Judith Helfand to be honored at the SF Women's Film Festival

Judith Helfand, our co-founder, is getting her due honors all this week – a testament to her passion and commitment and downright brilliance. Honors start at the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival this Wednesday, April 7th, 2010. The night will open with a tribute to Judith featuring A Healthy Baby Girl, Ek Velt: At the End of the World, and excerpts from Blue Vinyl followed by a Q&A. On Thursday, April 8th at noon, Judith will be teaching a master class where she will share storytelling strategies that lead to…

Make the dream of zero-waste a reality! Take action and share the new Garbage Dreams widget.

Would you like to see the United States recycle just as much garbage as they do in Cairo? Then check out this Garbage Dreams widget. You can watch a clip from the award-winning film about the inspiring recycling practices of the Zaballeen in Cairo and sign onto a letter asking President Obama to support policies that will assure 75% of our trash gets recycled by 2015. Most importantly you can use the widget to sign up to host your own screening of the film and create an ever bigger impact…

Another round of the Good Pitch!

The call for submissions for the Good Pitch Forum at Silverdocs 2010 is open! The Good Pitch is a one-day forum set to take place during the Festival (June 22-27, 2010), bringing together specially selected foundations, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, brands and broadcasters to maximize the impact and create powerful alliances around groundbreaking films. The Good Pitch is a project of The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. It is made possible by The Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Tides Foundation and anonymous…

Rose and Nangabire at Story Leads to Action

Missed last week’s invigorating Story Leads to Action at the 92YTribeca that we co-hosted with Chicken & Egg Pictures? Fear not, filmmakers Elizabeth Mandel and Beth Davenport have agreed to share their lessons learned from the evening for your benefit: Three years after filming the reunion of a Congolese girl and her mother, separated by war in Congo, Rose & Nangabire (working title) is almost complete. The work-in-progress screening last Thursday was an exciting opportunity to share our work outside the edit room. With a focus on audience engagement, it…

Ally of the Garbage Dreams Tour, Transition US, Featured in Great Article!

I just came across this great article about the Transition movement. This movement isn’t about sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves because of climate change and peak oil. It’s about doing something, or as the article says, “Transition wants people to envision and create models for that future — and find much to be cheerful about.” I was excited to see the Transition movement getting the attention it deserves, especially because Working Films just recently worked with Transition US to put together a special offer for their supporters who want…

Host Your Own ‘Meal & a Movie’ Event

The Hunger Season is now inviting schools and universities, NGO’s, environmental groups, and faith based organizations to order a copy of the film and host their own ‘Meal & a Movie’ event – similar to the one hosted in Madison during Tales from Planet Earth. Multiple copies of the DVD can be included so that organizations can reach out to their constituency, raise awareness around hunger and raise money for their organization at the same time. When the group comes together, it is asked for them to forgo their evening…

This season on POV…

POV’s Executive Director Simon Kilmurry announced their extraordinary lineup of films for 2010. Among them are many great films that we have had the honor to work with including former Working Films’ Park Scholar Jeremy Levine’s Good Fortune and more recently POV’s Adoption Stories series with Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy, Off and Running, and In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee. Only a few weeks ago we hosted a strategy summit in partnership with POV for the Adoption Stories series which will air in late August/early September.…

MTV Walks “A Thin Line”

Last month, our friends over at The Line emailed us some exciting news and attention they received. Nancy and her team have been coming up with great ways to raise awareness about her film & campaign, Where is Your Line? They have also been very strategic in creating dialogues around sexual consent by using popular culture as a springboard. Take a look as Nancy Schwartzman describes last month’s Valentine’s Day romance with MTV’s “A Thin Line”: Since its launch, our team has been watching MTV’s “A Thin Line,” a campaign,…

Call for Submissions: Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival

The American Museum of Natural History’s Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running showcase for international documentaries in the United States. The festival screens documentaries that increase our understanding of the complexity and diversity of the peoples and cultures that populate our planet. Submissions are now being accepted for the 34th annual festival to be held Thursday, Nov. 11, through Sunday, Nov. 14. Deadline: March 31 (early), May 3 (final) For more information: http://amnh.org/programs/mead/submit.

Here we go again! Working Films is excited about the Good Pitch @ Tribeca

Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Documentary Institute have announced the lineup for the Good Pitch @ Tribeca, hitting the screens in NYC on April 27 during the Tribeca Film Festival. For three years and running (we were there at the very first Good Pitch in Oxford UK), Working Films has provided a two day workshop on campaign development for the Good Pitch filmmakers. Our allies the Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the Tides Foundation, the Hartley Film Foundation and anonymous donors provide additional support. From an impressive…