LATEST NEWS

Last month, Working Films returned to the Sheffield Doc-Fest, June 13 – 17, hosting a third year of our highly interactive Story Leads to Action panel, co-hosted with the Festival. Coordinated by our UK staffer Sarah Ross, and facilitated by Robert West, Story Leads to Action brought together filmmaker Frederick Gertten, and his new film Big Boys Gone Bananas*, with Marcos Zunino, a legal officer at Article 19 in London specializing in freedom of expression and international law. In 2009, when Frederick Gertten’s film Bananas!* was accepted into the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF), he was delighted. An examination of food giant Dole’s devastating use of pesticides in Nicaragua, the film would be having its world premiere in the same city as Dole’s global headquarters. Then the “cease and desist” letters started arriving. Despite not having seen the film, Dole was determined to control the narrative around it – and cast Gertten as a major liar. Dole also began bombarding the LAFF itself, from the organisers to journalists and sponsors, with shocking results. With our Sheffield Doc-Fest audience, we facilitated a lively discussion about the current risks for filmmakers, especially from multi-national corporations with deep legal pockets. While Gertten vigorously responded to Dole's meritless action and, with his legal team, demonstrated that the lawsuit was simply one part of Dole's overall strategy to stifle debate about their environmental actions and liabilities, real damage to the film’s distribution strategy, especially in the US, had already been done. Our conversation was a precautionary tale about how one filmmaker’s passion for truth went against the behemoth of a multi-billon dollar industry and ultimately prevailed - as Big Boys Gone Bananas!* reveals; we shared practical tactics for documentary filmmakers and updates on how international law is supporting artistic expression. We loved being in Sheffield in June, and look forward to coming back in 2013!

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 powerful force for positive educational change, and Who Cares About Kelsey?, the new project about full inclusion of students with behavioral and emotional disabilities from Including Samuel filmmaker Dan Habib. These new additions address specific topics that weren't covered in the original groups of seven projects that attended our Reel Education residency. All of the Reel Education projects have been doing amazing work, winning awards and prompting dialogue and action. Here are a few highlights of their most recent efforts:

• You may have seen the champion chess team from Brooklyn middle school I.S. 318 in on the front page of the NY Times a week or so ago. Brooklyn Castle, which features the incredible story of those same kids, is garnering awards and rave reviews on the festival circuit.
• The team that produced To Be Heard  just got a $100,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant to support their recently launched Power Poetry Project – the world’s first mobile poetry community for youth.
• Mariachi High will broadcast on PBS this summer as part of their Summer Arts Festival a multi-part weekly series and collection of new original online content that takes viewers across the country and around the world, hosted by award-winning television, film and stage star Anna Deavere Smith.
• Shakespeare High recently won best documentary at the Sonoma International Film Festival  and had great cinema runs in NY and LA this spring. Folks are loving the film and writers know it has the power to promote arts education.
• In addition to garnering awards in festivals around the world and being put to work in community settings across Europe, Our School recently scored a giant win in their effort to achieve educational justice for Roma children. After a recent special screening at the Romanian Ministry of Education, “the Ministry committed to making Our School part of the teacher training curricula by the start of the new school year. The National Council for Combating Discrimination asked for DVDs that they could start using in training programs the following week.” Read a great overview here of how filmmaker Mona Nicoara, her team and their allies working on Roma education have made this - and more - happen over the last year.
• Who Care About Kelsey?  is already receiving rave reviews from educators and mental health professionals at sneak preview screenings at conferences. Here’s a great overview of the film in extensive piece in the Concord Monitor.
• Clips from A Community Concern were recently featured as part of KQED’s American Graduate Teacher Town Hall. KQED broadcast the film in April as part of their offerings for the American Graduate project, and later this year it will be offered to all the PBS stations under the American Graduate banner. American Graduate is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America find solutions to address the dropout crisis.

