From texting and twittering to flying there yourself, here are some of the many ways that we can all make a difference right now!

THE FACTS: On January 12, 2010, at 4:53pm local time, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, approximately 10 miles from Port-au-Prince. Thousands of people are feared dead and the capital city has been devastated.

IMMEDIATE SUPPORT: Established disaster recovery organizations and national governments have been mobilized.
These organizations are also raising funds for relief efforts:

•    Oxfam: www.oxfam.org
•    Doctors Without Borders: www.doctorswithoutborders.org

LONG-TERM SUPPORT: Crucial recovery and rebuilding efforts are always underfunded in comparison to immediate relief efforts. We saw this in the wake of Katrina as well as the Tsunami.  Following are some organizations and projects working on long-term recovery efforts that have a long-standing, grassroots presence in Haiti. Here are three that have distributed staff in the country now and are well positioned to aid in the long-term recovery effort.

•    Partners in Health:  www.pih.org
•    Fonkoze: www.fonkoze.org
•    The Lambi Fund of Haiti:  www.lambifund.org

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These organizations have been vetted by my dear friends at Air Traffic Control, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting musicians and their managers on activism, philanthropy, and political activities. www.atctower.net

QUICK WAYS THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY CAN HELP:

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1. Donate and let your colleagues, fans, and audiences know how they can donate: Spread the word via personal and professional websites/email/text/twitter/social networks etc. Feel free to rewrite the below suggested text or post as is.

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2. Suggested Twitter text: Please RT: Support the Earthquake Relief Efforts in Haiti by making a donation to Oxfam’s Response Fund http://rev.ms/303

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3. Suggested text for your professional and fan sites + social network pages: On January 12, 2010, at 4:53pm local time, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, approximately 10 miles from Port-au-Prince. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people are feared dead, as the capital city has been devastated. You can help. Make a donation to one of these incredible and long-standing organizations in Haiti. They have distributed staff in country now, but most importantly, they are well positioned to aid in the long-term recovery effort.
Partners in Health: www.pih.org
Fonkoze: www.fonkoze.org
The Lambi Fund of Haiti: www.lambifund.org

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4. If you are speaking or performing at public events, you can use text-donation systems: Ask people to text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross

Other Articles

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• Virtual Freedom
• Meet The Filmmakers — Rachel Libert and Tony Hardomon
• Dear Mandela
• 9 Star Hotel
• This Is My Picture When I Was Dead
• The Axe In The Attic
• Congratulations to all of our grantees at DocuWeeks 2010!

Convenings were designed as a bridge to create a new network of professional exchange between documentary filmmakers and social entrepreneurs, and discover new pathways for exploring independent documentary film’s role in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship.The Convening at Sundance Film Festival Twenty Ten will mark the third year of convenings.  The DFP and Skoll Foundation look forward to welcoming four incredible social entrepreneurs to Park City.

Quratulain Bakhteari is the first of her five siblings born to young socially marginalized parents in Multan after the 1947 migration from India to Pakistan. Her family later moved to a refugee camp in Karachi.  At 22 having three sons and family responsibilities she did her master in social work from Karachi University. During her Master’s course work and later with UNICEF’s project she mobilized 5,000 families and constructed household pit latrines in 1979 which became the policy for of sanitation for low income people in the country. The main objective was to conclude all her experiences in to courses for the young people, isolated, inexperienced and excluded young people. Her aim is to create self development processes by serving the communities.

Munqeth Mehyar serves as Chairman and Jordanian Director of EcoPeace/ Friends of the Earth Middle East.  Friends of the Earth Middle East is a unique regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the Middle East. The organization has offices in Tel-Aviv, Bethlehem and Amman, employs over 40 paid staff and actively involves hundreds of volunteers. Friends of the Earth Middle East’s three co-Directors were honored by TIME magazine as Environmental Heroes in 2008 and the organization was awarded the prestigious Skoll Award in 2009.

Bunker Roy started the Barefoot College 38 years ago. It is the only fully solar electrified College in India built by the poor and managed by the poor who earn less than $ 1/day. One of the few places in India where the work style and life style of Mahatma Gandhi is still alive. The demsytified and decentralised barefoot approach has reached 13 States of India and 21 of the Least Development Countries in Africa.

