Coalition of Labor Union Women

Ellen Slack is a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, which is partnering on the Philadelphia Women’s Empowerment Initiative Screening. She offered this report about an upcoming screening of Made in L.A..

Here in Philadelphia, the views in many neighborhoods are still dominated by old factory buildings that once housed our city’s garment and textile industries. The forces that emptied those buildings of the activities they were constructed for are essentially the same forces that in recent years have brought millions of Latinos—and others—to this country.

Manufacturers in search of cheap labor moved to other parts of the U.S. and then many send the work overseas. At the same time, globalization devastated local industries and destabilized economies in huge regions of the world, leaving their working people with little choice but to migrate to the U.S. and western Europe.

Made in L.A. is a story of women caught up in these processes, immigrant Latina garment workers in Los Angeles, but it also highlights other important issues facing women workers today. The film meshes really well with the concerns of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), a national organization (with local chapters, including a very active one in Philadelphia) of women from many different unions. CLUW also actively networks with organizations working on women’s and social-justice issues, so we are especially pleased to be involved with the Women’s Empowerment Film Fest.

Arguably the greatest challenge to the labor movement now is organizing workers who may not speak English, could be fearful of organizing efforts because of their undocumented status, tend to change jobs frequently, and can be difficult for organizers to even gain access to.

The women we meet in Made in L.A. bravely decided that something had to be done about the exploitation and terrible working conditions of the sweatshop system they worked in. The film revolves around three of the workers, who become leaders in the struggle to secure better conditions and basic rights.

A great strength of the film is that because it covers a three-year period, we can really see the empowerment of these women. This is an important theme for women in the labor movement; many have come to activism and personal growth by way of organizing efforts and/or union membership. In this film the three women are presented as complex, multidimensional individuals—not just cogs in an international economic machine.

We see almost exclusively women in leadership roles in the film, both as organizers from the Garment Worker Center and the workers themselves, who actually shaped the campaign. The filmmaker, Almudena Carracedo, worked closely with the women whose struggle she was documenting. Progressive labor activists can appreciate this approach as we strive to include more rank-and-file voices and to minimize hierarchical, top-down communication.

Workers in the U.S. are increasingly female, people of color, and not U.S.-born. Made in L.A. is a valuable look at L.A.’s sweatshop manufacturing world, that’s usually closed to outsiders. For those not familiar with organized labor it powerfully shows why workers still need to organize. For those of us in the labor movement, it’s both a very useful case study and an inspiration.

Kembrew McLeod, co-producer of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS, answers questions from the audience with Tony Berman of Berman Entertainment and Technology Law, who is featured in the film.

For more than 30 years, as hip-hop evolved from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry, hip-hop performers and producers have been reusing portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. But when lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.” Through interviews with many of hip-hop music’s founding figures—like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground—along with emerging artists such as audiovisual remixers Eclectic Method, COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod illuminates both sides of the debate, from traditional musicians who view sampling as pillaging to those who argue that the practice of borrowing is by no means new nor is it unique to hip-hop or even music: Think of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans.

With OVER 50 free screening events from coast to coast audiences were able to sample the flavor of hip-hip and electronic music first-hand from some of the subjects featured in the film. The Philadelphia event featured worldwide DJ sensation based in Philly, RJD2 (RJ Krohn – pictured to the right, on the left). The photo is a TwitPic uploaded live from the event.  Our event in Oakland welcomed DJ legend Jeff Chang. Local hip-hop radio DJs hosted events in St. Louis and Seattle. In Seattle, KUBE 93 FM DJ Hyphen who co-hosts “Sunday Night Sound Session” introduced the film. “Sunday Night Sound Session” airs every Sunday night at 10:45 PM. “J. Moore and I offer listeners the newest, dopest hip-hop from all around the country, including local music from our own backyard,” boasts DJ Hyphen. Tune in around the Puget Sound Region or online worldwide. DJ Hypen introduced COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS and left the audience with some things to think about while watching the film.

Read on for more video clips, photos, and community connections.

Northwestern University law professor Peter DiCola.

Our guest speaker at the Community Cinema event in Evanston, Illinois was Northwestern University law professor Peter DiCola, who co-authored the forthcoming book Creative License: The Culture and Law of Digital Sampling with filmmaker Kembrew McLeod.

We could not have asked for a better guest speaker when it comes to questions of copyright. DiCola was able to give in-depth answers that helped the audience understand legal issues in a clear and engaging manner.

In St. Louis, DJ Alejan talks about how the film exposes the many layers and areas of sampling that have never previously been explored on film.

