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Filmmakers and organizations are coming up with creative ways to incorporate a spectrum of social media into film campaigns, including interactive websites and games, issue-based social networking communities, podcasts and web TV shows. Filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman joins us as a guest blogger to share how she’s using popular social media tools to engage young people in her campaign.

@thelinecampaign: Sex. Consent. Power. Pleasure. The Line is a film. The Line is a movement. The Line is up to you.

"The Line is about building a world where people are free to be sexual beings without being used or mistreated. Hookup culture disempowers even its bravest soldiers with “dude, I’m gettin’ some tonight;” even when women play the game, we’re expected to obey someone else’s rules." From: “Next time, text me back: I was the Grrl du Jour” (Author: Carmen)

"I applaud Ronan’s speaking out about his struggle as a male person negotiating “Manhood” with a commitment to social justice… As a male person who grew up with and fully defensive about all but class privilege, I understand that coming to a place of recognition without defensiveness and learning from the discomfort is difficult and it’s a process that requires a courage and strength much more meaningful than the traditional “Manly” version." From: “Responses to: Sexist Boyhood in Urban New Jersey” (Author: Ronen, Comment Jonathon Grove)

The Line is a 24-minute documentary, challenging ideas about sexual consent, negotiation, and boundaries. It is told from a personal point of view in a compelling, engaging style suited for a college-age audience. It is the first film of its kind to address the topic of consent in a direct, sex-positive voice, while examining a sexual assault where part of the act was consensual and part of it was forced.  The film asks the question: where is the line defining consent? The biggest challenge for this outreach project, was taking the topic of sexual assault and creating a space for non-polarizing, accessible, and non-judgmental conversation that emphasizes communication, personal responsibility and pleasure. Our goal was to use The Line film to create an educational, interactive and multi-media campaign that fosters dialogue about sexual boundaries and consent, and empowers young men and women to discuss complex scenarios about healthy relationships and sex.

With support from The Fledgling Fund, and collaboration with Melissa Gira Grant we launched "where is your line?" a group blog on consent, sex, pleasure, and ways we all can ask for what we want. Through shared stories, photos, and comments, we invite the audience to become participants, and to dig deeper into the questions raised by the film. Using the online/social media tools popular with college students and activists – blogging, Facebook, internet video, and Twitter – we solicited entries from people with large networks, jumped onto message boards, and cross-posted our content as broadly as possible. Once we started generating stories, the thornier the better, we enriched the experience by soliciting comments from educators and sexperts, who will eventually become our non-profit partners. We wanted to launch the website with a splash, and the opportunity came our way in the form of Tucker Max and the release of his film I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Facebook, Twitter and feminist blogs were lighting up in anger about the sexist, misogynist and racist content of the film, and the truly nasty ways his camp was responding to protesters using video and photoshop. In less than two days, we cut together a PSA-style video piece, sticking to our message that good sex is consensual sex, and reminding frat boys everywhere that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. We posted the video on our site and throughout our networks, and it got picked up on feministing.com, which in turn got picked up on Tucker Max's site, which directed more folks back to us. Being part of the media response to Tucker helped us get established, and helped his film bomb at the box office!

Working Films has always emphasized long-standing and far reaching relationships with non-profit partners to maximize the impact of your film. We have tested the waters using our online networks, and have now identified the right organizations to collaborate with on a concrete level, with tangible and attainable mutual goals. Using the Working Films summit model, we look forward to bringing The Line and The Line Campaign into hundreds of classrooms and community groups nationwide.

