COF Film Festival at Family Philanthropy

6:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Sunday Night at the Movies ─ Off and Running; a film by Nicole Opper and Sharese Bullock.
Dinner, Screening and Discussion
Tickets: $50 for non-GFEM members/$40 for GFEM members. Contact: Evelyn Gibson, evelyn.gibson@cof.org, (703) 879-0691, or sign up with your registration.

With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers – one mixed-race and one Korean-Brooklyn teen, Avery grew up in a unique and loving household. But when her curiosity about her African-American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. This choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known. After the screening, meet Avery and filmmakers Nicole Opper and Sharese Bullock for an in depth discussion. Moderated by Pam Harris, managing director of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media. The screening is co-sponsored by the Council on Foundations and Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media.

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future; a film by Peter Bull

In the digital age, half our electricity still comes from coal. Dirty Business reveals the true social and environmental costs of coal power and tells the stories of innovators pointing the way to an alternative energy future. Guided by Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell, it examines what it means to remain dependent on a 19th-century technology that is the largest single source of greenhouse gases.



 

10:35 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Budrus

This inspiring, powerful and action-filled documentary chronicles an unlikely community organizer who unites Palestinians and Israelis from all political factions to save his village from destruction by Israel’s separation barrier. Victory seems improbable until his 15-year-old daughter launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the forefront. This film shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat even as they remain virtually unknown to the world.



 

12:05 - 1:05 p.m.
North Carolina Giving: Philanthropy Across Cultures and Communities; by Donna Campbell, Georgann Eubanks/Minnow Media
From Native American high school students building greenhouses to African-American and Latino families coming together to host monthly “Fish Fry and Tamale” fundraisers, this film adeptly traces community-based philanthropy in North Carolina and examines different cultural traditions of giving.

1:10 - 2:05 p.m.
Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think; a film by Alexander Kronemer and Michael Wolfe 

Inside Islam explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization. Focused on the issues of gender justice, terrorism and democracy, the film presents this remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course.



 

2:10 - 3:35 p.m.
Living Downstream; a film by Sandra Stengraber

Raised in small-town Illinois, cancer seems to run in Sandra Stengraber’s family. Sandra was diagnosed with bladder cancer when she was just twenty years old. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Sandra was in high school. Many of her aunts and uncles have struggled with the disease. But while cancer runs in her family, she cannot say that it runs in her genes. Sandra is adopted. This unusual twist led Sandra to ask what else families have in common besides their DNA. The answer is all around us: our environment.


 

3:40 - 5:00 p.m.
Lost Angels; a film by Agi Orsi, Thomas Napper and Christine Triano

This empathetic but tough-minded documentary invites us into a part of Los Angeles that many choose to ignore - downtown’s skid row. As we meet the distressed area’s residents, including a former Olympic runner, a transgendered punk rocker and an eccentric animal lover and her devoted companion, their remarkable stories paint a multifaceted portrait of life on the streets. 


 

10:00 - 11:10 a.m.
Rachel Is; a film by Charlotte Glynn and Henry J. Simonds

In her feature directorial debut, Charlotte Glynn moves home to chronicle her sister Rachel’s last year in school. Rachel, her only sibling, is mentally retarded. Rachel challenges her mother on a daily basis, forcing her to make tough choices about her daughter’s future. The resulting film moves past the safety of political correctness and into the most intimate and honest moments in their family’s life.


 

11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Home Across Lands; a film by Mary Copp, John Lavall, Jessica Jennings and Julie Lewis

Home Across Lands chronicles the work of the International Institute of Rhode Island (IIRI) as it guides and empowers a group of Kunama refugees making the transition from life in the Shimelba Refugee Camp in northern Ethiopia to their new home in America. 



 

2:00 - 3:25 p.m.
War Don Don; a film by Rebecca Richman Cohen

On a dusty road in the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the Special Court. Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors say he is a war criminal, guilty of crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who played a crucial role in bringing peace. With unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims, and, from behind bars, Sesay himself, War Don Don puts international justice on trial for the world to see – finding that in some cases the past is not just painful, it is also opaque.

3:30 - 5:05 p.m.
Crime After Crime; a film by Yoav Potash

Twenty-six years in prison could not crush the spirit of Deborah Peagler, despite the injustice she experienced ─ first at the hands of a boyfriend who beat her and forced her into prostitution and later from prosecutors who used the threat of the death penalty to corner her into a life behind bars for her connection to the murder of her abuser. Her story took an unexpected turn when a pair of rookie land-use attorneys volunteered to try to set her free. 

 

5:10 - 6:40 p.m.
Pressure Cooker; a film by Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker

Three seniors at Philadelphia’s Frankford High School find an unlikely champion in Culinary Arts teacher Wilma Stephenson. A legend in the school system, Mrs. Stephenson’s hilariously blunt boot-camp method is validated by years of scholarship success that has taken countless students from the city’s working-class neighborhoods to the top culinary schools in the country.