Friday, October 22 | $12/$8 members and students | 6:00 pm Pre-Film Mixer: Filmmakers will be in attendance, sponsored by UPWIFT (Upstate Women in Film and Television) | 7:30 pm film with Post-film discussion
Sun, Oct 24 – 2 pm MATINEE | $10/$6 members and students | no panel at this screening
1 hr 8 min | Documentary | Gujarati with English subtitles
The short video, The Importance of Educating Girls, by local student Rhys Ellis will screen before each feature.
The 71-minute documentary tells the story of three teenaged girls living in a small village in western India who get the chance to go to school and complete their 10th grade exams. By tradition, these girls would be married at 18 and move into the husband’s family home. While the girls study and devise plans for further education, work for income, and marrying for love, their families are proceeding with arrangements for their marriages.
Filmed over 4 years, Brave Girls explores urgent questions about the empowerment of women in the developing world. The stories of these extraordinary young women combine to illuminate the complexity that emerges on the path to self-determination within a conservative Muslim town, Dholka, located in the western state of Gujarat, India. Directed by Ellie Walton, an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Washington, DC., and Yashaswi Desai, a multimedia artist, activist and educator based in India, Brave Girls has been an official selection at Doc NYC 2018 Festival, SOMA Film Festival 2019, MidCoast Film Fest 2019, and AFI Docs Film Series. Brave Girls is executive produced by Emmy nominated, award-winning producer Deborah Wallace (BLOOD ON THE MOUNTAIN, GASLAND II) and distributed by Virgil Films and Entertainment.
Ellie Walton, one of the Brave Girls directors, and Tanisha Christie, producers, will appear in person at the Friday October 22 screening. Upstate Women in Film and Television (UPWIFT) will sponsor a pre-screening mixer in the courtyard next to the Theatre. And the post-screening discussion will include Walton and Christie. Sunday’s matinee will feature both the short and feature films.
“Right now, we find ourselves in an extraordinary moment in history for women,” says Walton, one of the two directors. “Our stories may vary but it is clear that the demands of women to realize their full potential are being heard across the globe.” We can add the women of Afghanistan and Texas, U.S., to the number of women in the world confronting repression and physical constraints to call for self-determination, education and opportunity.
A short animated video by local high school student, Rhys Ellis, will screen before the feature film. The short, The Importance of Educating Girls, is a Capstone project that Ellis made for their (8th grade) graduating thesis at High Meadow School in Stone Ridge. Rhys is a ninth grader at Kingston High School.