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Hello! We hope you are all enjoying your summer. For more than 30 years, New Day Films' independent filmmakers have produced award-winning educational films and videos on social issue topics. In this quarterly newsletter, you'll find descriptions of our newest films, notices of upcoming broadcasts and screenings in your area, recent awards, and up-to-date information about New Day films and filmmakers.
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CONTENTS
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---New Releases
---Recent Releases
---Recent Awards
---Upcoming Broadcasts & Screenings
---New Day Conference Beat
---Member News
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NEW RELEASES
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Daddy & Papa is a multiple award-winning new film by Johnny Symons. What happens when gay men decide to raise kids? Daddy & Papa takes us inside four families, including the filmmaker's own, to explore the personal, cultural, and political implications of gay fatherhood. From surrogacy and interracial adoption, to the complexities of gay divorce, to the battle for full legal status as parents, Symons presents a revealing look at the evolving picture of the American family. (Order Now, Toll-Free 1-888-367-9154, coming soon to www.newday.com)
What Do You Believe? by Sarah Feinbloom and Klara Grunning-Harris captures a rich collection of teens as they share their most personal beliefs about god, morality, prayer, death, suffering, the purpose of life, and freedom of religion in the United States. The film paints a broad picture of the religious and spiritual lives of American youth and delves deeply into the issues that are at the heart of being human. (Order Now, Toll-Free 1-888-367-9154, coming soon to www.newday.com)
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RECENT RELEASES
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Tangled Roots is a new film by New Day member Heidi Schmidt Emberling. This compelling film offers a new way for people to look at the complexities of the past as the filmmaker struggles to reconcile her dual heritage as the daughter of a German Lutheran father and an American Jewish mother. Other films in the collection by Heidi Schmidt Emberling include Spirit of the Dawn, about Native American Education.
Downside Up is a new film by Nancy Kelly. When America's largest museum of contemporary art -- the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) -- opened in the abandoned factory where filmmaker Nancy Kelly's family once worked, Kelly wanted to know whether something as ephemeral as art could save her moribund home town.
New Day member Heather Courtney´s documentary Los Trabajadores/The Workers tells the story of immigrant day laborers Ramon and Juan, and through their words, explores the American paradox of both reliance on, and abuse of, immigrant labor.
The new documentary portrait One + One by S. Leo Chiang takes an unflinching look at the lives of two couples -- one straight, one gay - as they navigate the sexual and emotional minefield inherent in every mixed HIV-status relationship.
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RECENT AWARDS
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A Day's Work, A Day's Pay by Jonathan Skurnik and Kathy Leichter recently won the Harry Chapin Media award for films about poverty and hunger. The film follows three welfare recipients in New York City from 1997 to 2000 as they participate in the largest welfare-to-work program in the nation.
The Optimists by Jacky and Lisa Comforty which chronicles the history of how 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved during the Holocaust by their Christian and Muslim neighbors has won 4 major awards. Among them are The Peace Prize in Berlin and the Jewish Experience Award in the Jerusalem International Film Festival.
"Daddy & Papa" by Johnny Symons was a recent Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival and has won numerous awards, including a Best Documentary Audience Award at the Florida Film Festival, a Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and a Breaking The Mold Award at the Newport International Film Festival. (Order Now, Toll-Free 1-888-367-9154, coming soon to www.newday.com)
Heather Courtney´s documentary Los Trabajadores/The Workers has also taken home numerous awards, among them the International Documentary Association David L. Wolper Student Award, an Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and a Humanities Award at the Great Plains Film Festival.
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UPCOMING BROADCASTS & SCREENINGS
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Tangled Roots a new film by Heidi Schmidt Emberling about reconciling her dual identity as the daughter of a German Lutheran father and an American Jewish mother will premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (July 29th and August 3rd.)
Ellen Frankenstein's film No Loitering about teenagers living in Sitka, Alaska, is airing both on national PBS and VTV: Varsity Television, a satellite and dish network exclusively by, for, and about teen life. The film has also been selected for inclusion in the 2002-2004 Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival and was recently featured at the Deadcenter Film Festival and the Fledgling Film Festival.
