IMPACT is a new series of videos created by Working Films and The Fledgling Fund focused on building film campaigns that ignite social change.

Assessing Impact: A Funder's Perspective is the first video in our series. It features The Fledgling Fund Founder Diana Barrett and Executive Director Sheila Leddy as they discuss the impact of Born into Brothels and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You'll get a close look at how these films supported the social change goals of their partner organizations and how they were tied to urgent actions. Diana and Sheila also lead you through The Fledgling Fund's transformation into one of the leaders in the field of supporting creative media and audience engagement.

Check out this video and learn the elements that will make your campaign a success.

From Fledgling

Project H Design connects the power of design to the people who need it most, and the places where it can make a real and lasting difference.  The team of designers and builders engage locally to improve the quality of life for the socially overlooked. Project H Design has a five-tenet design process: 1. there is no design without (critical) action,  2. design WITH, not FOR, 3. document, share and measure, 4. start locally and scale globally, 5. design systems, not stuff.

Their long term mission if to focus on improving environments, products, and experiences for K-12 education institutions in the US through level design thinking and deep community engagement.   Check out some of the great work they have already done; we can't wait to see what they do next!

From Fledgling

One of Jesse Epsteins's short films will be screened tonight, February 23rd, at Pace University at 7pm. As it is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week this week, Wet Dreams and False Images will be shown along with another documentary by Liza Figueroa Kravinsky, Beauty in the Eyes of the Beheld. Both documentaries focus on modern perceptions of beauty. Wet Dreams and False Images is a Sundance award-winning documentary that uses humor to raise serious concerns about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection. Come see both films and take part in the Q&A with filmmakers and special guests. For more information contact: Brian Petersen at Pace University Counseling Center at bpetersen@pace.edu.

Learn more about Body Typed, Beauty in the Eyes of the Beheld, and how to get involved in NEDA.

I recently returned from the annual TED Conference.  I had the most mind-bending, inspiring and inspirational time.  Not only were the famous TED talks all that they had promised, the crowd was such a intellectual treat.  Thank you TED for a magical time and for all of the energy you have infused into my work here at The Fledgling Fund.  I will share some of my favorite TED talks here as they go online.  The first one is TED Prize Winner, Jamie Oliver.  Jamie is on a noble mission to change the way America thinks about and consumes food.  Let's all cheer him on and lend whatever support we can.  Check out his talk:

IMPACT is a new series of videos created by Working Films and The Fledgling Fund focused on building film campaigns that ignite social change.

Assessing Impact: A Funder's Perspective is the first video in our series. It features The Fledgling Fund Founder Diana Barrett and Executive Director Sheila Leddy as they discuss the impact of Born into Brothels and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You'll get a close look at how these films supported the social change goals of their partner organizations and how they were tied to urgent actions. Diana and Sheila also lead you through The Fledgling Fund's transformation into one of the leaders in the field of supporting creative media and audience engagement.

Check out this video and learn the elements that will make your campaign a success.

From Fledgling

Producers of the documentary film, Going on 13, have created an interactive website, Gurls Talk Back. The website creates a space where young girls can share their fears, joys, and stories about becoming a teen. Girls can create their own blogs through the website and even play games. But the site is also a place for parents, family members, teachers, and people who care about the lives of young girls to learn more about how to support girls during the transition from childhood to teendom, puberty and beyond. The site was developed as a part of the film project Going on 13, which follows the lives of four pre-teen girls of color as they become young women. Check it out!

From Fledgling

The Story Leads to Action series, presented by Chicken and Egg Pictures, continues this Thursday, February 18th with a work-in-progress screening of Made In India. We especially hope you can catch the film as they are one of our recent grantees. Made in India is a feature documentary that follows the journey of an infertile American couple, an Indian surrogate and the reproductive outsourcing business that brings them together. Against the backdrop of an ever-growing international assisted reproductive technology industry we get a respectful up-close look at the phenomena of "outsourcing" surrogate mothers to India, a complicated clash of families, all in need and all in crisis, reproductive technology and "choice" from a global perspective. Please join us at 7:30pm at the 92YTribeca (200 Hudson Street) for a provocative film and discussion. Purchase tickets here and learn more about the film. 

From Fledgling

Check out this interesting article on PBS' Website Blog MediaShift which tries to determine whether their Public Media 2.0 projects are actually moving toward a more dynamic, engaged, public media future. 

From Fledgling

Hello fellow travelers on the filmmaking/social media super highway!

Sending out some Valentine's Day love, and I wanted to highlight something great that happened today, that took some Internet & twitter magic to come to fruition.

