This week STORY LEADS TO ACTION, a monthly screening series in New York, headed down to Silver Spring, MD where it had the first of three annual events in conjunction with Silverdocs.
A co-partnership between Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films, STORY
LEADS TO ACTION makes the nuts and bolts of designing a community engagement campaign transparent, dynamic and fun!
A panel of stake-holders, the filmmakers and the audience brainstormed a strategy that linked the core elements of a film’s launch to the concrete needs of the movement that needs it the most.
The films in the lab were
THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement by Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday and
SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL by Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon.
For THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM their focus was to educate, inspire and galvanize the interconnected and technologically-savvy generation in history around citizenship, civil rights and the meaning and power of the vote.
On the panel were co-Director/Producer Robin Fryday; Heather Smith, Executive Director,
Rock the Vote; Carey Jenkins, Deputy Director,
The League of Young Voters; Whitney Olson, Director, Sonoma County, CA,
National History Day; Foot Soldier, Barber Legacy Keeper Pete Stone, straight from his barber shop in Birmingham, AL, and special guest Amelia Boynton (99-year-old) "Foot Soldier & Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement".They had the following comments and suggestions:
MAKING ARCHIVE RELEVANT: Heather Smith’s interns were most moved by the archival footage as it gave them access to a moment in history that was pivotal for civil rights and through seeing other people struggling to have their voice heard, made them understand their role in society today. Rock the Vote has many street teams ready to be galvanized and Heather exclaimed that having a short film like this could help in their training, especially as they are limited in the in-person training they are able to offer.
BRIDGING AN ELDER/YOUTH GAP IN COMMUNITIES: Carey Jenkins of League of Young Voters said that this film could be used as a great tool in the communities he works in whereby audiences could watch this film and then have an elder from their own community come in and talk about their experiences thereby bridging a gap between the generations that are currently driven apart by the economy and drug problems.
BARBERSHOPS ARE THE CORNER STONE OF COMMUNITIES: Pete Stone gave the audience great insight into the workings of small-town America when he shared stories of how community news, issues and actions can be found in the Barbershop. Each Barbershop has a captive audience, are equipped with the technology to show a film and feel a sense of ownership and empowerment to be able to stimulate conversations around such issues. Barber of Birmingham should definitely coordinate an effort around screenings in Barber shops, particularly in areas where economy or race as well as other factors can limit citizens’ access to the voting booth.
Amelia Boynton, who at 99 years old had experienced civil rights in its most violent (and non-violent) form, left us with the poignant truth that “if you don’t vote, you’re not a first-class citizen.”
HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED? Visit
BARBER WEBSITE and be sure to check out www.rockthevote.com to make sure young voters are getting the right to their vote in the 2012 election.
SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL
Our second session was around SEMPER FI whose filmmakers wanted to address two of the most under reported yet pressing environmental issues of our time—the need for increased environmental oversight of the US Department of Defense and regulatory reform of toxic chemicals.
On the panel were Heather White, Chief of Staff & General Counsel, Environmental Working Group (
EWG); Melissa Waage, Campaign Director, Natural Resources Defense Council (
NRDC); Charlotte Brody, Director of Chemicals, Public Health and Green Chemistry,
BlueGreen Alliance; Rachel Kriegsman, Campaign Associate,
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF).They had a lot of valuable things to say:
THE BLAME GAME:
Charlotte Brody of the Blue Green Alliance was most touched by the scene in the movie where a mother stands up and shares that for years, before the news leak, she blamed herself and her body for failing to carry her now-deceased sons. Charlotte’s work is to take the blame away from those suffering and make the chemical industry culpable. Chemicals don’t have to be certified safe in America in order to be sold. Charlotte has pledged her 14million person directory to help Rachel get out the film and help develop an alternative, more environmentally sustainable, industry.
THE LOCAL SPACE:
Similar to the Barbershops for BARBER, the safe space for people involved on the ground-level with this issue to speak is at their local Union station. Given that the largest male breast cancer cluster in the world is in veterans of Camp Lejeune, we need to find a space where men, and especially military men, feel comfortable enough to talk about their health risks and get screenings.
SCREENING TOUR:
One of the biggest themes of the film is trying to get the military to inform all of the residents who lived at Camp Lejeune during the affected time of what happened and their health risks. The audience, who are as much a part of the brainstorming process as the panel, throughout suggestions of screening tours around military bases that may also have problems and college campus as that is where the more active youth reside.
And finally, on the note of STORY leads to ACTION, Heather White from EWG pinpointed why Chicken & Egg Pictures goes above and beyond our grantmaking to provide such arenas for our filmmakers: “I just want to commend Rachel and Tony for telling a complicated issue with a compelling story through personalizing the film with the character Jerry Ensminger. It gives the audience a lot of credit and will resonate with folks. This film is tailor-made for action.”
HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED? There's a bill looking to be passed
this month. Go to
www.semperfialwaysfaithful.com and find out who you should be contacting to ensure health care for veterans and their families.
The filmmakers must now take all these suggestions, strategies and offers of support to formulate an effective audience engagement campaign that can move people to action in a way that makes sense for their film, their movement and the strategic area they want to change.
Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films are delighted that we will continue this relationship with Silverdocs and will hold two additional STORY LEADS TO ACTIONs with AFI Discovery a year. Stay tuned for more!
