Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

A PBS primetime broadcast based on Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's widely acclaimed book.

Film Signature Image
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
October 1, 2012
Length
240 minutes
Funding Initiative
Series and Special Projects
Producer

Maro Chermayeff

Maro Chermayeff is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, director, author, and former television executive at A&E/AETN. She is founder and chair of the MFA program in Social Documentary at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and partner in the production company Show of Force. Some of her extensive credits include: Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace… Show more (PBS, 2014), the landmark four-hour PBS documentary series Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (PBS, 2012), the six-hour series Circus (PBS, 2010), the emmy-award winning Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (HBO, 2012), Mann v. Ford (HBO, 2011), Parasomnia (France 2, 2010), the Emmy Award-winning 10-hour series Carrier (PBS/Nat Geo International, 2008), the six-hour series Frontier House (PBS, 2002), American Masters: Juilliard (PBS, 2003), The Kindness of Strangers (HBO, 1999), Role Reversal (A&E 2002), Trauma, Life in the ER (TLC, 2001), the Vanity Fair web series Eminent Domains (2014), and over 15 specials for Charlie Rose. Represented by WME, Chermayeff is a principal of Show of Force, the production entity for the Half the Sky Movement. She is an executive producer of Half the Sky Movement's Facebook Game and three Mobile Games with Games for Change. Show less

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Producer

Jamie Gordon

Headshot of Mikaela Beardsley
Producer

Mikaela Beardsley

Mikaela Beardsley is an Emmy-winning documentary producer and has had a hand in 20 nationally broadcast films and series. In addition to A Once and Future Peace, she is co-producing A Boston R(evolution), about the historic 2021 Boston mayoral race. Through projects like Half the Sky Movement, Mikaela finds innovative ways to harness storytelling's… Show more power for good. Show less

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The Film

This landmark transmedia project features a four-hour PBS primetime national and international broadcast event, a Facebook-hosted social action game, mobile games, two interactive websites, educational video modules with companion text, and an impact assessment plan all inspired by Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, the widely acclaimed book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

The series follows Kristof, WuDunn, and six celebrity activists including Diane Lane, America Ferrera, Olivia Wilde, and Meg Ryan as they travel to nine countries and meet inspiring, courageous individuals. Across the globe oppression is being confronted, and real meaningful solutions are being fashioned through health care, education, and economic empowerment for women and girls. Embedded in the linked problems of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality — which still needlessly claims one woman every 90 seconds — is the single most vital opportunity of our time — and all over the world, women are seizing it.

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