Talented media makers capture the complexities of real life, dramatic personal transformations and the impact of the decisions we make. Active Voice’s street-tested strategies make it easy for inspired audiences to take positive action on the issues they’ve learned about. Read about the projects we’re working on now.
American Promise All parents share common hopes and dreams for their children, but the reality is that not all children—especially Black boys—have the same journey. As they come of age, they face perceptions and labels that shape, and can even limit, their potential. Filmmakers Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster had this is in mind when they decided to send their son Idris to Manhattan's prestigious Dalton School. While grappling with the meaning of a "good education" and their steadfast desire to put Idris on a successful path, they turned the cameras on themselves, Idris, and his best friend Seun to document the harsh realities facing Black males in today's school system. Overview
Arab American Stories Since 9/11, Arab Americans have become both more visible and more misunderstood. The history of Arab American immigration is long and rich, the population diverse and surprising. Arab American Stories, executive produced by Alicia Sams, aims to dispel myths by engaging the audience with a wide range of characters, each of whom has a unique and often unknown story with universal resonance. Overview
Detropia Detropia chronicles a dynamic chorus of Detroiters who are striving to make sense of what is happening to their challenged city. The film looks at the Motor City as a microcosm for an entire nation that is dealing with a depleted manufacturing base, a shrinking middle class and the consequences of globalization. From the directors of Jesus Camp, Detropia presents a city as it struggles to survive post-industrial America and begins to envision a radically different future. Overview
Fixing the Future
Host David Brancaccio (of NOW on PBS) visits locations across America that are successfully using sustainable and innovative approaches to create jobs and build prosperity, inspiring hope and renewal amidst economic collapse. Overview
Gaining Ground
In the midst of the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, Gaining Ground follows the innovative grassroots organizing efforts of Boston's Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. Surrounded by foreclosures, how is it possible that so many Dudley Street homeowners held on to their homes and even managed to improve a neighborhood once defined by blight, poverty and violence? Gaining Ground is executive produced by Mark Lipman and Leah Mahan, and directed by Vital Pictures. Overview
Gideon's Army
Long hours, low pay, and lack of respect are just a few barriers that public defenders face while representing the people society would rather forget. Directed by Dawn Porter, Gideon's Army follows an inspiring program in the South that seeks to reshape the culture of indigent defense in the United States. Overview
Herman's House What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-by-nine-foot cell for 40 years dream of? Herman's House captures the remarkable creative journey and friendship of Herman Wallace, one of the Angola 3, and artist Jackie Sumell, while examining the injustice of prolonged solitary confinement. Overview
The House I Live In Over the past 40 years, the "War on Drugs" has accounted for 45 million arrests, transformed America into the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more readily available today than ever. Where did we go wrong, and what can be done? Comprehensive in scope, Eugene Jarecki's The House I Live In explores these questions in an intrepid take on America's "War on Drugs." Overview
"Active Voice has mastered the one-two punch of breathing life into policy decisions by putting a human face on huge social issues — and empowering communities, local leaders and policy-makers at all levels by giving them tools to raise their voices to make change."
Kathryn Thomas Senior Communications Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Barbershop Punk
Barbershop Punk tells the groundbreaking story of Robb Topolski, who challenged the nation's largest cable company, Comcast, after discovering they blocked the barbershop quartet music he was legally sharing online. Filmmakers Georgia Archer and Kristin Armfield propel viewers onto the fast lane of the internet super highway, shedding light on the "punks" – from the Christian Coalition to the Songwriter's Guild of America – who are striving to keep the internet accessible to everyone.
About the Campaign: While the filmmakers take Barbershop Punk on the festival circuit, Active Voice is developing national partnerships, program strategies and resource materials to support the use of Barbershop Punk as an educational tool for internet policy options.
Project Activities:
Campus screenings that raise awareness among students and their larger communities, sometimes in conjunction with festival events.
Materials for student audiences, advocacy groups and community leaders to educate and frame discussions about the intricacies of internet policy.
Social media and mobile outreach to link new "punks" to national resources.
Partners (partial list):
Free Press/Save The Internet
Future of Music Coalition
Roosevelt Campus Network
Writer's Guild of America (West)
Ford Foundation
Who's Talking About the Film: "Barbershop Punk explores what ordinary people can do to promote the free exchange of information in cyberspace."
-MTV.com
About the Campaign: Currently in development, The Calling engagement project will use national networks, screenings, educational materials and a broad online platform to help people push past the stereotypes and cartoonish images of religion today. The complex and highly accessible characters we meet in The Calling will spark connections among people of many faiths—ideally enabling community building and social action.
Project Activities:
Interactive websites, developed by nonprofit communications leader See3 Communications, where viewers will participate in digital storytelling and contests like "What’s Your Calling?"
Community-based screenings and other activities across the country for churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, faith-based community groups, public television stations and afterschool programs that foster long-term collaboration
Host David Brancaccio (of NOW on PBS) visits locations across America that are successfully using sustainable approaches to create jobs and build prosperity. Featuring innovative models like local business alliances, worker cooperatives and community banking, Fixing the Future inspires hope and renewal amidst economic collapse.
About the Campaign: Rarely has solutions-oriented journalism like Fixing the Future been used to jumpstart or strengthen local efforts toward building a sustainable economy. The power of this tool is palpable as engaged communities realize that they are part of a national movement and bear witness to their positive impacts across the country. After a successful 2011 pilot campaign using the PBS version of the documentary in Detroit, MI, Santa Fe, NM and Oakland, CA, Active Voice teamed up with JumpStart Productions and Area23a to bring a new, never-before-seen theatrical version to dozens of cities and towns nationwide. In July 2012, more than 50 organizations around the country hosted screenings of the documentary, presented local calls-to-action, and inspired coalition-building and long-term planning toward incorporating sustainable practices in their communities.
