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How can filmmakers whose movies touch on similar issues collaborate? How can they not!?!

I’m preparing to spend next week in the Bay Area with some amazing and dedicated filmmakers and audience engagement coordinators. We’ll be figuring out where the overlaps in their campaigns lie and how they can cover more ground together than they could alone. The films chosen for this innovative retreat are Cape Wind, Deep Down, Dirty Business, Gas Land, Split Estate, Sun Come Up, and When Two Worlds Collide. These projects are all focusing on the impact of unchecked natural resource extraction and/or innovative solutions for turning things around before it is too late. You can watch the trailers on our workshop page. 1Sky, 350.org, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and MIT Center for Future Civic Media will join us for the first three days helping to ground the stories and themes in the films to the urgent and timely needs of the movement – helping us with the nuances that are crucial to making an impact. On day four, we’ll head to the Brower Center in Berkeley and will be joined by a number of groups central to the energy and natural resource revolution, including Bay Localize, Conservation International, Critical Resistance, Earthworks, Environmental Working Group, Green for All, NRDC, Physicians For Social Responsibility (SF), Post Carbon Institute, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Project Survival Media, Rainforest Action Network, The Redford Center, Sierra Club, Speak Out, The 11th Hour Project, and additional foundation funders and individual donors. At the end of the week we’ll regroup with the filmmakers and audience engagement coordinators to determine the essential next steps to help collaboration flourish. We’ll be sure to post updates along the way here, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter page. If you are with an organization, foundation, or brand and are interested in joining this collaborative in some capacity in the future, contact me at khenry at workingfilms.org.

Huffington Post:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)was clear in his campaign ad last week: "Complete the danged fence," he told an Arizona sheriff, who appeared with him in the immigration-themed ad. The fence that McCain was referring to is actually a series of barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border that were approved by congress in 2006. It's also the subject of Rory Kennedy's short film "The Fence (La Barda)." Kennedy's film, shot well before Arizona's new immigration law or McCain's new ad, calls into question the effectiveness and the unintended consequences of the $3 billion fence.

You can read more about McCain and this issue on the Huffington Post and sign up for The Fence updates here.

Huffington Post:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)was clear in his campaign ad last week: "Complete the danged fence," he told an Arizona sheriff, who appeared with him in the immigration-themed ad. The fence that McCain was referring to is actually a series of barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border that were approved by congress in 2006. It's also the subject of Rory Kennedy's short film "The Fence (La Barda)." Kennedy's film, shot well before Arizona's new immigration law or McCain's new ad, calls into question the effectiveness and the unintended consequences of the $3 billion fence.

You can read more about McCain and this issue on the Huffington Post and sign up for The Fence updates here.

Last month, Working Films and Chicken & Egg Pictures hosted a screening of Nancy Schwartzman’s film The Line, for our Story Leads to Action series at 92YTribeca. After the screening, the audience discussed how the film could be used in high schools, college freshman orientation programs, sexual violence prevention programs and law school and criminal justice education. On the panel were: - Nancy Schwartzman (Director) - Michelle J. Anderson (Dean and Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law) - Neil Irvin (Executive Director, Men Can Stop Rape) - Don McPherson (former NFL football player; current sports announcer and activist) - Meghan O’Conner (NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault) On her blog, Nancy gives a breakdown of the key points that each panelist spoke on. Also, check out what Jessica at “The Love That is Strong” had to say about the screening along with their thoughts on the larger discussion of sexual violence awareness and consent.

As Thursday is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we’re thinking about our impact in the sustainability work that we do, and the change that media projects like No Impact Man can spark.

How do filmmakers create an audience engagement campaign that is unique, yet has ties to a movement that already exists? Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director of 1Sky, puts it simply when speaking about their partnership with No Impact Man, “It’s important that the relationship be reciprocal.” Working Films and The Fledgling Fund are excited to bring you the second video in our series, No Impact Man: Activating Your Audience. It illustrates the benefits of mutually beneficial relationships and demonstrates creating opportunities for participation that extends the story beyond the film. Watch the video and find out how No Impact Man and its partners, like 1Sky, worked together to move participants from individual action to collective action.

There will be a number of films on Latino issues at this year’s Full Frame Film Festival in Durham, NC. Many of these films relate to issues facing North Carolina’s Latino population, issues which we address in our New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina multi-media curriculum. We’re just wrapping up some revisions to the New Faces curriculum and we’re excited to see the connections between that project and several of the great films playing at Full Frame this year. A number of these films are part of the 2010 Thematic Program on work and labor at the festival. Working Films board member and filmmaker Alex Rivera’s The Sixth Section will be playing on Saturday night. The film follows Grupo Unión, a group of immigrant men that pool their earnings for philanthropic projects for their hometown, such as a 2,000-seat baseball stadium and a new well. Morristown: In the Air and Sun takes us to the fields and factory floors where Mexicans work at “jobs that Americans won’t do,” and present their struggles to organize. We see that the links between Morristown and Mexico are being strengthened, sometimes in surprising ways, by the global economy and the multinational corporations that influence the flow of labor and capital. You can catch this film on Sunday and can see a clip from footage shot by Morristown Filmmaker Anne Lewis on our New Faces website. Los Trabajadores is playing this afternoon. In 1999 the booming city of Austin, Texas kept on growing - thanks largely to men like Ramón and Juan, who work some of the hardest jobs in an America that doesn't want them. Through the lives of these two men and a battle over Austin's controversial day labor program, Los Trabajadores brings to life the vivid contradictions that haunt America's dependence on and discrimination against immigrant labor. Clips from Los Trabajadores are also part of the New Faces curriculum. On Saturday afternoon as part of the Career Award, The Fence will be shown. In October 2006, the United States government decided to build a 700-mile fence along its Mexican border. Three years and 3.1 billion dollars later, its stated goals—containing illegal immigration, cracking down on drug trafficking, and protecting America from terrorists—have unforeseen consequences. In the next few weeks look for an update from us on the revisions to the New Faces curriculum. In the meantime if you are in North Carolina join us in supporting these films at Full Frame!