Find more videos like this on Community Cinema Series St. Louis

Community Cinema partnered with Future of Music Coalition to present COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS. Future of Music Coalition encouraged discussions about sampling and more as part of their 8th Policy Summit in Washington DC in early October 2009. Community Cinema Regional Outreach Coordinator Michon Boston explains, “Fair use is … described for documentary makers, as follows:

Fair Use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. It is a crucial feature of copyright law. In fact, it is what keeps copyright from being censorship. You can invoke fair use when the value to the public of what you are saying outweighs the cost to the private owner of the copyright.

– Source: “Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use”

Boston continues during her chat with Kembrew McLeod, “When it came to fair use, he appeared cautious about their selection process for COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS.”

McLeod said, “We didn’t want to ruin it for people following us through the door.”

Speakers and audience members in St. Louis feel the music after the film an discussion.

For the hundreds of people who attended our free screening events for COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS nationwide, McLeod and Frazen busted the door open for musicians, artists, and others to explore the myriad aspects and themes of sampling, borrowing, mashing-up, and paying tribute. Now get out there and make some music. Holla!

Independent Lens

The deadline to submit is Friday, September 24, 2010. For more information read the Independent Lens submissions FAQ. And to get a feel for some of our award-winning programs, check out trailers from this past season…

Panelist Uyen Le is interviewed for Saigon TV KJLA

Community Cinema’s National Coordinator Desiree Gutierrez reflects on a screening of A Village Called Versailles held earlier this month before an entirely Vietnamese audience in Southern California.

As one of the National Community Cinema Coordinators, I am use to hosting screenings with diverse crowds, but Sunday night I had the chance to be the outsider at a screening of A Village Called Versailles hosted by Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County’s Little Saigon.

The newspaper was the first Vietnamese publication outside of Vietnam and has a rich history. As it was told to me, the newspaper originated out of a series of letters that traveled back and forth between Vietnam and the U.S. as people tried to track down their family members and friends after the war.

Tiffany Le a reporter at Nguoi Viet reached out to me last month wanting to learn more about hosting a screening of A Village Called Versailles. She knew the residents of her community would want to see the film, but as she pointed out, they would not drive to LA or West Hollywood to attend one of our already scheduled events. We made arrangements to host the film at the newspapers auditorium in the heart of Little Saigon.

The newspaper had given us tremendous media coverage. We had a feature with images run a few days before the screening, and an interview with the filmmaker run the day of the event, not to mention a half page ad in the World Cup edition of the paper. Needless to say, the Vietnamese community knew we were having an event and they turned out. Nearly 200 people and four media crews filled the auditorium, and as I had been warned, I the only “Westerner” in the room.

Although I brought the film to this community, I was also an outsider. People could tell I didn’t speak Vietnamese (I am an obvious Caucasian-Mexican mix) and they would give me a welcoming nod, but few people tried to speak with me. When I went on stage to introduce the film in English, I was told that out of cultural respect, I should say, “Even though I am not Vietnamese, I love this film.” When I joked, I think they can tell I am not Vietnamese; I was informed that few people would understand me and as long as I said that sentence they would understand why I was there. With that, I was happy to oblige.

Reporter Kristoffer Kennedy of Viet Weekly, directs a question toward the panel

The film features both English and Vietnamese speakers.  Vietnamese subtitles ran while English speakers were on screen.  Watching the film with this crowd was a very different experience than with my typical “Western” crowd. This community understood the cultural humor and the true meaning of what people are saying, which can get lost in translation.

The panel discussion and community dialogue was also held entirely in Vietnamese. I was told that a majority of the conversation was focused on the current devastation from the BP oil spill, and the conversation ended with people talking about how their community could reach out to the New Orleans East community.

After the event, two men told me that they didn’t know about the situation presented in the picture or that this was happening to “their people,” and thanked me for sharing the film.

By screening the film, we shared a story about a community that received little commercial attention and that, conversely, brought a story to a community that is rarely the recipient of media attention. Even though I understood very little of the conversation, I knew Community Cinema had achieved its mission.

Equally important is the attention such an award will draw to the national debate over Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT.) The film explores the genesis of that policy from its inception under then-President Clinton in 1993.

Ask Not sheds light on how DADT has prevented some of America’s most talented recruits from serving their country. Examples include skilled Arabic translators so desperately needed in Afghanistan and Iraq combat, ordered to be silent and celibate or else be removed from duty.

“This was a fun award to receive and a great acknowledgment of the film and the issue,” said Symons.

The hype around Ask Not could not come at a more relevant time. At his State of the Union address this past January, President Obama vowed to repeal DADT during his first term. Soon after, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Mike Mullen also denounced the policy before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The film also recently aired on Capitol Hill to coincide with Congressional hearings on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Congratulations to Johnny and his team!

Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh

Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh discusses how she came to make a film about the only gay bar in Jerusalem. Her film, City of Borders, airs on public television this month. Check listings in your area here.

As a Buddhist Korean American, I am frequently asked why I am interested in the Middle East and how I discovered Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. I’m not the most obvious candidate to tell this story. But I believe my outsider status proved to be instrumental in making City of Borders.

