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Documentaries and Activism

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Posted on February 12, 2002

Advice from Sundance

MediaRights.org was invited to the Sundance Film Festival to speak on two panels this year and we took some notes to share with our members. JULIA PIMSLEUR, Executive Director of MediaRights.org, spoke at the House of Docs on the "Outreach: Making and Impact" panel January 17th, 2002. The panel was moderated by ELLEN SCHNEIDER, Executive Director of Active Voice. She created the Television Race Initiative and oversaw many important initiatives while she was at POV.

Some advice from the panelists:

ARTHUR DONG, Filmmaker ("License To Kill") at Sundance 2002 with "Family Fundamentals"

Tip: Think about outreach before you shoot.

Quote: "When we distributed 'License To Kill' our goal was to reach perpetrators of anti-gay violence crimes – teenage boys. So we made sure that there were stories and characters that they could relate to in the film."

Jim Sommers, ITVS

Experience: Arthur made "License To Kill", a look into the minds of murderers who killed gay men. He did a year of theatrical distribution and focused his outreach in Texas where anti-hate crime laws were in a stalemate. About the five-city Texas tour he did last October, Arthur said, "We knew we weren't going to get 'Star Wars' audiences but we did get a lot of print media and television exposure for the issues."

POV did outreach around the broadcast and Arthur arranged for educational distribution. He didn't do commercial video distribution because he was worried that educators would pay the commercial price instead of the educational price. He created a study guide which seven Ph.D. scholars wrote over four months (funded by the Playboy Foundation).

ROBERT WEST, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Working Films

Tip: Think critically in pre-production, work strategically with organizers and look for direct action.

Pat Aufderheide and Arthur Dong

Quote: "Activists are brilliant strategists but sometimes media is a black hole for them. And that's why partnerships with filmmakers are so important to them."

Experience: Robert frequently works as the intermediary between filmmakers and nonprofits. He recommends screening rough cuts of the film with nonprofits/outreach partners. It is important to explain to the outreach partners that their input is valuable but their role is not to be a filmmaker.

Robert was working on the outreach of two films during the Sundance Film Festival: "Two Towns of Jasper" and "Blue Vinyl." He organized a town hall screening of "Two Towns of Jasper" to help pass an anti-hate crimes bill in Utah. Fox news reported on the screening with the article "Sundance film keeps hate crime bill alive in Utah." Robert and his business partner, Judith Helfand, wanted to use the Sundance screenings of Judith's film "Blue Vinyl" to convince Victoria's Secret to change their use of toxic packing materials. Audience members sent postcards to Victoria's Secret letting them know that they cared about this issue. By the end the week at Sundance and 1,500 postcards later, Intimate Brands, the owners of Victoria's Secret, called Greenpeace – who initiated an activist fax campaign to the company in early January, netting over 4,000 messages in favor of ending PVC packaging – to discuss their PVC policy.

FYI: Read two articles about Working Films.

Members on Outreach: Working Films Mobilizes at Sundance

Moving Audiences to Action

JIM SOMMERS, National Outreach Manager, Community Connections Project, ITVS

Tip: Make a budget line for outreach from the beginning. Don't wait until you're in distribution.

Quote: "It is essential to diversify your advisors. It is essential that your advisors are part of your target audience if you are planning on doing outreach."

Experience: When ITVS shares works-in-progress with community organizations Jim is the intermediary between the organizations and the filmmakers. As coordinator of ITVS' outreach campaigns, he explains, "ITVS' commitment to outreach comes from our belief that underserved communities are not watching public television."

JULIA PIMSLEUR, Co-Founder and Executive Director of MediaRights.org

Tip: Use the Web to plan your campaign: email newsletters, online communities and the MediaRights.org Producer Workshop.

Quote: "I used to be one of those filmmakers who didn't get a $100,000 grant to do outreach but still wanted my film to make an impact. One of my goals with MediaRights.org was to democratize the outreach process."

Experience: To read Julia's story about how MediaRights.org came about, click here.

PAT AUFDERHEIDE, Director, Center For Social Media

Tip: Study examples of successful outreach campaigns.

Quote: "There are a handful of large foundations that fund media and the Council of Foundations is promoting them as a model for smaller foundations."

Experience: Pat curated the Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival, which celebrates the funders of successful social issue media. She wants to inspire funders to consider media as a way to reach their goals for social change.

She gave one example of how women from Peru made a video about how badly women were treated in Peruvian health care facilities. They contacted their leaders and threatened to show the film at the Hague. In exchange for not showing the film the government agreed to health care reform.

Read about the "Road to Exhibition" panel in the Sundance Gen Y Studio.