whom to collaborate in outreach.  Through the selection of filmmakers committed to using their films for social change, Working Films fulfills its mission to advance social, economic, environmental and racial justice by linking non-fiction film with cutting-edge activism. The Institute will take place March 12- 15, 2008 on the campus of MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams, MA.

Descriptions of the Residents’ Projects
Few could argue that we are living in the most exciting presidential race in recent history.  Not only are we are being inspired to participate in the political process at record rates, but the likelihood that either a man of African descent or a woman could be the next President of the United States has vigorously revived a collective conversation of what it means to live in America, and who we are in relation to the world.  The body of work from this year’s 2008 Content + Intent Residents contributes pertinent perspectives to these contemporary conversations.

The political process and public life are central themes in two films by this year’s Residents.  Julianna Brannum’s LaDonna Harris: Indian 101 is both a biographical and verite-style story about the Comanche activist who began an extensive and public life of Indian political and social activism after moving from small town Walters, OK to Washington, DC.  Working Films accepted Jolene Pinder to the Institute because of the film she co-directed, Bismallah: In the Name of Allah, which follows the beginnings of a Muslim woman's decision to put herself under public scrutiny by taking part in the consummate American patriotic act - running for office.

In recent years, Iran and Afghanistan have staked a fundamental place in our national narrative.  Residents Arwen Curry and Sean Flynn deepen our understanding and appreciation of the undeniable bonds we share with these two countries, and in doing so broaden the borders of where the American story unfurls.  In Global Moms: Iran, Curry collaborated with filmmaker Justine Shapiro who took her six-year-old son to Iran in the summer of 2007 where they shared their daily life with three families from different backgrounds over three months.  Their story aims to pave the way for deeper cross-cultural understandings and interfaith dialogue.  Beyond Belief, on which Flynn served as associate producer, captures the testimonial account of “two ordinary moms living the American Dream” until their husbands are killed on September 11th.  Rather than turning inwards, grief compels the two to travel to Afghanistan where they connect with Afghan widows whose lives have been ravaged by decades of war and poverty – factors the two Americans come to believe are the root causes of terrorism.

Two Residents in this year’s Institute remind us of the peril caused by heightened reinforcement of the borders with our Latin American neighbors.  Nicholas Bruckman’s La Americana is an intimate documentary following an “illegal” immigrant’s journey from Bolivia to New York City and back, as she struggles to save the disabled daughter she left behind.  Anayansi Prado’s Children in No Man’s Land is a heartbreaking and compelling documentary that follows two Mexican children trying to cross the border in Arizona’s SonoraDesert to reunite with their mothers.  In the plight of these two children, we come to understand the adversity facing the 100,000 unaccompanied minors who cross the U.S. border with Mexico every year.

Africans accompanied the first Europeans to what eventually became the United States, and their struggles and triumphs for freedom, rights and identity have informed what it means to be American ever since.  This year’s Residents offer more compelling voices to the collective.  YoniBrooks and Musa Sayeed co-directed Bronx Princess which follows a 17-year-old as she travels from the South Bronx to her father’s palace in Ghana, and draws us into the tensions she experiences as a first generation African-American with intimate ties to both continents. By examining the history of black entrepreneurship in Durham, NC, filmmaker (and Working Films Board Member) Neil Williams uses The Silver Rights Movement to make the case for community-minded entrepreneurship as a means to remedy current race-based economic disparities. In The Pact, veteran filmmaker Andrea Kalin shares the provocative story of three African-American friends from the inner city who made a pact in high school to find a way to go to college and then medical school, and are now using their story to inspire kids to take the educational route to a better life. And Shannon Sonenstein’s Talkin Water allows us to revisit a recent catalyst for a national conversation on race – the impact of Hurricane Katrina.  The film is a coming-of-age story of four African-American teenage girls who become disillusioned by the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina and set out to tell the real story.

Finally, it’s safe to say that the sobering reach and span of the gargantuan pharmaceutical industry has as much of an impact on the contemporary American story as politics and identity.  Filmmaker Liz Canner offers a humorous and sobering look inside “big pharma” and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives in Orgasm, Inc. The documentary depicts Liz’s eight-year odyssey following a cadre of drug companies and medical device manufacturers as they race to be the first to win FDA-approval for their sex pill, cream, patch device or nose spray.

The Content + Intent Documentary Institute will run concurrently with a two-day film festival at MASS MoCA.  Films to be shown in this year’s festival include Everything’s Cool by Daniel Gold and Working Films Co-founder Judith Helfand, and King Corn by filmmakers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis.  There will also be a free community screening of Children in No Man’s Land by 2008 Institute Resident, Anayansi Prado.

About Working Films
Based in Wilmington, NC, Working Films is a national nonprofit that connects documentaries to social change through a variety of ways. Their services range from coordinating rough-cut community feedback screenings, to developing strategies for a documentary’s outreach, to constructing collaborative campaigns between filmmakers and organizers.  Working Films is also the only national media outreach organization offering free consultations on using films for social justice to independent filmmakers, with over 400 to date.  For more information on Working Films, please visit www.workingfilms.org.

About MASS MoCA
Housed on a restored 19th century factory campus in North Adams, Massachusetts, MASS MoCA is the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the country.



2008 Content + Intent Residents
Julianna Brannun, LaDonna Harris: Indian 101
Yoni Brooks and Musa Sayeed, Bronx Princess
Nicholas Bruckman, La Americana
Liz Canner, Orgasm, Inc.
Arwen Curry, Global Moms: Iran (working title)
Sean Flynn, Beyond Belief
Andrea Kalin, The Pact
Jolene Pinder, Bismallah: In the Name of Allah
Anayansi Prado, Children in a No Man’s Land
Shannon Sonenstein, Talkin Water
Neil Williams, The Silver Rights Movement