Now Showing > The Revolutionary Optimists


Community Cinema is a national civic engagement initiative featuring free monthly screenings of films from the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. Every month in 100+ cities, community members come together to learn, discuss, and get involved in key social issues of our time.

Now Screening > Amlan Ganguly empowers children to become activists and educators, with powerful results. The Revolutionary Optimists follows him as he attempts to replicate his work in the brick fields outside the city, where children live and work in unimaginable conditions. Ganguly’s story suggests that education and child empowerment are crucial keys to lifting entire societies out of hopelessness.

Find a screening near you >>

Take Action

See more Actions >>

  • The Revolutionary Optimists

    Give a Child a Shot @ Life

    Help increase access to vaccines globally by becoming a Champion with the UN Foundation's Shot @ Life campaign.

    Learn More >>

  • The Revolutionary Optimists

    Give Girls a Voice

    Support the rights & needs of girls by becoming an advocate. The Girls Inc. website lists five advocacy areas where you can add your support. Visit their website for more info.

    Learn More >>

  • The Revolutionary Optimists

    Map Your World

    Identifying a local issue to fix, kids create surveys & photos, uploading data onto an online map. Email womenandgirlslead@itvs.org for more info.

    Learn More >>

  • Be a Revolutionary Optimist

    Shikha, Salim, Kajal, and the other youth featured in The Revolutionary Optimists are sending our Community Cinema patrons home from screenings this month with an important life lesson: Optimism is Revolutionary! The youth are all community organizers for Prayasam, a non-profit arts and education organization that works to empower children living in the slums of [...]

    more »

  • The Island President: St. Louis Screening

    On April 3rd the Nine Network of Public Media screened The Island President at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, MO. Following the screening, KETC’s Michael Pagano checked in to let us know how it went. The Island President is a film about a small nation of islands in the Pacific that will most [...]

    more »

  • Turning the Tide on Rising Sea Levels

    Phil Aroneanu, Co-Founder and US Campaigns Director for 350.org, one of the leading environmental organizations of environmental policy change, tells us a little more about what’s being done to fight climate change, and how you can get involved! What is 350.org? We started 350.org because we knew that there was growing concern about climate change, but that there [...]

    more »

  • Community Cinema Chicago: Superhero Expo

    By Naomi Walker National Engagement Coordinator, ITVS Last Saturday at the historic Chicago Cultural Center, all kinds of comics fans fought through crowds of St. Patrick’s Day (aka Green Mardi Gras) revelers for the screening of Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines  and participated in the explosive (Wham! Pow! Krrrraaaash!) SUPERHERO EXPO. Some [...]

    more »

  • High School Girls Tell Us Their Superpowers

    By Renee Gasch Engagement & Education Coordinator, Independent Television Service On International Women’s Day March 8th, we screened our March film, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, to 200 enthusiastic high school girls in Oakland, California. The Wonder Women! documentary traces the story of the comic book heroine from her pre-World War II [...]

    more »
See more Impact >>