Nancy Kelly's, Downside UP, about what happens when a working-class town decides that its best hope for survival is contemporary art, will be screened in September at Preservation North Carolina's annual conference, at the Michigan Society of Planners Annual Conference and at the New England and mid-Atlantic regional conference of the American Association of Planners. It was screened in the spring at a conference held by the American Association of Museums, at the New England Foundation for the Arts Funders' Conference and at the Massachusetts Cultural Council conference.
Style Wars by Tony Silver was screened twice at the 2002 Revelation Perth Film Festival in Perth, Australia, and will screen at this year's Wine Country Film Festival in Sonoma, CA in the first week in August. Also coming up is a DVD including bonus features such as many "fast forward" (where-are-they-now) interviews due out this November.
A Day's Work, A Day's Pay by Jonathan Skurnik and Kathy Leichter will be broadcast throughout July on Metro TV in New York City and is showing at the New York Latino Film Festival on August 1st and 2nd. In addition, The Workfare Media Initiative, which trains welfare recipient activists to use the film in their organizing work, kicked off its first round of New York City community screenings.
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NEW DAY CONFERENCE BEAT
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No Loitering a film made with and about Alaskan teens, directed by New Day member Ellen Frankenstein, will be presented at the annual Northwest Network on Youth Conference in September 2002.
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MEMBER NEWS
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Chizu Omori's Rabbit in the Moon, a compelling documentary/memoir about the events, meanings and lingering effects of the World War II incarceration of the West Coast Japanese American community was recently screened by Reeltime, an independent film & video forum in Evanston, Illinois run by New Day members Andrea Leland and Kathy Berger. The screening was followed by a panel discussion featuring Japanese Americans from the Chicago area. Rabbit In the Moon was also presented on NHK television in Japan to a nationwide audience on July 5 and will be broadcast in France and Germany by ARTE sometime later this year.
Susan Stern, the director of Barbie Nation is one of four women filmmakers interviewed in the summer 2002 issue of Women's Studies Quarterly. Barbie Nation tells the history of the world's most popular toy, revealing attitudes about sexuality, body image, gender roles and the creation, marketing and subversion of femininity's icon.
Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen received a major grant from the California Endowment to underwrite a three-year initiative to train public school teachers throughout California to use That's a Family!, their highly acclaimed film about changing family structures, in elementary and middle school classrooms. The grant will also go towards the completion of "Respect For All" a video series for kids about preventing prejudice. The Boston Mayor's office sponsored a screening of That's a Family! for after-school providers at the city's Children's Museum, a model the filmmakers hope to replicate in cities throughout the country this school year. That's a Family! was also presented at the recent National P.T.A. conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Pamela Beere Briggs, producer/director of Women of Mystery chronicling three writers who forever changed detective fiction was invited to create and teach a workshop on visual storytelling at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., as part of the Museum's Role Model program. Held in June, the workshop was a huge success and included a screening of Women of Mystery. In addition, The California Center for the Book has purchased an additional 25 videotapes of Women of Mystery, so that they can expand their immensely successful Women of Mystery screening-reading-discussion program.
The Optimists by Jacky and Lisa Comforty tells the dramatic story of Christians and Muslims who, at the eleventh hour, secured the safety of their Jewish neighbors, some 50,000 Bulgarian Jews saved during the Holocaust despite the efforts of the government to deport them. The award-winning film continues to show in Europe and the US and with over 50 screenings so far, Jacky and Lisa are gearing up for a theatrical release in movie theaters this fall.
In the new documentary portrait One + One by S. Leo Chiang, two couples-- - one straight and one gay-- cope with the daily challenges of their mixed HIV status. The film has screened at the San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, New York Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and won a Cable Positive Award at the Silver Lake Film Festival.
Nancy Kelly has received a major grant from the Ford Foundation for the Downside UP Listening Tour. The nationwide tour will use her film Downside UP as a tool to generate discussion about the use of art, culture and community economic development in distressed, urban communities of color. The film has screened at the South by Southwest Film Festival, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Boston Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Thanks for supporting independent educational films! Stay tuned for our Fall Newsletter, coming out in September, 2002.
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