Since its launch, our team has been watching MTV's "A Thin Line," a campaign, dedicated to raising awareness of "Digital Abuse," and helping teens untangle normal versus unhealthy relationship dynamics. They focus on how cell phones can amplify and exacerbate abusive behaviors. Some of my favorite slogans are: It's a thin line between attentive/obsessive, curious/controlling, love/abuse. I was thinking that we over here at The Line Campaign, have a lot of  things in common such as: young people, sexuality, violence, web-based media, and activism.

I initiated a twitter back and forth about Beyonce's "Video Phone" video (*ugh*) and then I asked our fab intern Ingrid to do some research and write a post about their campaign. It was a couple weeks before February, Teen Dating Violence Awareness month, so we took a look at Katie Couric's piece on the topic, too. Ingrid spent a lot of time on both initiatives, picking apart what was authentic, realistic, what felt scripted, what related to her demographic, and what fell flat. She posted Corporation: FAIL! Teens, Sex & Violence. I tweeted to @a_thin_line that they were featured on the blog and -Internet magic!-  they responded. The takeaway here is your voice does matter.

MTV then invited us to a meeting at Viacom HQ to discuss their work and hear our feedback. Obviously, I let 18 year old Ingrid do the talking, her comments ranged from the show "16 & Pregnant" not showing struggles of lower income or homeless girls, "Jersey Shore" which entertains us with violence in every episode, and the PSA's for "A Thin Line" not showing real kids going through the issues. I mediated, waxing the benefits of reaching a wide audience, raising awareness, and the reality of working within a Corporate Social Responsibility framework.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, me and the home team shot and edited a short video using candy and some of our favorite responses to "where is your line?" Our hope was that with the video would go viral on Valentine's Day and drive more traffic to the site and generate interest in the film and campaign.  Ingrid followed up our meeting at MTV with an email and a link to our video "ASK ME" -- and today they posted it!

What's really exciting is that we developed The Line Campaign with support from The Fledgling Fund in June, and only went live in September 2009. The trailer for THE LINE has been on Vimeo for less than a year, and already has over 12,000 views. We are learning as we go, and the results have been really interesting.

Where will it lead next? A broadcast on MTV or streaming broadcast on MTV.com? We sure hope so!

Our babies are coming into this world pre-polluted with toxic chemicals. When EWG tested the umbilical cord blood of 10 Americans, they found nearly 300 chemicals, including BPA, perchlorate, fire retardants, lead, mercury, and PCBs.  The best way to stop this pre-pollution is to enact the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, which would require that chemicals be proven safe for children before they can be sold. The chemicals are in us. The risk of disease and illness is serious.  The chemicals they found are increasingly linked to serious long-term health effects, from childhood cancer and autism to ADHD, learning deficits, infertility, and heart disease. We need a system for assessing chemicals so our children get the healthy start they deserve. The longer Congress waits, the more babies are exposed. Join the 1000's of other Americans who are telling Congress it's time for a real federal toxics law that will make chemicals in consumer products safe for kids. To watch the Environmental Working Groups "10 Americans" video, supported by The Fledgling Fund, click here.  To help introduce the Kid-Safe Chemical act sign the petition here.
To see the remaining two parts of the video click here.

From Fledgling

The True/False Film Fest returns for its seventh edition Feb. 25 - 28, 2010. The festival highlights innovative work with a cinematic scope, creative takes on contemporary currents, and most of all work that provokes dialogue about its subject and the documentary form itself. For four days, downtown Columbia, Missouri is transformed into a small-town Midwestern utopia. Most films come freshly discovered from Sundance, Toronto and other festivals, others appear mysteriously before their official premieres elsewhere. Sandwiched between the nonstop movies, we throw parties, host debates and field trips, and challenge local filmmakers to reimagine the possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking. Join us in Columbia as we support some of out films like Rachel Is and Gasland and see other great films like Waste Land! Check out their cool website and learn more about the festival!

From Fledgling

At age nine, Priscilla Diaz is too young to compete on American Idol, but she's determined to become the youngest rap star, ever. Performing as P-Star, she plays gigs in playgrounds, shopping malls, nightclubs, at open mic nights and wherever she can gather a crowd, aware of her responsibility to become famous so she can provide for the family. As the film begins, Priscilla is living with her dad and older sister in a shelter as her mom, a strung-out drug addict, has abandoned the family. While she makes some money with a CD advance, the family is quick to spend it on the "flashy" like and SUV and some "bling" to escape their poverty for just a minute. The breezy spending of her advance by her Father Jesse, wants again leaves the family struggling. Watch this interesting documentary on PBS's Independent Lens to see a new perspective on the overview of contemporary American youth, and our society's astonishing adulation of adolescent fame and wealth and the questions it raises about child welfare. Check the website for local listings and for more information about Priscilla and P-Star Rising.

