Showcase

One of the highlights of IDFA was a master class by veteran social documentarian Kim Longinotto. The British filmmaker has long won awards and audiences for her films exploring the worlds of women across cultural boundaries. Her film Sisters in Law, delving into the world of two sisters who serve as family court judges in Cameroon, opened the festival. The sisters fiercely defend the rights of women in a society where child abuse and spousal abuse are often sanctioned.

The Center is honored to host Paco de Onis and Peter Kinoy, makers of State of Fear, as its fall visiting filmmakers. They will also be working with School of Communication students and offering a public lecture. They are extraordinary exemplars of documentarians with a social conscience.

The veteran Dutch filmmaker Jos de Putter has made award-winning, moving films about war, civil strife and human rights. The Damned and the Sacred follows a cultural troupe of orphans as they share Chechnyan folk culture throughout Europe. and discussing a career in social documentary filmmaking.

Co-founder of The Working Group, Patrice O'Neill has been producer and executive producer of successful national series on PBS for fifteen years. She and Pamela Calvert, the former station relations and outreach manager for the Independent Television Service, will talk about how the successful impact of Not In Our Town has influenced the filmmaking direction of The Working Group, and new challenges for broadcast-based community organizing and outreach.

Tia Lessin, a New York-based documentary filmmaker, received the 2002 Sidney Hillman Award for her work as producer and director of Behind the Labels, a film about sweatshops in Saipan that was shown on the Oxygen cable channel, before Congress and in theaters nationwide. Lessin was the supervising producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary film Bowling for Columbine and associate producer of the Academy Award-nominated Shadows of Hate. She has twice been nominated for Emmy Awards for her work in television. She co-produced Michael Moore's latest film Fahrenheit 9/11.