Martin von Hildebrand has worked for more than 40 years for the recognition and exercise of indigenous rights, and the protection of diversity in the Amazon region. He has received national and international awards including the Right Livelihood Award (Sweden, 1999), National Environmental Prize (Colombia, 1999), Order of the Golden Ark (The Netherlands, 2004), National Prize of Ecology (Colombia, 2004), Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (USA, 2009) and Latin-American Social Entrepreneur (WEF Rio de Janeiro, 2009).

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• Waiting For Armageddon
• Howl
• The Georgian Year
• Anatomy of Poverty
• DFP grantee receives Macarthur “genius”grant
• Meet The Filmmaker– Maria Teresa Rodriguez
• Connected

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Which Way Home
Rebecca Cammisa (Director)

As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, Which Way Home shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.

http://whichwayhome.net/

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Garbage Dreams
Mai Iskander (director)

The Zabbaleen people are trash collectors and proud of it. This community of around 60,000 Coptic Christians inhabits a suburb of Cairo. For generations, they have been collecting, sorting, processing and recycling the trash this metropolis produces. Garbage Dreams follows three Zabbaleen boys as they each find their own ways to deal with the new challenges facing them — by either working harder or joining their rivals.

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The Sundance Documentary Film Program would like to extend a further congratulations to all the films and filmmakers previously supported by the Sundance Institute who have also made the Oscar Short List:

Burma VJ (Sundance Film Festival, 2009)
Director: Anders Østergaard (Magic Hour Films)
http://burmavjmovie.com/

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The Cove (Sundance Film Festival, 2009)
Director: Louie Psihoyos (Oceanic Preservation Society)
http://thecovemovie.com/

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Sergio (Sundance Film Festival, 2009)
Director Greg Barker (Passion Pictures and Silverbridge Productions)
http://www.sergiothemovie.com/

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• Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita
• Meet The Filmmaker — Jed Riffe
• Our School
• Seeking Refuge
• Connected
• Camp Victory, Afghanistan
• Letters To The President
• Meet The Filmmakers!

Films funded tell stories of a cinema restoration project in the West Bank, the revival of an indigenous American language after being silenced for 150 years , a Cambodian journalist ‘s attempt to understand the men and women who took part in the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, and a citizen journalist in China who uses technology and social networking to report on his country’s hidden stories. Several themes also emerge among the selected films: post-Soviet societies in transition, American criminal justice, the intersections between poverty and the environment, and celebrations of creativity and freedom of expression.
“The films funded today reflect the Sundance Documentary Film Program’s belief that documentary storytellers are ‘first responders’ exploring the current global realities we all face,” said Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. “Documentary film is gaining momentum as an international language of cross-cultural awareness and understanding. These artists are at the forefront of the movement.”

Development Grants

REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG  Nancy Kates (U.S.)
Regarding Susan Sontag follows the life and work of the late author, critic, director, and activist. 

Production/Post-Production Grants

ALL THAT GLITTERS  Tomáš Kudrna (Czech Republic / Kyrgyzstan)
For villagers of a small town in Kyrgyzstan, the unexpected effects of a massive Canadian gold mining operation complicate understandings of the fall of communism. 

AN AMERICAN PROMISE Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster (U.S.)
In a twelve-year study, two African American boys come of age as they attend an elite prep-school in New York City from kindergarten to high school graduation.

ÂS NUTAYUNEÂN– WE STILL LIVE HERE (Working Title)  Anne Makepeace (U.S.)
The Wampanoag nation of southeastern Massachusetts revives their native tongue, a language that was silenced for more than 100 years.

BUDRUS HAS A HAMMER Julia Bacha (U.S. / Israel / Palestinian Territories)
A Palestinian leader unites Fatah, Hamas and Israelis in an unarmed movement to save his village from destruction. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter jumps into the fray.

CESAR’S LAST FAST Richard Ray Perez (U.S.)
The private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind Cesar Estrada Chavez’s fight for justice and dignity for America’s farm workers is linked to a new generation of organizers leading the charge for farm worker’s rights today. 

CINEMA JENIN Marcus Vetter and Alex Bakri (Palestinian Territories / Israel/ Germany)
A Fellini-esque documentary comedy unfolds as locals launch an initiative to reopen the only cinema in the city of Jenin in the West Bank.