I’m drawn to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I intimately relate to both sides of the war. Like the Israelis, I grew up in constant fear of my neighboring country, North Korea, attacking my small village in South Korea. I did not see North Koreans as humans but as demons determined to kill us if they had the chance. My childhood playtime often involved devising escape routes and places to hide in my home if North Koreans ever invaded.

Like the Palestinians, I understand the horrors and hardships of living under occupation through my parents who survived the Japanese colonization of Korea. Being on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, I also witnessed the impact of the Israeli occupation.

The concept for my documentary began in 2002 while I was producing a series of radio reports in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip on the clashes during the Second Intifada. During the height of the clashes in 2002, I heard about a bar that hosted gay nights where Israelis and Palestinians took great risks to meet and connect as human beings amid all the distrust, death, and violence. This gathering was beyond my imagination and renewed my faith in our shared humanity and desire to connect.

The story stayed with me as news coverage increasingly focused on fundamentalists on both sides of the conflict, thereby providing no hope for a peaceful resolution and coexistence in the future. In 2006, I contacted the bar owner, Sa’ar Netanel, who is considered the Harvey Milk of Jerusalem in that he is the first openly gay elected politician in the Holy City. He was easy to find since his phone numbers were printed in posters all over the religious district in Jerusalem, claiming that Sa’ar was responsible for AIDS, earthquakes, and other natural disasters hitting Israel so everyone should call him. So I called him to understand his great powers to cause such chaos. He invited me to come to Jerusalem and see with my own eyes the people who gathered at his bar nightly: A gay Israeli soldier sitting next to a Palestinian man, who would be sitting next to an ultra-Orthodox woman, who may be dancing next to a straight couple.

Sa’ar’s vision for his bar where people from different worlds can find common ground and be accepted, mirrors my purpose for working in the media. Therefore, I chose this community, whom we rarely hear from in the region, as the topic of my first feature-length documentary despite daunting barriers of budget, bombs, language, and culture.

Whenever I would hit an obstacle in making City of Borders, I would think about Sa’ar receiving more than 300 death threats and draw on his courage. After three adventurous years of production, I’m very excited to share the vibrant, inspiring and courageous community at Shushan with the world.

— Yun Jong Suh

Last month filmmaker S. Leo Chiang participated in a discussion after his picture, A Village Called Versailles, played before for an audience of inmates at the San Bruno County Jail in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chiang offered his account of what was an unlikely setting for a film festival…

When ITVS emailed me about showing A Village Called Versailles, In, of all places, a jail as a part of Community Cinema screenings, I was taken aback at first, and then I was excited. I had never been inside a jail, and I wasn’t about to pass up the chance. I am, after all, a documentary filmmaker with innate anthropological curiosities.

I set out to the San Bruno County Jail #5, which is a part of the San Francisco County Jail system. My ITVS rep and I clear up confusions about our security clearances, pass through many remotely operated thick, metal, sliding doors, and walk down long, non-descript hallways. I see guards and rooms full of inmates in bright orange jumpsuits. So far, the experience looks a lot like a scene out of Oz on HBO.

We are here to present the film to students in classrooms of a pioneer Charter high school inside the San Francisco County jails, the Five Keys Charter School. The inmates take classes from inside the jail with the aim of getting their high school diplomas.

I enter the classroom and am nervous. The students had seen my film the day prior, and I’m there to answer questions and discuss their reactions to the film. I wonder if anyone would even speak or, let alone, raise a hand to ask a question. Or, will they just be rowdy? Will the session disintegrate into chaos?

After the first question, I start to loosen up. The students are compelled by the images on the screen, and they want to share their thoughts. One Vietnamese American inmate speaks about the refugee experience that he and his family went through. Many other students obviously relate to what they saw on the screen, a marginalized community being treated unfairly by the powers that be.

The discussion becomes livelier. The students alternate between asking questions: “What’s New Orleans like now all these years after Katrina?” And “Where did all of that garbage end up?” They offer up their opinions too: “I think the story is really touching, and you don’t have to be Vietnamese to appreciate it,” one inmate said.

My ITVS colleague jumps in and asks about the backgrounds of certain students and where they are from. Richmond, Bayview, Hunter’s Point — mostly cities and neighborhoods where polluting factories are built and garbage is dumped.

I often tell folks that a main goal for me with this film is to empower people from underserved and underrepresented communities to speak up, to fight against injustices in their own neighborhoods. Here, I am facing an audience of all different ethnic backgrounds from these very neighborhoods. I am certain that some of them are in this very jail due to the obstacles presented in their neighborhoods, which they feel powerless against. This is the very audience that I want to influence.