“Good work!” to our colleagues at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival The Festival kicks off this Thursday, April 8, with a stellar and rousing line up. We’re connected to a number of films and filmmakers at the fest; join us in celebrating their success! On Friday, April 9th at 4pm, at the Carolina Theatre’s historic Fletcher Hall is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Dirty Business. Dirty Business demystifies "clean coal" and explores the extent to which increased energy efficiency and wind, solar and thermal power might make "clean coal" unnecessary and uneconomical. Join the filmmakers Peter Bull and Justin Weinstein and some local folks from NC Interfaith Power & Light and Duke Environmental Alliance afterward for the Q&A. Working Films is currently developing Dirty Business’ audience engagement and hosting a strategy meeting later this month with national NGOs. Two other films for which we will be hosting strategy summits will be at Full Frame: Stanley Nelson’s Freedom Riders and Stonewall Uprising by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner.  Both projects will also be featured on the PBS series American Experience. Freedom Riders is the inspirational story of eight months in 1961 when more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives in protest against Jim Crow laws. It screens at Cinema 3, Sunday, April 11 at 4:10 pm. Stonewall Uprising , an essential history of gay rights in America, centers on June 27, 1969, the night that patrons of Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn refused to be rounded up and shamed in a series of unjust arrests. It screens on Saturday, April 10, 4:30 pm, Cinema Four. Moxie Firecracker Films’ Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus will be honored with 2010 Full Frame Career Award. A roster of their amazing films runs thru the weekend. Some of our best community engagement campaigns have been with this smart and committed team, including Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Coma. Full Frame honors first time filmmakers with the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant. This grant funds novice documentary makers for travel to the festival and accommodations, providing them access to films, participation in master classes and mentorships by experienced filmmakers. This year the award goes to Mike Brown (25 to Life) and April Hayes and Katia Maguire (Jessica Gonzales vs. The United States of America). Mike participated in the 2009 Good Pitch at IFP – campaign development for Good Pitch filmmakers is provided by Working Films. The late Garrett Scott was a friend and a colleague who is sorely missed; Working Films supported the engagement campaign for Occupation: Dreamland, the award-winning film Garrett co-directed with Ian Olds. Stay over Sunday for our co-founder Judith Helfand’s very first film The Uprising of ’34, co-directed with George Stoney, screening April 11, 1:40 pm at DAC / PSI Theatre. The film probes the working conditions that led to the strike of hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers, the events of the strike itself, and the violence and intimidation whose lasting legacy could be felt even 70 years later. The Festival is shaping up to be a great time. We hope to see you at some or all of these events!

“Good work!” to our colleagues at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival The Festival kicks off this Thursday, April 8, with a stellar and rousing line up. We’re connected to a number of films and filmmakers at the fest; join us in celebrating their success! On Friday, April 9th at 4pm, at the Carolina Theatre’s historic Fletcher Hall is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Dirty Business. Dirty Business demystifies "clean coal" and explores the extent to which increased energy efficiency and wind, solar and thermal power might make "clean coal" unnecessary and uneconomical. Join the filmmakers Peter Bull and Justin Weinstein and some local folks from NC Interfaith Power & Light and Duke Environmental Alliance afterward for the Q&A. Working Films is currently developing Dirty Business’ audience engagement and hosting a strategy meeting later this month with national NGOs. Two other films for which we will be hosting strategy summits will be at Full Frame: Stanley Nelson’s Freedom Riders and Stonewall Uprising by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner.  Both projects will also be featured on the PBS series American Experience. Freedom Riders is the inspirational story of eight months in 1961 when more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives in protest against Jim Crow laws. It screens at Cinema 3, Sunday, April 11 at 4:10 pm. Stonewall Uprising , an essential history of gay rights in America, centers on June 27, 1969, the night that patrons of Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn refused to be rounded up and shamed in a series of unjust arrests. It screens on Saturday, April 10, 4:30 pm, Cinema Four. Moxie Firecracker Films’ Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus will be honored with 2010 Full Frame Career Award. A roster of their amazing films runs thru the weekend. Some of our best community engagement campaigns have been with this smart and committed team, including Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Coma. Full Frame honors first time filmmakers with the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant. This grant funds novice documentary makers for travel to the festival and accommodations, providing them access to films, participation in master classes and mentorships by experienced filmmakers. This year the award goes to Mike Brown (25 to Life) and April Hayes and Katia Maguire (Jessica Gonzales vs. The United States of America). Mike participated in the 2009 Good Pitch at IFP – campaign development for Good Pitch filmmakers is provided by Working Films. The late Garrett Scott was a friend and a colleague who is sorely missed; Working Films supported the engagement campaign for Occupation: Dreamland, the award-winning film Garrett co-directed with Ian Olds. Stay over Sunday for our co-founder Judith Helfand’s very first film The Uprising of ’34, co-directed with George Stoney, screening April 11, 1:40 pm at DAC / PSI Theatre. The film probes the working conditions that led to the strike of hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers, the events of the strike itself, and the violence and intimidation whose lasting legacy could be felt even 70 years later. The Festival is shaping up to be a great time. We hope to see you at some or all of these events!