Category: Uncategorized

After much deliberation, the Social Justice Film Festival and Institute is happy to announce the recipients of the 2020 Social Justice Film Festival Awards for festival films. We are grateful to every filmmaker who took part in the festival this year.

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Documentary Feature

Gold Prize: Since I Been Down, directed by Gilda Sheppard
Silver Prize: Personhood, directed by Jo Ardinger
Bronze Prize: Can Art Stop a Bullet: William Kelly’s Big Picture, directed by Mark Street

Narrative Feature

Gold Prize: Ask for Jane, directed by Rachel Carey

Documentary Featurette

Gold Prize: Liberation Heroes: The Last Eyewitnesses, directed by Vanessa Roth
Silver Prize: Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote, directed by Robert Greenwald
Bronze Prize: Seva, directed by Rippin Sindher

Narrative Featurette

Gold Prize: Rebel, directed by Pier-Philippe Chevigny
Silver Prize: Augustus, directed by Jon Alston
Bronze Prize: Unsaid, directed by Eric Frost-Barnes

Documentary Short

Gold Prize: The Thin Blue Variety Show, directed by Gretta Wilson
Silver Prize: La Vida de Un Latero, directed by Madeline Gunderson
Bronze Prize: Dani Burt, directed by Brian Olliver

Narrative Short

Gold Prize: Target Practice, directed by Yasmin Neal
Silver Prize: An Uninvited Guest, directed by Richard B. Pierre
Bronze Prize: Butterflies, directed by Yona Rozenkier

Youth Visions

Gold Prize: Stronger than Steel, directed by Jacob Pincus
Silver Prize: Wednesday at Elizabeth, directed by Noa Wollstein
Bronze Prize: Canary in a Mine, directed by Takaitheartist

Indigenous Futures

Jury Prize: The Last Ice, directed by Scott Ressler

A LIVE Conversation with Filmmakers on August 28

Join the Social Justice Film Institute as we talk with activist filmmakers about the process behind their powerful, personal films documenting Black culture and the reality of Black Americans today.

When: Friday, August 28 at 6:00 pm
Where: Live-streamed on Facebook
Tickets are FREE: Register now to join the discussion on Facebook Live

Guest speakers include filmmakers Miranda Kahn and Shaina Lynn, and choreographer Shakiah Danielson, creators of the films Shadow Life: Shining Through Colorism and Depression and Hell You Talmbout.

This event is co-hosted with the ACLU of Washington State.  Attendees at this event are invited to donate to Northwest Tap Connection’s Covid-19 Support fund. Donations may be made via GoFundMe.

Dear Friends,

We at the Social Justice Film Festival have been closely following developments during the pandemic, watching as organizers of events large and small have responded to Covid-19.

Closer to home in Seattle, Washington, the cancellation of the Seattle International Film Festival, North America’s largest film festival, was followed by cancellations of other annual traditions like SeaFair, FolkLife and the Washington State Fair.

Recent developments across the country show rising case numbers. Johns Hopkins University data show Covid-19 cases are growing in the majority of US states, while daily new cases in Washington State have tripled since a local low in mid May, and we’ve had to make a decision to plan for the future.

The Social Justice FIlm Festival will go on, but for 2020 it will move online.
We will continue to present films and talks virtually, during our October event, which will run from the 1st to the 11th.

We are committed to the safety of our audience and community, and we believe that an online event is the best way to maintain that safety in this time, while staying true to the mission of connecting great Social Justice films, audiences, and film makers. We look forward to seeing you, virtually, there.

Be sure to follow us on our Instagram and Facebook pages for updates.
We look forward to seeing you online this year.

~ The Social Justice Film Institute

Due to COVID-19, we are partnering with Meaningful Movies and Northwest Film Forum to present this year’s festival entirely online. Together, we will raise awareness, build community, and support the art of storytelling through films. The SJFFI also aims to support underrepresented filmmakers and provide a platform for unacknowledged stories.

Your support will help bring the festival to life.

Your sponsorship and participation is crucial to our ability to present our 2020 festival. Due to COVID-19, we are partnering with Meaningful Movies and Northwest Film Forum to present this year’s festival entirely online. Together, we will raise awareness, build community, and support the art of storytelling through films. The SJFFI also aims to support underrepresented filmmakers and provide a platform for unacknowledged stories.

People we reach

• Advocates, changemakers, and other thoughtful and committed community members at screenings in King County, Snohomish County, and Spokane County, with some 4,500 viewers to date.
• An engaged and loyal audience, with more than 2,000 community members following the festival through our digital newsletter year round.
• 30 social justice film groups around Puget Sound through special festival events in collaboration with the Duwamish Tribal Community, Northwest African American Museum, and Meaningful Movies.

What does your support mean?