Driving away, I was thrilled that the response was far better than I expected. I don’t know how much the inmates took away from watching A Village Called Versailles. I can only hope that the film is able to modestly contribute to their outlook on life after incarceration. I read one student’s answer about what the film was trying to convey. He says, “even the smallest voice makes a sound and anyone can have an impact.” We can all take that to heart.

At the core of ITVS’s mission is to amplify the voices of the underrepresented in traditional media. In June, we get to celebrate the films airing this month across the nation, as well as those in our catalog that tell the rarely heard stories from the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities.

This month, a remarkable film – City of Borders – airs on various PBS stations (check listings here). The film documents an astounding array of regulars at Jerusalem’s only gay bar. Palestinians (some who must sneak over Israel’s “security fence” to get there) mingle with Israelis, Muslims with Jews, men with women, gay people with straight people. It’s a stunning microcosm of peace and shared humanity amidst a landscape rent with conflict.

But also take a moment to browse through our film catalog’s sortable search engine for all of our films on LGBT topics.

Among them, notably, given recent news, is Ask Not, a film about the United States military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy that systematically bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Now that repeal of DADT has been passed in both houses of Congress, there’s hope that this film is about to become an archival document of a sad time gone by.

From L to R: Vanessa Gould, Lois Vossen and Margaret Brown at the Peabody Awards Ceremony

The 69th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony, hosted by Diane Sawyer on Monday, marked the third consecutive year that Independent Lens received two Peabody Awards in one year, perhaps the only television series to ever achieve this honor.

Dr. Susan Douglas, the chair of the Peabody Awards Board, said that the 34 honorees were selected from nearly 1,200 finalists, confirming that the Peabody selection process is perhaps the most rigorous of any of the top industry awards.

Vanessa Gould received a Peabody Award for her first film, Between the Folds, a film exploring the intersection of fine art and science embodied in the practice of origami. Margaret Brown received a Peabody Award for The Order of Myths, an examination of the joyous yet still segregated celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama.

Both filmmakers spoke eloquently about what winning their first Peabody Award meant after years working as truly independent filmmakers (perhaps most notably with little or no budget). Vanessa spent 4 1/2 years making her film with no budget, and Margaret shared a story about how this personal story challenged her to look deeply at parts of her family history that are not always flattering.

In what surely must be a Peabody first, paper-folding artist Robert Lang created a true-to-scale origami Peabody statuette that everyone at the ceremony admired — though I don’t think there were any offers to trade it for a real Peabody statuette. At the “Winner’s Tribute” later in the day at the Paley Center, one veteran journalist winner spoke about how deeply honored he and his team were to be honored with their first Peabody Award claiming, “Most of my colleagues would trade five Emmys for a single Peabody.”

Craig Ferguson was unable to attend the ceremony to pick up his Peabody for Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, but sent a note purporting that, “It is unlikely our show will ever lapse into this level of excellence again” and so thanked the Peabody Board for honoring his episode with Bishop Desmond Tutu.

In addition to the obvious, extraordinary honor of having two awards bestowed on two Independent Lens, yours truly showed her inner “Gleek-ness” when a chance encounter found her on the elevator with Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee, before the ceremony. Mr. Murphy asked my advice in what he might say in his acceptance speech. While I take absolutely no credit for his funny and eloquent speech, I did applaud loudly when he said we need more television that celebrates diversity. In at least one important way, Independent Lens shares a very large and important goal with Glee, to better understand and sometimes celebrate our differences.

Lois Vossen
Independent Lens Series Producer and Vice President, ITVS

Garbage Dreams Game

Filmed over four years, director Mai Iskander’s documentary Garbage Dreams goes inside the world of Egypt’s Zaballeen (Arabic for “garbage people”) to reveal the lives of three teenage boys born into the trash trade.

Premiering on Independent Lens on April 27th (check local listings), the broadcast of Garbage Dreams is accompanied by the Garbage Dreams Game, in which players assume the role of the Zaballeen. The game demonstrates that recycling is not just good for the environment; it’s also sound economic practice.

Players start with cash and expenses, one very hungry goat, one neighborhood, and one paper recycling factory. To grow their business and build efficiency, players can make investments in new equipment to recycle other materials, buy extra trucks, hire workers, or expand into wealthier neighborhoods.

Players sort through trash and recycle what can be recycled in Cairo — paper, organics, aluminum, tin, plastic, and glass — all against a ticking clock, sorting through trash piles with the speed, strategy, and efficiency required to match the 80 percent recycling rate of the Zaballeen within 12 rounds of play.

Corresponding lesson plans for grades 9-12 and middle school complement the game and the film, and further explore the issue of recycling and the globalized economy.

Goats, trucks, and territories; organics, paper, and tin. Learn how Egypt’s Zaballeen turn trash into cash. Play the recycling game.

www.pbs.org/independentlens/garbage-dreams/game.html