For more information on our Reel Education initiative and to see trailers for all of the projects please visit our Reel Education project page. Or feel free to contact  AnnaLee at [email protected]

Many months ago, when Working Films started laying the groundwork for our Reel Aging residency and follow-up campaign, my understanding of issues related to aging was fairly limited. Probably like many people, especially my peers in our early 30s, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the later stages of my life. The older members of my family are in good health, so our family hasn’t had to deal with many challenges or crises related to aging. So, with no sense of urgency, and a culture that doesn’t particularly encourage us to think about our older years, my knowledge about “aging” issues was slim. After watching the films and meeting the filmmakers we selected for the Reel Aging residency, I started having new and unexpected conversations within my own family. Questions came up with my parents such as “Can we talk about your concerns if you reach the point of not being able to live on your own?”, “What resources will we need to make those preferences a reality?” With my husband Johnny, we started to think more about what resources we needed in place for our retirement. It was clear to me that the eleven media projects we selected for Reel Aging were powerful and compelling, but now, after spending five days strategizing with the producers at the recently completed Reel Aging residency and hearing from them directly about their passion for their projects, I am sure that these media projects will make an impact. All of these stories opened new conversations among those of us that participated in Reel Aging: the media makers, our Working Films team and our two strategists from the “aging movement: Anne Basting, Director of the Center on Age and Community at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and Donna Phillips Mason, who recently retired from the National Council on Aging. We were lucky enough to have these two incredible women with us for the entire duration of the Reel Aging residency. They shared their experience and insight in the field and helped prepare the filmmakers to take their messages and ideas to the more than 40 organizations that joined us for the Reel Aging convening day on March 27th. That day organizations such as Leading Age, AARP, the Scan Foundation, Meals on Wheels Association of America, the Administration on Aging, the Center for Creative Aging and many others sat down face to face with the Reel Aging media makers and offered ideas for how these film projects could be used in trainings, to foster essential conversations within families, to engage their memberships and to move public policy. At Working Films we are looking forward to supporting not only partnerships between these individual media makers and organizations but also to coordinating a collective campaign that embeds the media projects into strategic change initiatives to improve and secure the rights, dignity, and overall well-being of older adults in society. Several organizations mentioned interest in a festival or series featuring multiple films and other media. This is just one potential avenue for collectivizing the projects. We are exciting about pursuing this idea and others with both the filmmakers and the organizations. As for me personally, I envision more frank and interesting conversations about aging with friends and family and am delighted to have a new framework that will broaden my lens on the world and positively affect the community-based work that I do in Working Films’ hometown of Wilmington, NC.