• A much-needed platform for the unique stories of our world and community that relate to social justice and courage.
• Encouragement for young, independent, and underrepresented filmmakers and community producers to develop their craft. 
• Unique postfilm discussions with special community guests, journalists, and filmmakers, bringing together cinema and conversation for the common good.

We continue to reach out to partners whose mission aligns with the Social Justice Film Festival & Institute and hope that you feel inspired to support this experience of film and fellowship. Please review our sponsorship packet and join us in bringing this year’s festival to homes across Seattle and the country!

Since the American Revolution, American Indians have served in the United States military at a greater proportion than any other ethnic population. The Navajo Hopi Honor Riders are an organization dedicated to honoring the sacrifice, supporting the legacy, and serving the needs of those military families who have served the United States.

In 2018, the Social Justice Film Institute completed a new cut of Ralphina Sorrel’s prize-winning documentary Honor Riders, its first Incubator project.

Today, we are proud to share the completed film in honor of Memorial Day, and to show our gratitude to veterans everywhere who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Now through Wednesday, May 27th, visit our Vimeo page and use the password “memorialday” to watch ‘Honor Riders’ and an accompanying interview with documentarian Ralphina Sorrel on what motivated her to make this compelling film.

Click here to watch Honor Riders. This showcase will end at 12 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 27th.

Our Best of the Fest Earth Day Celebration begins next Tuesday!

Information about how to access our Mini Festival remotely will be updated regularly on our website and Facebook page.

Schedule of Events

Featured Films — April 21 – 23

Mi’Gwidelmag Gnitjgamitj (Remembering Our Grandpa)

(Nation Isaac, 7 min, Canada)

Inspired by Incident at Restigouche (Alanis Obomsawin, 1984), Mi’gwidelmag Gnitjgamitj is a short essay film that captures the beautiful landscapes of Listuguj, but also a dark side of Canada. The film focuses on the experiences of director Nation Isaac’s grandfather in the 1981 Quebec Provincial Police raid of Listuguj, and on Isaac’s own relationship to her grandfather’s life and legacy.

Shadow Life: Shining Through Colorism and Depression

(Miranda Kahn, 6 min, USA)

Shadow Life: Shining Through Colorism and Depression is a short documentary that cuts between interview footage of Shaina Simmons, a young woman who has struggled with mental illness, and stop motion animated shadow puppets which tell her story. Shaina is a young performing artist who grew up in New Orleans and suffered from colorism and racism which led to anxiety and depression. With extraordinary strength and clarity, Shaina explains her degrading youthful experiences and through Miranda Kahn’s lyrical puppetry, we come to understand how deeply our perceptions of someone can change how they perceive themselves.

Guest House

(Hannah Dweck, Yael Luttwak, 75 min, USA)

Guest House is a documentary feature that captures a six-month period of life of three women previously incarcerated for non-violent crimes and now living together, taking the viewer through the realities of reintegration from the prison system and dissolving some of the ’otherness‘ that makes us feel more comfortable with our system of justice.

Patrinell: The Total Experience

(Tia Young, Andrew Elizaga, 94 min, USA)

Seattle was a rude awakening for singer Patrinell Wright when she moved here from East Texas in 1964 ‐ far from the bastion of racial tolerance she’d expected. But she did have musical talent, deep faith, and unstoppable drive, which she channeled into founding the Total Experience Gospel Choir, building it into an internationally recognized pillar of Seattle’s black community.

She was not without opposition. Church leaders gave her flak for singing in nightclubs, and then years later for her ordination.

By 1977, the Choir was touring the country and ‐ eventually ‐ the globe. Generous home-movie footage shows the choir’s shrinking, aging, and whitening over its 45 years, a transformation that played out against the Central District’s similar gentrification. Although Wright finally retired the choir in 2018, Patrinell remains as a loving testament to her extraordinary career and the joy and spiritual solace her music brought to thousands.

Harvesting the Wind

(Ann Hedreen, Rustin Thompson, 27 min, USA)

Harvesting the Wind is the inspiring story of how a major energy utility in Washington State worked at a grassroots level with a small, economically distressed county to create one of the largest wind producing facilities in the west.

Unburied

(Sally Fenaux Barleycorn, 6 min, Spain)

The Central Mediterranean is considered to be the deadliest migration route in the world; since 2014 more than 14,500 people have died trying to reach a safe port. Hundreds continue to die monthly. Spanish and Italian governments have started prosecuting and forbidding navigation to any organizations that try to save lives. Our brothers and sisters keep dying. The seas of the world are filled with black bodies.

Festival Panel — April 22

On Tuesday, April 22nd, you can join us on Facebook for a live-streamed panel and interactive Q&A with some of our featured filmmakers, hosted by the Social Justice Film Festival and Institute, directed by Jody Cole, and moderated by Aurora Martin

Information about joining our panel is available on our Facebook page.