COOKED
Judith Helfand (U.S.)
Out of the most traumatic heat wave in U.S. history –  when over 730 poor, elderly and African American Chicago residents died in a single July week in 1995 – comes a story about the politics of crisis, the specter of global warming, the long-term disaster called poverty and an inspired plan to address all three at once.

CRIME AFTER CRIME
Yoav Potash (U.S.)
A behind bars look at women in prison and the troubled intersection of law enforcement and domestic violence.

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
Rob Lemkin and S. Thet (U.K. / Cambodia)
A young journalist whose family was killed by the Khmer Rouge spends a decade making friends with the men and women who directed and perpetrated the Killing Fields. He finally understands the reasons behind his country’s tragedy, but the truth comes at a price.

HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE (Working Title)
Stephen Maing (U.S. / CHINA)
A young former vegetable seller inspired by a search for truth and the potential for fame travels the countryside reporting his observations and discoveries and unexpectedly becomes one of China’s first citizen reporters.

IN A TOWN CALLED OIL CITY
Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer (U.S.)
The announcement of the filmmaker’s wedding to another man leads to a plea for help from a gay teen and a quest for change in the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago.

RUSSIA’S PEPSI GENERATION (Working Title)
Robin Hessman (U.S. / Russia)
Communism’s crossover children adjust to their post-Soviet reality in Moscow today.

THE GEORGIAN YEAR
Nino Kirtadze (France / Georgia)
The Georgian Year takes an intimate look at a defining year for this young democracy, from the presidential elections in January 2008 to a state of chaos and war and the resulting aftermath.

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• Fambul Tok
• Waiting To Inhale
• Interview with directors of Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter
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• Sundance Documentary Film Wins 2008 Emmy Award
• Enemies of the People

http://www.pov.org/tunein/2009/reckoning/

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• Meet The Filmmaker — Christopher Nizza
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• Out In the Silence

Filmmaker and NYU professor Carol Dysinger has been holed up at Radical Avid in New York for the last six months with her editing associate Michelle Chang preparing her film. The invitation to participate in the Documentary Edit and Story Lab presented an opportunity for Carol to develop a feature documentary. In between teaching, editing and occassionally getting a good night sleep Carol agreed to answer our questions:

Q: Growing up, what films impacted you and showed you the power of storytelling?

A: Strangely, I started in fiction filmmaking. The films that I have been most affected by are the films that gave you permission to tell a story that you didn’t see anywhere else, told in a new way. Films like Tokyo Story by Yasujiro Ozu. That film could illicit a certain kind of emotion by holding onto to things. It didn’t try to argue the audience into feeling specific emotions. In terms of documentary, for me, it was Hearts and Minds by Peter Davis. In its different parts it looks at things in a verite way. He said he wanted a film with “dead air” meaning no narrator explaining what was happening. By moving from images of a football game to soldiers walking by, these images at first appeared unrelated. He organized the film in a way that it felt like it had a secret structure. He built understanding through the accumulations of details. To me, working in film is about articulating things that cannot be said with words. I like films that do that for audience.

Q: The impact, both positive and negative, a filmmaker can have on the lives of the individuals and communities he/she documents is widely discussed. Can you describe the impact that the people in your film have had on your life?

A: The real impact is hard to say. Right now, a lot of what I think about are the people like Cl. Siyar and Col. Shute. I was very aware in production about what happens to filmmakers and journalists who are embedded with the military. It’s hard to separate your personal beliefs when you’re there with these guys. I was struck though as I was for once the only tree-hugging, pro-gay marriage, liberal Democrat in the room. The thing that’s hard to articulate that I greatly value is the time we had to talk. Talk about our beliefs in an open and honest way. I also felt something just being among these American soldiers that made me remember what core American values are about. It has nothing to do with your political leaning left or right, but more to do with responsibility. Showing up for people and having no excuses. Doing whatever it takes to do what you say you’re going to do and not sweating. There were numerous times both men looked out for me because that is who they were, not because they were assigned to the task. Sometimes living on the left (politically) is a very romantic culture, with a lot of excuses and little action. These men did not talk about it, they simply looked out for the people around them.

Q: If someone made a “behind the scenes” documentary about your film, what would the theme song be?

A: What song does the Duracell bunny sing? For me, it would probably be a song by Patti Smith if anything with a long guitar solo. Or a sound effects record.

Q: Do you blame punk music for your career choice?

A: Absolutely. When I was young my first job was cutting the video for “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash. After that I never looked back!

