Tag Archives: community cinema

Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars

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KCPT’s most recent 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.

Margaret Moore of the NE Kansas & NW Missouri Girl Scouts

After the screening Margaret Moore from the Girl Scouts of NE Kansas and NW Missouri talked about her work with Troop 2026, which meets monthly at the Topeka Correctional Facility (TCF). Troop 2026 is made up of about 30 girls, who come from all over Kansas, and even parts of Missouri, to visit their incarcerated mothers and take part in traditional Girl Scout activities. Moore has worked with Troop 2026 since the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program came to TCF in 1994.

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Resisting the Rambo Culture with Women, War & Peace

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Abigail Disney, producer and moderator Ruth Ezell

Pray the Devil Back to Hell  was a special night for St. Louis Community Cinema as producer, Abigail Disney, was present at the screening. She engaged the audience in a truly wonderful conversation about her thought provoking film.  Most of the 300 people who attended the film remained for the discussion. Much of the discussion revolved around the fact that we did not know about the women’s movement in Liberia. The press did not cover it and we were kept in the dark about these courageous women.  Abigail commented that was one of the reasons she wanted to make this film, which can help change ideas about women’s roles in war, the peace process, and the military.

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Environmentalists Talk Trash in the Bay Area

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It was a packed house at the Garbage Dreams screening

On Wednesday, January 27, 2011 Garbage Dreams was screened at Oakland’s Asian Cultural Center. The screening was packed by audience members from every demographic and every age group, including an entire fifth grade class from the Lighthouse Community Charter School. Audience members were struck by the degree to which the Zaballeen managed to find a use for everything. Many attendees were inspired to integrate this consideration into their own lives and think more about the value of the things they view as trash. The screening was followed by an exciting discussion featuring panelists, Monica Wilson, International Co-coordinator at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Aaron Ableman, Co-Founder of Communitree, and Ambessa Cantave, Co-Founder of Grind for the Green and Oakland Climate Justice Activist. Following is a video including interviews with panelist, Ambessa Cantave and a few of the audience members. A week before this screening, on Tuesday, January 19th, the San Francisco Main Library also hosted a screening of Garbage Dreams.

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Grand Rapids Kicks Off the New Season of Community Cinema

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left to right: Emily Coyle, Tricia Coyle, Emily Maurin WGVU, Sue Lewis and Jill Morrill

Michiganders kicked off Community Cinema’s 2009-2010 Season last night in Grand Rapids at The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts.  After the screening of D Tour, we had a small but passionate crowd for this film, and an extremely knowledgeable panel.  Just a few months ago, Jill Morrill donated her kidney to her 12-year-old daughter, who suffers from cystinosis.  Sue Lewis donated her kidney two years ago to the father of one of her son’s friends.  Tricia Coyle received a donated kidney a couple of months ago through a paired donor program in Toledo.  Her daughter, Emily Coyle, worked hard to spread the word about her mother needing a donor – and recently found out that she suffers from the same genetic disorder that caused her mother’s kidney to fail.

Community Cinema screens The Horse Boy in Philadelphia

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Bill Zukovsky with his son Andrew

The Horse Boy, (airing Tuesday, May 11 at 10 PM, check local listings) explores one family’s unforgettable journey as they travel halfway across the world in search of a miracle to heal their autistic son. On April 21st, WHYY and Community Cinema hosted a screening of The Horse Boy in Philadelphia. More than 200 people packed the venue, including many parents who are raising children with Autism. To create engagement opportunities, ITVS awarded WHYY’s Learning Lab a grant to support the Family Media Project, an innovative video project that explores how three local families have engaged in their child’s autism diagnosis. Candid and eye-opening, the project not only provides a platform for education but a forum for families to tell their own stories. Parent Bill Zukovsky shares his experience working with the Family Media Project:

Wow… What an amazing experience! I couldn’t believe I was going to have a camera on my shoulder and a microphone wrapped around my arm while I tried to capture what it was like to be my son, Andrew. There is no way I would even take a photograph, let alone video tape something that was going to be shown online. What was I thinking taking on this project? But let me tell you something, I’m glad I did.

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Huge Turnout for Between the Folds in St. Louis

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Children admiring Sugi Taylor's work

Producing Partners are local community organizations that co-present Community Cinema screenings across the country. Last night, producing partner KETC in St. Louis, screened the Independent Lens film Between the Folds. The film looks at fine artists and theoretical scientists who have abandoned careers and hard-earned graduate degrees to forge unconventional lives as modern-day paper-folders. Sydney Meyer of KETC gives her take below:

Wow! That was the first word that came to my mind as people kept flowing into the St. Louis History Museum for the screening of Between the Folds last evening. This was Community Cinema at its finest. Approximately 340 people showed up for the viewing of the film and I was amazed watching the diversity of people fill the auditorium and overflow onto the steps and the sides of the theater. People of all ages laughed and clapped at various parts of the film, signaling they understood what the artists were trying to communicate to them.

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