One month ago, we invited organizations and grassroots groups that are impacted by natural resource extraction, climate change or are tapping into renewable energy solutions to apply for one of fourteen mini-grants to support their Reel Power Film Festival (RPFF). Thanks to all that helped us spread the word. We received an incredible response. We are very excited to provide these films to organizations that will use them to advance their outstanding efforts. The following four projects are the recipients of the first tier grants. For these organizations Working Films' Reel Power will co-host the event and help to bring in one filmmaker and one organizer to participate in screening event and encourage cross-pollination of grassroots organizing strategy: Frack Free Catskills, Saugerties NY Frack Free Catskills is a local group that is fighting fracking in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Communities, as well as NY State. They are organizing a conference that will bring together those who are engaged in movements to oppose extreme extractive energies including coal, gas, nukes, and tars sands in order for different communities to gain strength and inspiration from being connected to others in similar struggles in NY and around the country. The RPFF will be part of their conference. Green Paw Aggies, NC A&T Greensboro NC Green Paw Aggies is a new organization at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically black college and university, that is working to engaging students in the green movement and helping to make the sustainability efforts in the Triad more inclusive. For the RPFF they will engage their student government association, student activists, and local residents in current issues of fracking and climate change and sustainability efforts. Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC): Union College, Barbourville KY KFTC is a 30-year-old grassroots, multi-issue organization that includes a focus on stopping mountaintop removal, transitioning to cleaner and safer forms of energy that create new jobs, and pushing for leaders who represent ordinary people instead of powerful interests. They have members in 100 of Kentucky’s 120 counties and 11 local chapters across the state, with new alliances at Union College, where the RPFF will focus on how communities have organized in different areas around the state. Routt County Frack, Oak Creek CO This organization is not only working on issues surrounding the threat of the fracking boom in the Yampa River Valley and Routt County, CO, they are also working with various groups throughout Colorado to promote solar and renewable energy development in Northwestern Colorado. The RPFF will engage audiences in a community-rights approach to fighting extractive industries as well as presenting on the viability and necessity of renewable energies in Routt County. The following ten are the recipients of the mini-grant where we will support their efforts in planning the events in their communities, helping them to leverage local resources and networks: Clean Water for North Carolina, Rockingham and Stokes Counties NC Clean Water for NC works to promote clean, safe water and environments and empowered, just communities for all North Carolinians. They are currently fighting to keep fracking illegal in NC by hosting screenings, workshops and info sessions in cooperation with diverse local organizations and in potentially impacted areas. The RPFF will expand their efforts into the Dan River Basin to expose the impacts that fracking has had on communities in other states, and plug them into ways they can actively get involved to add their voices to the current legislative debate. Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of MS, Starkville MS Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of MS is a relatively new organization that provides opportunities to learn, experience first-hand, and find new ways in improving their lives through sustainable choices. They host an annual Sustainable Living Conference and produce an annual journal, monthly newsletter and host workshops throughout the state from home solar panel installation or biodiesel conversions to organic gardening and permaculture and have hosted the state's first Farm to School initiative. The RPFF will be held in conjunction with the Farm on Wheels project; a school bus that is converted to run on waste vegetable oil or bio-diesel and solar power that is used to teach about renewable energy and sustainable agriculture at schools and events throughout Mississippi. Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, Boston MA Mass Energy Consumers Alliance is a 30-year old nonprofit organization dedicated to making energy more affordable and environmentally sustainable where they offer clean energy solutions to consumers and advocate on behalf of pro-consumer, pro-environment policies. The RPFF will engage audiences in their work to support the development of community-based wind and solar projects, as well as their efforts to make the state coal-free. New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light, Albuquerque NM New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light works with nearly 200 faith communities throughout the state with current efforts to oppose new coal-fired power plants and natural gas fracking in the state; as well as assisting faith communities to become sustainable and energy efficient by planting community gardens, installing CFLs and weatherization materials, updating furnaces, cooling systems and appliances to more energy-efficient models, and to identify funding sources for solar installations. The RPFF will be part of their effort to engage audiences in taking the next tangible step towards sustainability. Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), Fayetteville WV OVEC is a statewide organization works to end to mountaintop removal and other coal industry abuses and they have expanded their work as fracking has begun in WV. This on the ground organization goes door to door in the community, helps people file complaints, and more importantly supports them in talking to their neighbors about the issues and how to take public action in opposition to it. The RPFF will be part of the work in communities under an expanding strip mine aiming to empower and demonstrate to people that they are not alone, and that around the world, people like them are fighting back. Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology, Fayetteville AR The Omni Center is a community-based grassroots organization working to create a just and sustainable world. They are located on the Fayetteville Shale, a natural gas formation that is undergoing heavy fracking and their state was in national news last year because of earthquakes that were shown to be caused by disposal of fracking waste in injection wells. The RPFF will be part of the community’s Earth Day events. Preston CARES (Citizens' Alliance for Resources and Environmental Safety), Kingwood WV Preston CARES is a grassroots organization in north-central West Virginia fighting the development of a waste separation facility and industrial landfill for hydraulic fracturing waste as well as the threat of the expansion of fracking into their community. The RPFF will support their efforts to engage the residents of Preston County on landowner rights, the technology behind hydraulic fracturing, the public health risks associated with fracking, the impacts of gas development on the land and water and how they can get involved. Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), Wise VA SAMS's works to stop the destruction of local communities by irresponsible surface coal mining, to improve the quality of life in the coalfields of southwest Virginia, and to help build sustainable communities. They will use the RPFF to engage more people in their efforts including water testing, health surveys, economic development, along with lobbying and outreach promoting renewable energy solutions as well as just and sustainable practices. Sustainable Tompkins, Ithaca NY Sustainable Tompkins is a citizen-based organization that is a leader in laying the groundwork for the transition to a resilient local economy where they have focused on energy efficiency, climate protection, green purchasing, sustainable community development, green collar jobs, sustainable enterprise, greening heath care, and economic/ecological justice. Their initiatives are on the leading edge, identifying gaps in knowledge and the infrastructure of new systems for sustainable living. The RPFF will be part of their effort to support the regional battles against fracking as well as positive stories of those building a better future based on truly sustainable communities. The Texas Drought Project, San Antonio TX The Texas Drought Project works to involve Texans in climate change issues through the lens of their diminishing water resources. They work throughout the state of Texas, putting on conferences and town halls, workshops, and informational tours. Their current focus has included fracking in the Barnett shale and the Eagle Ford shale as well as current efforts to stop the Keystone Pipeline, which would be routed through some of the state's most sensitive water supplies. The RPFF would include residents of the shale communities highlighting their struggles as well as proponents of more sustainable energy production to engage audiences in the realities of extraction and viable alternatives.