In our consultations with filmmakers, at our strategic summits, in our workshops and residencies, and during informal conversations at film festivals we are always trying to hammer home for filmmakers the importance of forming solid, ongoing, mutually-beneficial partnerships with organizations working on the issues featured in their films. From the start of our work ten years ago, we found strategic partnerships – finding the right NGOs, funders, and even brands – to be the one key component for successful film campaigns. If we identified the right partners, the rest came easy. Built into these partnerships were mutually beneficial outcomes: You bring them CONTENT – the compelling narrative of your film, and they bring you INTENT – embedding your film into their reach and long term commitment, taking your film to crucial audiences, their members and constituents. Some NGOs have brilliant strategies for policy shifts or for new models for providing social services. Your film can be the catalyst that’s needed for a final push to make these things happen. A collaborative campaign maximizes resources and together you and the NGOs create IMPACT. By now, most filmmakers “get it” – they know partnerships between NGOs, advocates, on-the-ground activists, and policy strategists are the most likely means to build a robust audience engagement and alternative distribution campaign for their film, but often they tackle the problem from the wrong direction. We tell filmmakers: The question to your potential partners is not “How can you help my movie?” but “How can my movie help the movement?” A Filmmaker Who Knocked It Out Of the Park Filmmaker Dan Habib has done an incredible job of collaborating with organizations working for full inclusion – a movement that has had a profound impact on how educators and others think about services for children and people with disabilities. Habib’s Including Samuel chronicles his family’s efforts to ensure their son Samuel – who has Cerebral Palsy – is included in all facets of his school and community. The film features four other families with varied inclusion experiences, plus interviews with dozens of teachers, young people, parents and disability rights experts. Through a strategy summit with Working Films, Dan created a collaborative campaign with key partners in the inclusion movement including the Council of Administrators of Special Education, Girls Scouts of the USA, Kids Included Together,  National Education Association, National Inclusion Project, TASH, United Cerebral Palsy, VSA arts, and many others. This is a mutually beneficial effort using the film for the long haul; not just lip service or a one-off one time screening. Among other forms of collaboration, Dan solicited input from many of these partners when putting together his screening toolkits and all of them have used Including Samuel in conferences, trainings, and other special events. In return they have gotten word out about the film’s PBS broadcast and screenings to their membership. “OK, OK,” you say, “but I am not a member of this movement, how do I even start to talk to NGOs about my movie?” There are some key lessons in starting these relationships: Do your homework. Identify the organizations that are doing leading work on the issue featured in the film. Look for a mix of large membership organizations that could bring you potential audiences and small scrappy strategists who will ensure your film is embedded in cutting edge activism by NGOs focused on policy and change. We’re not talking 20 or 30 organizations, but maybe 5 to 7. What are their current programs and priorities? How might your film fit into these existing efforts? ASK THEM; don’t guess. Authentic partnerships start with your allies identifying for you how and when your film might be useful and even crucial to their efforts. Start Early. Begin forming relationships with organizations while you are still in production. Of course, one obvious place to start is the organizations either featured in your film or otherwise already connected to your production. They can help you navigate what may be unknown territory, and they can help you identify other partners and how your film could fit into and advance their work. They are also likely to have great ideas for DVD extras, online tools, and other resources that could both serve the film and the movement. “How can I help you?” Not, “How can you help me?” Again, this is the most important piece of advice when approaching new potential partner organizations. Non-profits often tell us they get approached by filmmakers who want them to help get their film out, but don’t understand that while they may be connected to the issue in the film, they don’t have the time or resources to act as a distributor. It is important that right off the bat the non-profit knows that you have ideas about how to work collaboratively, including, shockingly enough, even sharing revenues with them in co-hosted screenings. We call it calculus for change: Strategic reach to audiences + strategic shared resources + strategic multi-year direction = strategic outcomes. Perhaps most importantly partners bring you audiences and IMPACT: Their co-hosted screenings with you will range from large “town hall” public screenings to house parties hosted by their members, to closed door screening with decision makers. Your Take Action steps for audiences should be linked to their ongoing efforts. And in the end your audience is fully engaged and your movie is making a difference. OK, you’re invested in partnerships with a NGO, now what? In the next blog in this series, we’ll share a key methodology that has successfully created ongoing strategic partnerships with NGOs and funders: strategy summits. Stay tuned!

The Media That Matters Film Festival is now accepting submissions for their 10th Annual Film Festival. The festival showcases short films on various social justice issues. This year they are particularly interested in films on Media Literacy, Human Rights, LGBTQ & Sexual Identity, Youth Activism and International issues. Each year, Working Films presents the Changemaker Award to the film with the most potential to inspire activism. Last year, we presented the award to Exiled in America,  a film about five siblings struggling to support their American livelihoods after their mother is deported to Mexico. Check out the Media That Matters website to review their criteria and submission guidelines. Deadline is January 22, 2010.

What do indigenous communities in the Amazon and a rather prosperous coastal town in North Carolina have in common? Not much you might think, and generally you would be right. There are certainly many differences, but it turns out that folks concerned about the environment and public health in Wilmington, North Carolina have much to learn from communities struggling for environmental justice in the Ecuadorian villages featured in the film Crude. A screening of Crude at the Cucalorus Film Festival in Working Films’ hometown of Wilmington, N.C. gave me the opportunity to make the connection between a powerful international David and Goliath story and local struggles to protect our health and environment.