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On June 12 The Reckoning (2008 DFP grantee) screened for two sold out shows to open the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.  HRWFF is celebrating 20 years of filmmakers and their constant strength to witness, reflect, and present stories of incredible strength. With its touring festival in New York, London, San Francisco, Chicago,  and Toronto, Human Rights Watch continues to be a premiere venue for human rights documentary film.

HRWFF in New York will run through June 25.

For more information visit www.hrw.org/en/iff/new-york/

We would like to congratulate four DFP films screening at this year’s HRWFF:

Good Fortune

Iraq in Fragments

Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter

The Reckoning

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• Budrus

…As filmmakers, we were essentially unearthing original history. Given the “under the radar” nature of the Army’s Lioness program, we had to piece together the story from a range of different sources including the women and their commanders as well as press accounts and “after action reports” of the fighting in the Sunni Triangle. Through this process, we were able to place the women in the center of some of the biggest counterinsurgency battles fought in the war to date.

Co-Directors: Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers

On April 6, 2004, a U.S. Marine combat unit made its way through Ramadi’s narrow streets on a hunt for Iraqi insurgents. As the soldiers turned a corner they were ambushed, sparking a series of firefights that spread across the city and ignited a week of bloody combat. Specialist Morgan and Sergeant Ruthig, both squad automatic gunners, survived this battle, while others soldiers were not as lucky. But subsequent press reports neglected to mention one thing: that both Morgan and Ruthig are women.

Despite a Department of Defense policy banning women from direct ground combat, U.S. military commanders have been using women as an essential part of their ground operations in Iraq since 2003. The female soldiers who accompany male troops on patrols and house-to-house searches are known as Team Lioness, and have proved to be invaluable. Their presence not only helps calm women and children, but Lioness troops are also able to conduct searches of the women, without violating cultural strictures. Against official policy and without the training given to their male counterparts, and with a firm commitment to serve as needed, these dedicated young women have been drawn into the fighting in some of the most violent counterinsurgency battles in Iraq. Yet they are rarely—if ever—mentioned in news accounts of those battles.

LIONESS profiles five women who saw action in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle during 2003 and 2004. As members of the U.S. Army’s 1st Engineer Battalion, Shannon Morgan, Rebecca Nava, Kate Pendry Guttormsen, Anastasia Breslow and Ranie Ruthig were sent to Iraq to provide supplies and logistical support to their male colleagues. Not trained for combat duty, the women unexpectedly became involved with fighting in the streets of Ramadi.

Told through interviews, journal excerpts and archival footage, LIONESS offers a portrait of five soldiers who are also wives, mothers and daughters, and who have long coped with the demands of military life, especially the sacrifices involved in leaving behind spouses and young children. These combat-tested women exemplify what it means to be a good soldier, and illustrate the complicated role that women play in direct war combat. Reflecting on their recent deployment, the Lionesses display strength and candor, bridging the gap between the perception and the reality of the essential role women are playing in Iraq.

More on Lioness at Independent Lens>>

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• Ferraro Blogs from Skoll World Forum
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• 2009 Documentary Edit and Story Lab Fellows Announced
• The Reckoning opens Human Rights Watch International Film Festival with two sold out screenings

During the meeting Iskander told Gore that the award will do more to raise awareness about the plight of the Zaballeen community in Cairo, than the last twenty years of efforts by others less visible who are committed to their  economic survival. Garbage Dreams premiered at SXSW in March to sold out screenings and continues a successful Festival run.

To learn more about the Zaballeen and ways you can help, visit  www.garbagedreams.com

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• Meet The Filmmaker — Mike Brown
• Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita
• Match+
• Gas Land
• The Pit
• Exploring Ways To Help In Haiti
• Beijing Taxi

Join Out In The Silence co-directors Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer at a free work-in-progress screening of their film. Sundance Documentary Film Program Director Cara Mertes will host a Q&A with the filmmakers after the screening. This event is part of Sundance Institute’s Works in Progress screening program, which provides an opportunity for filmmakers and viewers to explore the creative process and examine the  issues addressed in the film.

Tuesday, May 19^th @ 7:30PM

Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Wilson and Hamer received a grant from the Sundance Documentary Fund in 2008. The film follows a remarkable chain of events that unfold when the newspaper announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson’s wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy in the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago.

Click here for screening details.

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