Pangea Films is developing a new documentary HANDS THAT FEED, which explores the agricultural collapse in Haiti and the grassroots movement to return to sustainable food production as part of the post-earthquake recovery there.

Now you have an opportunity to help support this important project, by making a donation via Kickstarter. As of today, they have just under $800 left to raise of a $15,000 goal - and they must raise this money by Monday, Aug. 2nd.

Support HANDS THAT FEED:

http://www.handsthatfeed.com/

Exciting news from Firelight Media: their groundbreaking documentary Freedom Riders will have theatrical releases in NYC and LA through the organization Docuweeks.

For Tickets and more information visit: http://www.documentary.org/docuweeks2010

View the trailer here:  http://www.freedomridersfilm.com

Show times: August 13 - August 29, 2010:

New York City

IFC Theater - 323 Avenue of the Americas @ West 4th NY, NY 10014

Fri. Aug. 13:          12PM          5:30PM

Sat. Aug. 14:         1:45PM      7:30PM

Sun. Aug. 15:        3:30PM     9:35PM

Mon. Aug. 16:      12PM          5:30PM

Tues. Aug. 17:      1:45PM      7:30PM

Wed. Aug. 18:      3:30PM     9:35PM

Thu. Aug. 19:       12PM          5:30PM

Los Angeles

ArcLight Hollywood - 6360 W Sunset Blvd @  Vine Street, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Fri. Aug. 13:          3:40PM       9:45PM
Sat. Aug. 14:         1:40PM       7:35PM

Sun. Aug. 15:        5:20PM       9:50PM

Mon. Aug. 16:      1:40PM        7:35PM

Tues. Aug. 17:      5:20PM        9:50PM

Wed. Aug. 18:      1:40PM        7:35PM

Thu. Aug. 19:       5:20PM       9:50PM

FREEDOM RIDERS screens as part of the International Documentary Association [IDA]’s 14th annual DocuWeeks™ Theatrical Documentary Showcase. This year’s selected films includes a strong lineup of 17 features and 5 shorts to screen in New York City and Los Angeles.

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FREEDOM RIDERS is scheduled to air on PBS’ acclaimed American Experience series in May 2011 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1961 freedom rides.

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FREEDOM RIDERS is the first feature-length documentary to tell the story of a courageous band of civil rights activists who risked death by daring to defy the laws of Jim Crow in the Deep South in 1961. They were America’s first inter-racial and inter-religious mass movement to challenge segregation in bus and train facilities. Because of their efforts, the signs “whites only” and “colored only” were taken down forever.

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Become the film’s Facebook friend:

http://www.facebook.com/ride

Follow PBS on Twitter:

@pbsamex

Come join AN AMERICAN PROMISE short experimental film contributor William Caballero for the world premiere screening of his new film AMERICAN DREAMS DEFERRED at the New York International Latino Film Festival.

2 Screenings:

THURSDAY, JULY 29th
…• SVA screen 2
• 2pm
• $9

and

SATURDAY, JULY 31st:
• Chelsea Clearview Cinemas
• 1:30pm
• $11

AMERICAN DREAMS DEFERRED received the 1st Annual HBO/NALIP Documentary Grant, and was chosen for the 2008 Latino Producers Academy.

A young Latino man, William Caballero, juggles unconditional family love with the challenges of breaking the cycle that has kept so many relatives from reaching their dreams. Set against a backdrop of Coney Island and Fayetteville, North Carolina, an NYU graduate student turns the camera on his Puerto Rican-American family plagued by social, medical and public health issues. U.S. health care and culture is examined through this young man’s lens, which also explores both his and family’s dreams. Many immigrants in the U.S. aspire to achieve the American dream and this Latino family comprised of immigrants to second-generation Americans is no different. As subjective as the barometer of reaching this goal is, the film begs the ultimate question: who attains their American dream?

Excerpt: http://www.cabalproductions.com/video.html

More info on the screenings:
http://nylatino.bside.com/2010/films/americandreamsdeferred_williamcaballero_nylatino2010;jsessionid=368619B503BF40E70021F26AC0910F6F

Greetings from the Rada Film Group!
School’s out for summer but (as we all know) the learning never stops. Here are some updates:

The Achievement Gap in the News

SAT Study Reveals Long-Suspected Racial Biases
On the Tuesday July 6th episode of the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, Washington Post blogger Jay Matthews discussed a study by a “rogue researcher” that showed that in the vocabulary section, African American test takers were doing better than their European American counterparts on defining the more complex Latin-based words and doing worse on the simpler Anglo Saxon definitions - that often had different connotations in communities of color. Examples included “bad” “slick” and “tight.”

New book Whistling Vivaldi by Dr. Claude Steele examines “Stereotype Threat”
Stanford and Columbia University social psychologist Claude Steele’s new book Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us further explores his groundbreaking work on “stereotype threat”: the idea that the awareness of commonly held notions about a group can affect members of that group’s performance and behavior. Listen to Dr. Steele talk about how to reshape expectations on NPR.

Anderson Cooper 360 revisits “the Doll Test”
In May, CNN host (and Dalton School alum) Anderson Cooper and Soledad O’Brien presented “Black or White: Kids on Race”  The program featured a re-staging of the famous “Doll test” created by Margaret Beale Spencer, wherein kids are surveyed on their positive or negative associations with skin color. The mixed results are both discouraging and uplifting, and moved some parents to tears.

Andre Robert Lee’s Prep School Negro Explores Culture Clash, African American Families and Independent Schools
In the 1980s, Andre Robert Lee attended high school at a prestigious prep school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Twenty years later, he returns to his mother’s home to re-examine the journey that led him away from his mother and sister culturally, and meets teenagers today, at his high school and others, who are facing the same tensions. Learn more about the film.

