At the outset of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock, filmmaker Sharon La Cruise admits that despite having studied the civil rights movement in college, she only stumbled upon the extraordinary story of the woman that organized the Little Rock Nine many years later.

KCPT’s Community Cinema screening featured the compelling documentary Troop 1500 followed by discussion with a local chapter of the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program and of course cookies. Troop 1500 follows several young girls in Texas who have monthly Girl Scout meetings in a Gatesville prison with their incarcerated mothers. The film explores both the challenges for these daughters and mothers as well as the positive impact of this unique Troop.

Saturday’s screening of The Interrupters at the Chicago Cultural Center was packed to the gills with 300 people in attendance. The event honored 6 great Chicago women who work as mentors to young people facing violence and hardships in their neighborhoods, helping them to navigate the difficult terrain of the transition to adulthood.

Filmmaker Anne Makepeace traveled to Los Angeles County in December to participate in the Community Cinema screenings in the area. Anne shares her experience with us below.

Humaira Ghilzai was a panelist for the SF Community Cinema screening of Peace Unveiled. Humaira wrote to us recently about the activism of Afghan parliamentarian Simeen Barakzai, who was on her 12th day of an 18-day hunger strike in Afghanistan to protest allegations of election fraud. Barakazai, mother to three small boys, was the first person to use hunger strike as a form of government protest.