From Fledgling

Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films present the next installment of  the monthly screening and audience engagement series Story Leads to Action at the 92Y Tribeca. Next  Thursday, February 18th at 7:30 PM there will be a fine cut screening and feedback discussion of Made in India, a new documentary directed by Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha. This feature documentary follows the journey of an infertile American couple, an Indian surrogate and the reproductive outsourcing business that brings them together.  Against the backdrop of an ever-growing international assisted reproductive technology industry we get a respectful up-close look at the phenomena of "outsourcing" surrogate mothers to India, a complicated clash of families, reproductive technology and "choice" from a global perspective.  Come share in the discussion on how to balance the needs of a character driven film with the needs of a global campaign about women's health, reproductive rights, the business of being born and fast-paced globalization led by Judith Helfand. We hope to see you there! More information and ticket purchase here.

From Fledgling

Yesterday the Academy announced the Oscar Nominated Documentary Films for 2010.

Documentary Feature:

Burma VJ
Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller

The Cove
Nominees to be determined

Food.Inc.
Robert Kenner and Elise Pealstein

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Judith Elrlich and Rick Goldsmith

Which Way Home
Rebecca Cammisa

Documentary Short:

China's Unnatural Disaster: the Tears of Sichuan Province
Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill

The Last Campaign of Governer Booth Gardner
Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Steven Gognar and Julia Reichert

Music by Prudence
Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Rabbit à la Berlin
Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

As always it is an exciting time but this year it is especially so as the film The Cove has been nominated for Best Feature Documentary. The film is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea to change they brutality of dolphin hunting and animal captivity and is a call for hope. Watch the Trailer and as always we urge you to get involved.

From Fledgling

GOOD Magazine recently released a set of info-graphs that show how many Americans are donating their time to serve the community and where they are choosing to do so.  In addition, you can see a graph that shows where the relief funds for Haiti are coming from. Or, want to know where the Norwegian Red Cross stands compared to Finland's? Check out Good Magazine here.

From Fledgling

This coming Thursday February 11, Alice Elliot will be screening and speaking about her documentary The Collector of Bedford Street. The film attempts to dispel the myths and fallacies of developmental disabilities by sharing the life of Larry Selman, a man who despite his seeming disabilities, worked actively in his community to raise money for charitable donations. He was honored by the Muscular Dystrophy Association for being the largest single contributor in the New York City Metropolitan area during their "Be a Star" campaign and by St. Vincent's Hospital for raising $1100 for the pediatric clinic. Alice Elliot also produced Body & Soul: Kathy & Diana. To purchase a ticket and to see the film check out the SVA SocDoc Lecture Series or email mfasocdoc@sva.edu for more information. Also learn more about the film and Larry!

From Fledgling

We are excited to share that the American Documentary Showcase has accepted Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy. The showcase is a curated program of contemporary documentaries that is offered to US Embassies for screening abroad and is  intended to demonstrate the role documentary plays in fostering understanding and cooperation. Funded by, and as a cooperative program with, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State, the Showcase is designed to promote American documentaries and their filmmakers at international venues.  The films present a broad, diversified look at life in the United States and the values of a democratic society. Congratulations! To learn more about the film check out our website and Welcome Change's tribute to Kathy Conour.

From Fledgling

This Thursday, February 4th catch a screening of The Farm: 10 Down at 4pm. A documentary about Angola: America's oldest and largest prison, with 5,200 inmates, most of whom have received life-, or death-,sentences for violent crimes, and will never leave Angola. The film is the sequel to the documentary about the men in this Louisiana penitentiary made in 1999 who taught us and continue to show that an essential part of the "correction" system is compassion and that true freedom comes through forgiveness. Join the Director and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, representatives from the criminal justice system, scholars, and community leaders to partake in a forum on policy choices and sentencing practices that create massive racial incarceration disparities and gutted communities. For more information and to RSVP contact Helen.Mitchell@mail.house.gov by February 4th.

From Fledgling

From Fledgling

What could be better than watching free documentaries online? OnlineUniversities.com just released a list of 100 Best Science Documentaries Online. While it was designed as a research tool for college students anyone can catch Supersize Me or Who Killed the Electric Car for free! To make the list easier to use, the titles (all with active links) are divided into eleven categories: Health and Medicine, Drugs, Genetics, Evolution and Biological History, Physics, Environment, Geology, Space, Technology, Nature, and Miscellaneous. What's great about some of the documentaries is that they are just purely informational but also ignite and pursue the kind of social change we support. So check them out!