Inconvenient Truth Director Tackles the Charter School Situation in Waiting for Superman
Davis Guggenheim’s new film Waiting for Superman explores the lottery system in which some students win entry to charter schools with high success rates, and the rest are left to an uncertain future. In theaters this fall. (Pledge to see the film here).

An American Promise Production Updates

The Rada Film Group hears beautiful music at Sundance
An American Promise co-producers/co-directors Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster just returned from the 2010 Sundance Composers and Documentary Lab where they met talented composers and made fantastic connections with fellow filmmakers in an idyllic natural setting. Thanks to the Sundance Documentary Fund for making this wonderful experience possible!

Ford Foundation Awards Production Grant to An American Promise
In June, the Rada Film Group was awarded a Freedom of Expression grant from the Ford Foundation. “When we got involved five years ago, we were taken with the filmmakers’ sense of boldness” said Orlando Bagwell, Director of Freedom of Expression Work at Ford, at the Britdocs GoodPitch Forum at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. An American Promise “connects to our public education and students of color initiatives… This film can help teachers think through successful strategies to change their own classroom.“

Join the campaign by making a donation through our fiscal sponsor, Third World Newsreel. (Scroll to the bottom and specify your donation for “An American Promise”)

Learn more about the film: http://americanpromisedoc.com

Get more updates on our projects:

Subscribe to our blog!

This Saturday, June 12th Freedom Riders has its New York premieres at BAMcinemaFest.  For more information, visit BAMcinemaFest.

Freedom Riders was produced and directed by Stanley Nelson, produced by Laurens Grant and edited by Lewis Erskine and Aljernon Tunsil.  It will be broadcast on PBS as part of American Experience during 2011, the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides.

The film chronicles the story of the Freedom Riders - an interracial group of young people who traveled the South in 1961 challenging segregation by demanding access to terminal restaurants, waiting rooms, buses and trains.  Tracing the civil rights movement before it became The Civil Rights Movement, the film explores the stories behind these courageous actions.

Congratulations to the team and Firelight Media on an amazing, important film.  Check out this exclusive NY premiere, and the rest of the offerings of the BAMcinemaFest:

Last Thursday, we attended Arts Engine’s Media That Matters IMPACT sessions in conjunction with the Media That Matters 2010 online film festival premiere.

You can watch all the films from this year’s festival, which cover topics like the crisis of the uninsured, the harmful impacts of bottled water,  anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic, community reactions to the Sean Bell murder in New York City, homelessness in the UK and more:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/

At the third IMPACT session offered on Thursday: EDUCATE, educators talked about how they have used films from the previous seasons of Media That Matters in their classrooms.

Kim Allen, a teacher at a predominantly white high school, uses the film Vision Test by Wes Kim, to facilitate a discussion among her students about white privilege:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/vision_test/

Melanie Folstrom teaches a social justice class to high school students aged 16-21 at a transfer school in Brooklyn. Using a graphic organizer, Melanie has her students brainstorm about what groups have privilege and which are oppressed when it comes to race, class, gender, religion and sexual orientation. She uses the film Perversion of Justice from Media That Matters 8 to spark a discussion of the prison industrial complex - and what groups are privileged or oppressed within it:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/perversion_of_justice/

Maria Hantzopoulos, who teaches aspiring teachers at Vassar College uses the short narrative film Immersion from last year’s fest to engage her students in a discussion of bilingual education and high-stakes testing:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/immersion/

Some tips for educators and filmmakers:

*  12 minutes is the perfect length for media to be used in a classroom setting

* Independent schools get media from iMediaSource

* Organizations dedicated to helping youth make media: Educational Video Center, Reel Works

* There is a lack of short historical films that can be used in classroom settings

Thanks to Arts Engine and all the sponsors of Media That Matters for these informative, eye-opening events!

This Thursday, April 22nd, AN AMERICAN PROMISE co-producers / co-directors Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster will present scenes from the film at a special reception kicking off the Fourth Annual Gathering of Leaders convened by the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC) at Howard University. The theme of the conference is Re-imagining Schooling for Boys and Young Men of Color.

The Gathering will also feature a discussion and briefing with education leaders and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and a variety of compelling professional learning seminars focused on strategies for improving the educational experiences of African American and Latino boys.

For more information, visit the COSEBOC website.

There is now a place to go - online - for updates on The Rada Film Group’s 12-year longitudinal documentary An American Promise, and accompanying multimedia interactive community outreach campaign to narrow the racial achievement gap in education.

Visit americanpromisedoc.com for updates, to donate, or to join our e-mail list for An American Promise.

An American Promise producer/directors Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster will be one of eight film making teams presenting at the 2010 BRITDOCS GoodPitch forum at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27th.  Visit the GoodFilm site for more information on An American Promise and the other films that will be pitching.

Tonight, watch Martin Smith’s report from Haiti on the impact and aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

Check out the New York Times review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/arts/television/30quake.html

We are thrilled to announce that Coming Home: The Dry Storm, about the struggle of local activists in the face of the demolition of nearly all public housing in New Orleans, has been awarded the Jury Prize for Best Film at the 2010 PATOIS New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival.

Coming Home was produced and directed by Michele Stephenson of the Rada Film Group.  Executive producers are Catherine Albisa and Tiffany M. Gardner of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and Sam Jackson of Mayday New Orleans.

As news of the win came in, Coming Home Executive Producer Tiffany M. Gardner of NESRI reported from the UN Habitat World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that the film is garnering much interest among international housing advocates.

For more information visit:

http://nesri.org

http://maydaynolahousing.org

http://unhabitat.org