The Peabody Awards announced eight winners in the documentary category yesterday (April 16) for projects released in 2018. Among the honorees: “Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart,” which the award program describes as: “A tribute to Lorraine Hansberry’s life and career as an essayist, journalist and playwright, and fearless advocate for social justice, the film mines her rich archive of writing, diaries, letters and personal effects, resulting in an intimate and powerful portrait of an innovative artist and radical activist.” https://youtu.be/G3Mg0KQ_oZo “Independent Lens: DOLORES,” which the program calls, “an exhilarating portrait of activist and community organizer Dolores Huerta that serves as a timely reminder of the power of collective action in service of social justice.”…
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Social Justice Cinema
The Ford Foundation is hosting an event on April 8th for Brave New Films’ FOLLOWING THEIR LEAD: YOUTH IN ACTION series. Rohan Chand the young actor from BAD WORDS and MOWGLI will be introducing the organizations in this event. Anyone interested to social justice issues would like to be in the ‘room where it happens’. Historically, that room has been strictly limited and the people who are most directly affected by the outcomes discussed in these rooms aren’t invited to participate. Here is our video interview with Jim Miller, Executive Director of Brave New Films. https://vimeo.com/327862698 On April 8th Brave New Films will share…
When it comes to the state of disability access, one thing is for certain: we are an afterthought. It’s remarkable to think that with all the ingenuity in architecture and discussions about representation that disability continuously falls through the cracks. I’ve lived as a wheelchair user my whole life and never felt limited until I started working as a film critic. No, the nature of writing and seeing movies isn’t a problem. But as any writer will tell you, a key component of this job is going to film festivals. Festivals aren’t purely a means of seeing a hot new…
Artists and creative professionals are change agents. They provide us with fresh ideas on old quandaries, from racial equity and gentrification to gender identity. Those ideas then shape our culture. Culture forms public attitudes. Public attitudes help mold our policy and legislation. In Boston, there’s a palpable surge of new artistic energy. A daring cohort of young creatives is molding the city’s cultural ecosystem in promising ways. Their ascension comes at a time when the city is ripe for an artistic renaissance, which is in part due to a committed financial investment in culture. Just last week, the city of Boston…
Vegas PBS, held a free Women, Leadership and Social Justice screening and town hall event with special guest filmmaker, philanthropist, and producer, Abigail Disney. Attendees watched a live recording of Vegas PBS’ public affairs show “Nevada Week” followed by a preview screening of the PBS documentary “Women, War & Peace II.” The screening was followed by a town hall discussion with panelists who empower and mobilize women and the community to engage and act on social justice issues. The event was held Friday, March 22 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Vegas PBS Educational Technology Campus, 3050 East…
While this year’s Oscars were full of groundbreaking moments, such as “Black Panther” winning in three categories and Director Spike Lee winning his first Oscar for his film “BlacKkKlansman,” there was still a lack of diversity when it came to nominations. More specifically, there was a distinct lack of nominations for female directors. However, in the conversation of the Oscars, this is a growing trend. For the past 91 years, only five female directors have been nominated for an Oscar, with Kathryn Bigelow being the only winner for her film “The Hurt Locker” in 2009. Furthermore, no woman of color…
Rayka Zehtabchi is a 25-year-old Oscar winning Iranian-American director based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut, Madaran, is an Iranian language short that won Jury awards at top film festivals and qualified for the 89th Academy Awards in 2016. She is the very first Iranian woman and second Iranian filmmaker to win an Oscar. In an video interview with Cinema Without Borders and CineEqual, she told us about the effects of her Iranian root in her plans as a filmmaker, https://vimeo.com/323559274 Rayka’s Oscar winning short documentary, Period. End of Sentence. can be seen on Netflix worldwide, and is about a group…
The Asian-American Film Festival of Oregon, DisOrient, arrives at the University of Oregon on March 14 and continues through March 17. The festival showcases Asian-American documentary, fiction and short films “by us, for us and about us.” In its 14th year, the festival strives to raise awareness of social justice issues through the power of cinema. Asian-Americans are one of the least represented demographics in the film industry. According to the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Asian-Americans represented “only 1 percent of all leading roles in Hollywood.” DisOrient hopes to change this pattern with support of Asian-American…
From Feb. 17-23, the Wellesley African Students’ Association (WASA) invites the Wellesley College community to take part in Africa Week. Originally called the African Film Festival when it was established in 2004, the event as a chance for the community to focus on different African perspectives through film. Now, Africa Week is put on during Black History Month and focuses on having the community engage with various aspects of different African cultures. Aside from solely screening films, Africa Week allows WASA to invite different organizations on campus to showcase their talents in order to highlight the diversity of African culture.…
This is the first of a series of articles on the Berlin international film festival, the Berlinale, taking place from February 7–17, 2019. With about half a million visitors each year the Berlin Film Festival, the Berlinale, is one of the largest film festivals internationally. This year’s edition, the 69th Berlinale, has a total of over 400 films on view. The official motto of this year’s Berlinale, “The personal is political”—rallying slogan of the 1968 student movement and second wave feminism that approaches political issues in an entirely subjective way—finds strong reflection in the festival program. The Retrospective section for…