[caption id="attachment_718" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Joel Bourne, and Andy Myers with me, Anna Lee"][/caption] Crude is a real-life, high stakes legal drama that uncovers the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case in which indigenous communities are suing Texaco/ Chevron for the environmental, cultural, and medical devastation that the companies’ oil exploration have wreaked on their communities and land. We don’t have any oil exploration happening on the coast of North Carolina, but we do have a multi-national corporation called Titan America that has gotten 4.2 million dollars in tax incentives from our county commissioners to build the fourth largest cement plant in the country, right on the banks of the beautiful Cape Fear River. For those of you that don’t know much about cement plants, they are coal fired kilns that spew particulate matter including mercury and other toxic chemicals into the air and water. In order to make the cement, companies have to quarry limestone, a process that has the potential to drastically deplete and pollute our local aquifer. As part of our Q&A panel, we included Joel Bourne one of the lead organizers for Stop Titan, a group that is organizing concerned citizens to fight the construction of the plant. Joel talked about lessons from the film that he thought we could learn locally and apply to the fight against Titan, with persistence being the primary take away. He filled the audience in on the latest in efforts to block the plant and called on folks to get involved by writing letters to the editor and writing or calling the state departments that are considering issuing air and water permits for the plant. In addition to Joel, our panel consisted of Jennifer Horan, a professor at UNC Wilmington who is an expert on the effects of oil exploitation on these Amazonian indigenous communities. She was able to fill in gaps and answer audience questions about what they saw on the screen. We also had student organizer, Andy Myers, of UNCW’s Environmental Concerns Organization (ECO) on the panel. He had petitions for folks to sign in support of a strong international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen. All in all, we used the Cucalorus screening of Crude to make connections to local issues and provide outlets for the audience to take meaningful action. If the conversations that continued long after the credits rolled are any indication, film festival goers left fired up and ready to get more involved in stopping Titan and fighting climate change.

In the film What's On Your Plate?, Sadie and Safiyah go on a mission to find out where their food comes from. The film follows them visiting local farms and farmer's markets, talking to food experts and activists, cooking delicious meals, and being aware of the journey their food took to get on their plates.

The Pesticide Action Network just launched a free iPhone application that makes it easy to find out what's on your food. Check it out to see what kind of pesticides are on your plate. Yuck!

In the film What's On Your Plate?, Sadie and Safiyah go on a mission to find out where their food comes from. The film follows them visiting local farms and farmer's markets, talking to food experts and activists, cooking delicious meals, and being aware of the journey their food took to get on their plates.

The Pesticide Action Network just launched a free iPhone application that makes it easy to find out what's on your food. Check it out to see what kind of pesticides are on your plate. Yuck!

This year we’ve worked with a number of films on environmental issues, including The Age of Stupid and No Impact Man, where a prevalent theme is the need for a binding and just international agreement to address climate change. With world leaders set to gather in Copenhagen in just under a month to negotiate a new international climate treaty, we need President Obama and the Senate to show leadership in enacting bold climate solutions. Leading organizations, such as 1Sky, are urging people to make a creative statement through “Make Art for Climate” gatherings across the country, where people will come together to decorate pieces of cloth with images reflecting the urgency of the climate challenge. The art gatherings will then culminate in a series of nationwide public actions during the first week of December – just before Copenhagen – to reinforce the need for strong action. As part of this week of action 1Sky will deliver the murals to important members of the Obama administration and the Senate, creating a powerful visual reminder of the need for bold climate solutions. Are you interested in holding an art gathering or public event in your community? Sign up at 1Sky.org or contact Ada Aroneanu at ada [at] 1sky.org.

When watching news about famines and starving people in foreign countries, we often feel removed from the problem, even as we express pity and regret. Beadie Finzi's The Hunger Season shatters our illusions of distance, however, revealing the complex interconnections between global economic systems, the hunger for new biofuel sources of energy, global climate change, political unrest, and resulting devastation of drought and famine for millions of people around the world. Tracing the journey of food aid from the fields of Wisconsin farmers to USAID and finally to Swaziland, where Justice, a village leader, struggles to feed his neighbors, Finzi brings home our role in the hunger crises and also our ability to help avert such problems. A moving experience, The Hunger Season had its sneak peek world premiere at a Tales from Planet Earth event in October 2008 and came back for the 2009 festival by popular demand. The screening event held a year ago was co-hosted by First United Methodist Church of Madison, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, the Center for Culture, History and Environment (CHE) and Working Films. This event built the impetus for the event on Sunday – which is becoming a new national engagement project built around the film called "Meal & a Movie in a Box." In addition to the Meal & a Movie, two students in the Community Engagement through Film class, Sarah Obernauer or Tia Nowack, made a tie between Swaziland to Madison with Share the Shares which brought CSA and local food production into the mix. Watch the video above to hear more about this innovative program.