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<p><b>THE NEED AND OUR APPROACH</b></p>
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<p><span>We believe that film is a powerful tool to educate, generate empathy, and create social change. Our Film Festival supports emerging filmmakers who use their work to highlight the status of girls’ and women's rights around the world. We do so by providing them with visibility towards a global audience, financial support via cash prizes, access to a community of filmmakers, and networking opportunities. Through our online and in-person programming, we connect local and global cinema lovers and changemakers.</span></p>
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<p><span>We focus on supporting documentary filmmakers in particular, because they are the most under-funded film category yet play an essential role in highlighting authentic, high quality stories about women and girls around the world. To do so, we offer:</span></p>
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<p><span>-Visibility</span></p>
<p><span>We provide emerging filmmakers with a global platform where they can share underrepresented, authentic stories with global audiences. In reaching these audiences, our filmmakers are able to leverage their social-change films to influence public discourse and, ideally, action on the ground on pressing women’s rights issues. In addition to their films being available to festival ticket holders, interviews with our filmmakers and industry leaders are available on our YouTube, which currently has 320K+ followers in 195 countries (exponential growth since last year alone!), and a reach of 4.8M+ just since January 2024.</span></p>
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<p><span>-Support</span></p>
<p><span>Filmmakers enter to win one of eight awards and a cash prize to invest in their next project, and sometimes to help them cover their living expenses or other urgent needs. As of the 2024 film festival, we increased the total amount of cash prizes from $12,000 to $13,000, recognizing that many independent emerging filmmakers have faced financial difficulties in the last year.</span></p>
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<p><span>-Network</span></p>
<p><span>We create a supportive space and opportunities for filmmakers to connect and increase access to film industry professionals. Filmmakers also have the opportunity to receive feedback about their film from festival jury members who are producers, critics, actors, directors, journalists, professors, activists, to name a few! The relationships made during the festival have led to numerous collaborations on film projects, as well as nonprofit work and continued activism.</span></p>
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<p><span>We also survey our filmmakers and jury members, to see what they liked and didn't like about participating in our festival. We use their feedback and suggestions to inform future iterations of the festival so that we can meet their needs and make their experiences as impactful as possible.</span></p>
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<p><span>Through our festival, we are supporting important films that will raise awareness of specific issues pertaining to girls’ and women’s rights around the world. But we are also and mostly striving to invest in filmmakers who are dedicating their work to drive social change by supporting their careers in the long term. We also work to maintain a relationship for as long as possible with them to continue to support them however we can, and to measure both the impact the festival has had on their career, and the impact their film has had on the topic it addressed. For example, in working on our 2024 Leslie J. Sacks Grand Prize screening of “Colliding Forces: Mothers in Ballet,” we connected the filmmaker, Eliza Schroeder, to our Special Guest Speaker, Misty Copeland who not only made history as the first African-American Female Principal Dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, but has her own film production company. They are interested in working with each other, which could expose Eliza to Misty’s large network! Furthermore, filmmakers who have been involved with our festival continue to reach out for reference letters and recommendations for new funding opportunities for their next projects!</span></p>
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<p><b>FILMMAKER’S EXPERIENCE</b></p>
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<p><span>- “I am so grateful to have been a part of this festival. I hope it grows by leaps and bounds. My film has won 15 awards and this is the first one that has a cash prize which shows that WVN respects the filmmakers. That is HUGE!!! It is a wonderful festival. Thank you!” - Cheryl Jacobs “C.J.” Crim, ‘Resisterhood’ - 2024 Best Emerging Feature Documentary Filmmaker</span></p>
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<p><b>FESTIVAL DETAILS & TIMELINE</b></p>
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<p><span>Submissions are open from August to December. Submitted films must address or shine light upon issues affecting women and/or girls through a social-change lens, but are not limited to a specific theme.</span></p>
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<p><span>Filmmakers enter to win eight awards:</span></p>
<p><span>-Leslie J. Sacks Grand Prize – Best Documentary Feature – $3,500</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Documentary Short – $2,000</span></p>
<p><span>-Lantos Prize for Best Human Rights Documentary – $2,000</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Emerging Filmmaker – Documentary Feature – $1,500</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Emerging Filmmaker – Documentary Short – $1,000</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Creative Feature Documentary – $2,000</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Creative Short Documentary – $1,000</span></p>
<p><span>-Best Student Documentary Short – $500</span></p>
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<p><span>As an example of how the surveys inform our festivals, our Creative Documentary prize was previously one category. Jury members felt that this was unfair, as they believed Features and Shorts should be separate categories. We changed the structure and added an additional prize to account for this.</span></p>
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<p><span>The Emerging Filmmaker prize structure also acknowledges the non-linear trajectory of women's lives. A 90 year-old woman may submit her first film to our festival because she finally had the time and resources to do so, and we want a prize that recognizes this achievement.</span></p>
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<p><span>Our outreach strategy combines:</span></p>
<p><span>- direct targeted outreach to film institutions and schools all around the world, with a focus on global regions and communities that remain particularly underrepresented (South America, First Nations, Sub-Saharan Africa)</span></p>
<p><span>- raising our festival's visibility through advertising it on filmmaking platforms such as FilmFreeway, IMDBpro, and promoting it across our social media and newsletter (we currently have 605,000+ followers across our platforms–exponential growth from last year! As a result, we have reached 4.8M+ viewers online globally since January 2024 alone).</span></p>
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<p><span>Our 2025 Film Festival kicks off on March 26th, 2025 during a live streamed event. All selected films will be available for viewing between March 26-April 30, 2025. Our live Awards Ceremony will take place on April 30th, 2026, during which awards winners will be announced and the 2025 Women Making Waves Awardee will receive her honor and deliver a keynote address. We will also hold our annual Leslie J. Sacks Grand Prize Screening in-person in the fall of 2025. Given the impact made by this screening event over the last two years, it is clear that we should strive to gather in-person and create a space to learn and reflect on women’s rights together, and think about next steps collectively. The event will take place in Los Angeles, and the winning filmmaker(s) will be invited to attend, schedule permitting.</span></p>
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<p><span>Women’s Voices Now thanks the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation for its support during our last Film Festival cycle and for its consideration to support our Festival again. The Festival’s goals align perfectly with the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation’s mission to “give a clear voice for those who wish to be a part of the many, worthy, forces for change in our world” through our chosen medium of film. </span></p>
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<p><span>Requested funds of $10,000 will help us continue our growth trajectory, allowing us to invest further in our communications and outreach efforts. This will help us reach more filmmakers, as well as grow our festival audience.</span></p> |
