8 days left to participate in the Granito Kickstarter campaign!

Congratulations are in order; "Granito: How To Nail A Dictator" has just been awarded "Best Creative Documentary" at the Paris International Human Rights Film Festival, just after winning the "Peace and Reconciliation Award" at the Geneva International Human Rights Film Festival. They are honored to receive these awards and eager to boost the profile of "Granito" and its message of bringing criminal dictators to account. If they make it to the 2012 Oscars, Granito's message will get out to millions. Help get them there by joining their Kickstarter campaign - only 8 days left, and they're 75% there, but with Kickstarter you need to reach 100% before the last day, or none of the money can be released. Click here to become a granito and help! Tell your friends, pass it on! A million thanks!

"Granito" is a unique story of destinies joined by Guatemala’s past, about how a documentary film intertwined with a nation’s turbulent history emerges as an active player in the present. In 1982, Pamela Yates went to Guatemala to direct her first documentary "When the Mountains Tremble" in the middle of an ongoing genocide during the regime of General Efraín Ríos Montt. A quarter century later, film outtakes from "When the Mountains Tremble," as well as secret military documents and skeletal remains unearthed by courageous human rights defenders, are all being used in a genocide case to prosecute the military dictators that ordered the genocide of the Maya people, resulting in 200,000 killed.

"Granito" means "tiny grain of sand," and is a Maya concept of collective change, about how all of us persevering together over time can cause change and bring justice to society. "Granito" the film illustrates this concept and received a sustained standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival.

IFP Call for Submissions Documentary Deadline March 11th!

IFP Independent Filmmaker Labs

Call for Entries: First Feature Directors with Documentary or Narrative Films in Post-Production

Documentary Deadline: March 11 Narrative Deadline: April 8

IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs are a year-long fellowship supporting independent filmmakers when they need it most: through the completion, marketing, and distribution of their first features. Labs provide community, mentorship, and film-specific strategies to help filmmakers reach their artistic goals, support the film’s launch, and maximize exposure in the global marketplace. The program consists of three focused workshops in spring, fall and winter in New York City.

IFP seeks to ensure that at least half of participating projects have an inclusive range of voices in key positions. We especially encourage female and minority directors to apply, as well as filmmakers from outside NY & LA.

IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs is the only free program in the U.S. supporting first-time feature directors when they need it most – at the crucial rough cut/post-production stage. We are reaching out to organizations such as yours who we feel would have a constituency well-suited to this program.

2010 Lab alumni are already showing well this year. Three premiered in Competition at Sundance 2011: Alrick Brown's Kinyarwanda, Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City and Dee Rees' Pariah which was acquired by Focus Features. Victoria Mahoney's Yelling to the Sky premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival followed by SXSW. Also premiering at SXSW is Sara Terry's documentary Fambul Tok. Alumni also showed at DOCNYC, Slamdance, and the upcoming Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and were distributed nationally in theaters, on television, on VOD and DVD.

Open to all first time documentary and narrative feature directors with films in post-production. Applications open now! Additional information and online application: www.ifp.org/Labs

Call for Entries for the 2nd Annual GAMES FOR CHANGE Awards March 31st!

This years Games for Change Awards has two new categories:

• Transmedia projects

• Learning and Education games

The Awards will be presented during the 8th Annual Games for Change Festival (June 20 - 22, NYC). Deadline for submission: March 31. The Games for Change Festival, often referred to as "the Sundance of video games," is the largest gaming event in New York City and the only international event uniting "games for change" creators, the public, civil society, academia, the gaming industry, and the media.

There are 4 Award categories for completed and soon-to-be completed games recognizing: Direct Impact, the Knight News Award, Learning and Education, and Transmedia. Criteria and entry form here: http://ow.ly/46zuH

Celebrate International Women's Month: Come See Julia Bacha's Film BUDRUS on March 17th

IN HONOR OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S MONTH
CHICKEN & EGG PICTURES and WORKING FILMS
- in collaboration with Just Vision -
presents
STORY LEADS TO ACTION * featuring

"This year's must-see documentary" -- the New York Times

BUDRUS
by Julia Bacha
Thursday, March 17th at 7:30 PM

"When the women went to the construction site where the Wall was being built, they were fired up; there was a sense of defiance, that we were going to do something. From then on, no march had only men. Marches were attended by both men and women." -Iltezam

After a whirlwind year of awards, acclaim and serious on-the-ground activism,
we welcome BUDRUS to NYC for a celebratory
STORY LEADS TO ACTION screening and best practices strategy discussion with a special focus on the role of women in a non-violent revolution.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Julia Bacha, produced by Bacha, Palestinian journalist Rula Salameh and internationally acclaimed filmmaker and human rights advocate Ronit Avni.

at 92Y Tribeca

Budrus is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel ’s Separation Barrier.

Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines. Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known, movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today.

Budrus is the latest production by Just Vision, a nonprofit organization led by a team of Israelis, Palestinians, North and South Americans committed to increasing the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis pursuing nonviolent solutions to the conflict. The film has won numerous awards at top international festivals, including Berlin , Tribeca and San Francisco , and has been featured in major press outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Economist, Newsweek, Charlie Rose, MSNBC, and others. It is now playing before a variety of Israeli and Palestinian audiences in the region and is showing in theaters, campuses and communities across the US.

After the screening, Director Julia Bacha will be joined by a panel of peace activists, educators and social media practitioners (TBA) for an interactive discussion about the film's strategic community organizing and engagement campaign in Palestine/Israel and the states with a special focus on the upcoming campus and community organizing tour. The discussion will be moderated by Peabody-winning filmmaker, educator, environmentalist and co-founder of Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films, Judith Helfand.

92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
Tickets are $12
Click here to purchase tickets

* STORY LEADS TO ACTION is a monthly series featuring Chicken & Egg/Working Films' filmmakers coming together with strategic advocates and educators to brainstorm and "design" on-the-spot community/audience engagement strategies for their films.

NEW to STORY LEADS TO ACTION: You can now buy a season pass for the whole Spring 2011 season!
We are excited to announce the full program and hope that you'll join us for more great discussions this season.
In brief: April 21st - BAG IT, May 19th - MONICA & DAVID.

Working Films advances social, economic, environmental and racial justice by
linking non-fiction filmmaking to cutting-edge activism.
www.workingfilms.org