It’s no surprise North Carolinians are organizing in opposition to the cynical Amendment One ballot initiative timed for the primary on May 8th. Amendment One would codify a ban on same-sex marriage AND nullify civil unions and domestic partnerships of all couples – gay or straight. Our friends at the Daily Kos have some recent encouraging news on the likely outcome from voters. In January, Jen Jones with Race to the Ballot started literally running across the state to raise awareness in towns from the mountains of Asheville to the coast. People from both sides of the issue came out in the small town of Sandhills when she arrived to have an open, honest, and transformative discussion about the harms of this discriminatory measure. Watch this MUST SEE video of their exchange: At other stops in NC communities, Jen met organizers who were holding screenings of Working Films’ Reel Equality films as part of efforts to engage voters to come out and say NO! on May 8th. On Friday, March 2nd, Jen concluded her statewide race in our hometown of Wilmington, where 100+ folks turned out to welcome her to the waterfront (see pics). The following day, ALL OF US NC held a one-day training at the Working Films’ firehouse, energizing organizers from all over the Eastern part of the state to tell their neighbors about this hateful amendment. To all of us who live here in North Carolina – our co-workers, our fellow congregation members, our friends and families, and vulnerable and questioning youth – if this amendment passes, the place we call home will be saying “Sorry, you’re not welcome here.” We’re not letting that happen without a fight!

What does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home - injured physically and psychologically - and build a life anew? Danfung Dennis’ Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve. Working Films, with the presenting partners of Danfung Dennis and his team, The Fledgling Fund and Impact Partners, is developing an audience and community engagement campaign to take the film out of the sometimes-rarified realm of independent documentaries and embed this moving story directly in crucial new efforts to support veterans and to educate the general public about vets’ extraordinary service and their needs on returning home. Robert West, co-founder and executive director of Working Films, and Mallory Rusch, communications director for Mission Continues, one of the campaign partners, presented background on our efforts on a webinar for PBS stations hosted by the National Center for Media Engagement. Listen to the archived webinar here. Hell and Back Again will premiere on PBS’ five-time Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens on May 24 at 10 PM, providing an excellent opportunity to reach millions of general audience viewers around the Memorial Day weekend.

The award-winning documentary SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL is coming to the UK. Working Films is partnering with the filmmakers on a targeted engagement campaign in NC and the US. YOU MUST SEE this story of one Marine’s determination to hold his Corps accountable. DOCHOUSE presents SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL Screening Date: March 8th, 2012 Time: 8:30pm Location: Prince Charles Cinema For tickets and more information: http://www.princecharlescinema.com/indexreview.php?display=1939 There will be a satellite SKYPE Q&A with the Directors after the film. ABOUT THE FILM: Retired Master Sergeant Jerry Ensminger devoted nearly 25 years to service in the US Marines, following the motto “Always Faithful” as a way of life. When his nine-year-old daughter died of a rare form of leukemia while living at the military base Camp Lejeune, a grief-stricken Ensminger took on a quest that would lead him to a shocking discovery. This courageous and impassioned exposé follows his mission to make the Marine Corps to live up to its own motto. Shortlisted for 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary Winner- Best Documentary Editing- Tribeca Film Festival Winner- Special Founders Prize- Traverse City Film Festival Winner- Best Documentary & Audience Award - Woodstock Film Festival Winner-Best Documentary - San Diego Film Festival Visit our website: www.semperfialwaysfaithful.com “Shocking expose…strong, impassioned docu” -Variety “A riveting and often enraging documentary.”-Daily Beast “A profound tale that one man can make a difference in this world”- Filmmaker Magazine  

