LEADING THE CONVERSATION: Young Women's Voices in the Media

ITVS, POV, BAVC, and Youth Radio will co-present a live chat on the future for women media makers, this Monday, July 11 at 3pm PT / 6pm ET.

 

The media industry is still largely a man's world. In commercial film, only 7 percent of directors, 13 percent of writers, and 20 percent of producers are female. How will the next generation of women media-makers confront that reality? 

ITVS, POV, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and Youth Radio will partner to present a live chat on Monday, July 11 at 3pm PT / 6pm ET with talented young women from around the country who have won acclaim in the youth media world and beyond. The conversation will be moderated by independent producer Jen Gilomen (co-director of Deep Down).

This is the first in a regular series of online conversations about critical issues facing women and girls today, as part of the Women and Girls Lead public media initiative. 

Participants:

Jen Gilomen (moderator): Jen Gilomen is a documentary filmmaker and D.P., as well as director of public media strategies at the Bay Area Video Coalition, where she directs the public-access television station and works in collaboration with public-media entities, community organizations, and producers to develop innovative social media programs and initiatives. She co-directed the Independent Lens film, Deep Down, about a community in rural Kentucky embroiled in a contentious battle over energy, and torn between the wealth and environmental destruction mountaintop-removal mining represents.

 Denise Tejada (Youth Radio): Denise Tejada is a graduate of Youth Radio's class of 2003. She has moved from student to peer teacher to news department assistant producer. Her video feature, Mission District Diversity, won the My City Now Future Filmmaker Contest as part of KQED’s Education Network. In 2009 Tejada received the Gracie Award for Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent. Tejada is part of the Youth Radio team recently recognized with a Peabody and Murrow Award for the two-part investigation, Trafficked, on child sex trafficking in Oakland, California. Tejada is currently attending Berkeley City College in Berkeley, CA.

 Lauren Lindberg (Bay Area Video Coalition's Factory Youth Program): Laura Lindberg is an 18-year old documentary filmmaker, whose films have screened in 17 national and international film festivals this year, including the San Francisco Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Paley Docujam, Cineyouth film festival, NFFTY, as well as an exhibition at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Her awards include: Best Editing, Best Documentary, Best Youth Film, and Audience Choice Award. Lauren was recently chosen as one of five teens, out of 35,000 from across the country, as a Seventeen Magazine "Pretty Amazing" Teen. Lauren will attend Chapman University in Orange, CA in the fall, and will study documentary film. Her dream is to start a production company called "Voices to be Heard,” in which she tells the stories of those who are without a voice to tell their own. Lauren recently won the Jefferson Award from CBS San Francisco for her outstanding public service work.
Find a sample of Lauren's work here.

Zoe Salnave (Bay Area Video Coalition's Factory Youth Program): Zoe is a filmmaker in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has produced multiple films, including Come to the Table about Alice Waters’s edible schoolyard. Her films have been accepted at film festivals such as the San Francisco International, Seattle International, National Film Festival for Talented Youth, Chicago International (Cineyouth), San Joaquin Teen Truth Film Festival, Spotlight FilmFest, Project YouthView in Alameda, Albany FilmFest, and she also had Come to the Table screened privately at the White House for the Obama family and was most recently requested by the New York International Film Festival. She will be studying film and journalism at Mills College in Fall 2011.
Find a sample of Zoe's work here.

Negesti Cantave (Project VoiceScape, POV): Negesti made Bed-Stuy: Do or Buy?, a piece examining gentrification in the Brooklyn neighborhood where she was raised. She plans to continue documentary filmmaking as her career.  She went to City-As-School in Brooklyn and attends Medgar Evers College.
Find a sample of Negesti's work here.

Morgan Wilcock (Project VoiceScape, POV): Morgan Wilcock is an aspiring young documentary filmmaker from Minneapolis.  She has enjoyed creating comedy digital shorts from a young age.  She is currently working on her premiere documentary, “This Gay and Age," in conjunction with Project VoiceScape.
Find a sample of Morgan's work here.

About ITVS and Women and Girls Lead: Women and girls everywhere are stepping into leadership roles, working to improve their communities, and innovating in science, the arts, business, and governance. Yet there is still much to do to deliver on the promise of equal access, freedom, and opportunity for women and girls worldwide. Women and Girls Lead is a strategic media initiative to support and sustain a growing movement to empower them, their communities, and future generations. 

Learn More about the initiative here.

About POV's Project VoiceScape: The Adobe and PBS Foundations, together with the PBS series POV, are pleased to announce that 15 projects by 22 teen filmmakers will receive grants from Project VoiceScape, a collaboration between the Adobe Foundation's global signature philanthropy program Adobe Youth Voices and POV, public television's longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films. 

Learn more about about BAVC and The Factory Youth Program here.

Learn more about Youth Radio here.