On February 10th, we organized a screening of Dirty Business in Chicago with The Environmental Justice Alliance of Greater Southeast Chicago and The Center for investigative Reporting. Director Peter Bull attended and hosted the Q&A after the film. Below is his recap of the event: I was invited out to Chicago's Southeast Side to do a Q&A after a screening of Dirty Business, hosted by a coalition of local environmental and faith groups who are trying to shut down two outmoded, badly-polluting old coal-fired power plants in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods and also put a stop to plans to build a coal gasification plant in the already heavily-polluted Southeast Side. There was a really impressive turnout for the film - especially on a cold and snowy night. A mix of 60 or so young and old, the audience and context couldn't have been a better 'fit' for the film. Screened in a converted old union hall in an industrial working class neighborhood where most of the manufacturing jobs have disappeared, residents here suffer above normal rates of asthma, heart disease and premature death attributable in large part to the coal plants' emissions and those of the vast BP refinery just next door across the Indiana state line. The air in this neighborhood has the distinction of containing Illinois' highest levels of toxic heavy metals, chromium and cadmium, as well as sulfates, which can trigger asthma attacks and increase the risk of heart disease. The Q & A session lasted a good 45 minutes with intelligent, provocative questions coming from engaged students, concerned parents and retirees alike. Particularly troubling to me was hearing reports of the claims being made on behalf of the proposed coal gasification plant. If the Sierra Club's figures are correct, the $3 billion Southside Chicago Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) plant proposed by New York-based developer Leucadia National Corp. will potentially add some 6,100,000 tons of new carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution every year: 3,600,00 tons of the greenhouse gas created in the process wherein coal and petroleum coke from refinery waste is chemically gasified, creating 43.5 billion cubic feet/yr of SNG, which is then burned by end users (natural gas power plants, business and manufacturing and residences), creating over 2,500,00 tons of additional CO2. Leucadia, however, claims they will be capturing and sequestering 85% of the plant's carbon dioxide emissions. (In fact, Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill last July mandating that figure as a condition; failure will result in the company facing $20 million in fines.) I'm extremely skeptical about that figure - to my knowledge, no commercial facility has ever demonstrated that ability. (West Virginia's pilot 'clean coal' Mountaineer plant that stopped capturing CO2 recently because it was economically unfeasible was only capturing some 1% of its emissions.) Meanwhile, Leucadia has yet to obtain permission to add pollution to this crowded industrial area in Chicago, and has yet to locate a buyer for its carbon dioxide emissions. If plans for the gasification plant do go forward, though, the biggest impact on Southeast Side residents will come from the endless coal trains that will be feeding the plant. So-called 'clean coal' plants that employ carbon capture and storage technology are expected to need some 30% of the plant's energy to capture, or filter out, the CO2 gases - which means they will require some 30% more coal than a traditional power plant. That coal gets shipped in open cars and dumped in huge piles next to the tracks that crisscross this area adjoining the toxic Calumet River, which I was told then sends huge plumes of coal dust over the housing developments and elementary and junior high schools on the other side of the tracks whenever the wind picks up. In the afternoon before the screening I was given a sobering tour of the area by Tom Shepherd of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. He pointed out the huge piles of coal, now incongruously white with a coating of snow, and then pointed across the river to similar-looking piles of rock salt. The salt piles had tarps tightly fastened on top of them; the coal piles were open to the elements. If Leucadia gets approved, those piles are going to get a lot bigger - and so are Southeast Side residents' asthma and other respiratory disease statistics. Thanks to the groups who hosted the screening, and all best wishes for their efforts in aiding & educating their community: The Environmental Justice Alliance of Greater Southeast Chicago; the Southeast Environmental Task Force; Sierra Club; People for Community Recovery; New 10th Ward Community Service Organization; Centro Communitario Juan Diego; Eastside United Methodist Church; The Zone; the Illinois Environmental Council; and the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.