Project Activities:
Theatrical release hosted by local organizations geared toward meeting a range of objectives, such as moving money to local banks, strengthening local business alliances, expanding local currency programs and getting community buy-in for worker-owned cooperatives.
An exclusive post-screening panel discussion, broadcast to theaters nationwide, featuring luminaries Bill McKibben, Majora Carter, Mike Brady and David Brancaccio.
A Screening Toolkit to help organizations with event-planning, partnership-building and strategic post-film conversations that ignite action.
Grassroots marketing designed to reach "beyond the choir," via social and traditional media.
An online community of people nationwide dedicated to advancing local sustainable practices at www.facebook.com/fixingthefuture.
Partners (partial list):
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)
hOur World
Transition US
American Sustainable Business Council
Net Impact
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Community Wealth
Post Carbon Institute
Area23a
JumpStart Productions
Who's Talking About the Campaign: "The Occupy Wall Street activism reflects the dissatisfaction and anger that millions of Americans rightfully feel about our current economic system. Fixing the Future and its true stories of alternative, successful and locally-based models points the way toward an economy that works for all of us. Let’s have a national teach-in to make this vision real – watch this film, discuss it with your friends, and begin building a new economy in your community."
-Ted Howard, The Democracy Collaborative
Campaign Timeline: January 2011 – July 2011 (Pilot Campaign) March 2012 – September 2012 (Theatrical Campaign)
Make Agent Orange History
About the Campaign: Make Agent Orange History is a collaborative effort to raise awareness of the long-term effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, highlight solutions to the problem and connect individuals and organizations with opportunities to get involved. With an interactive website, social media campaign and a slew of events occurring nationwide, this effort integrates online community-building with offline engagement to demonstrate that Agent Orange is a humanitarian concern we can do something about.
Project Activities:
Increased awareness of the legacy of Agent Orange/dioxin in Vietnam.
Online community-building among people who have a shared interest in ending the legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
Events in communities around the country geared toward generating support for environmental cleanup and rehabilitation for millions of affected Vietnamese.
Partners (partial list):
Aspen Institute
Communications Consortium Media Center
Common Cause
Rotary Club of San Francisco
Ford Foundation
Who's Talking About the Campaign: "Our Make Agent Orange History event was enriching for the faculty who were involved in coordinating it, community members who attended and especially to students who participated."
-Anne Marie Smoke Program Manager Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution
About the Campaign:
Active Voice’s first museum project is helping families learn about the experiences and needs of refugees, both in their own communities and around the world. Throughout the project’s four-year national tour, Active Voice will cultivate partnerships with children’s museums and local organizations to deepen the exhibit’s impact and put this global issue in a local context.
Project Activities:
Cross-cultural, newsworthy museum events involving youth groups, elected officials and community leaders
Tie-in film screenings that reveal why people leave their homes and shed light on the real-life experiences of refugees in America today
Opportunities for families to support local refugees through donations, volunteering and networking
Partners (partial list):
Lied Discovery Children’s Museum
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Unbound Philanthropy
Who's Talking About the Campaign: "I will never forget this experience at the Discovery Center. Hopefully, others who see this exhibit will begin to open their own eyes and give a little back to some people who really need our help."
-Student visitor
Don Harrington Discovery Center, Amarillo, TX (first site on the national tour)
Campaign Timeline: 2008 – 2013
Gaining Ground
About the Campaign:
Active Voice is working with the filmmakers of Gaining Ground and curating key partners on the strategic planning and implementation of a national campaign. A sequel to the award-winning documentary Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street, the film tracks a new generation of leaders as they confront the enormous challenges of the current financial crisis. The Gaining Ground campaign will provide a unique opportunity to engage residents, youth, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders in collaborative dialogue, spurring action around the pressing issues of neighborhood revitalization, homeownership, job creation, youth leadership development, and community-institutional partnerships.
Partners (partial list):
Crescent City Community Land Trust, New Orleans
Skillman Foundation, Detroit
Holding Ground Productions
Ford Foundation
MacArthur Foundation
Timeline: Spring 2011 – present
Photo Credit: Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative
About the Campaign:
The Equal Voice Youth Empowerment Project is a nationwide effort to build on Marguerite Casey Foundation's 2008 Equal Voice for America's Families campaign, which brought together 30,000 people to create the Equal Voice National Family Platform to advance family-friendly policies. Using the new short documentary Maria Full of Hope as the centerpiece of the campaign, Active Voice will help young leaders and educators use Maria's story to personally connect to the transformative power of community work through a series of events developed in partnership with community-based organizations around the country.
Project Activities:
A series of community events, in partnership with youth-led organizations, community-based groups and schools, that feature viewings of Maria Full of Hope alongside documentary screenings, dialogues and other activities geared toward lifting up youth voices and identifying solutions to community challenges.
A youth empowerment toolkit designed to help young people, youth leaders and adult facilitators use Maria Full of Hope as a tool for training, learning and empowerment.
High school and/or college curriculum to help educators use Maria Full of Hope to spark reflection and discussion in a range of classroom settings.
Peer-learning opportunities among partner organizations through webinars, social networking and Marguerite Casey Foundation's online newspaper, Equal Voice: America's Family Story.
Partners (partial list):
Marguerite Casey Foundation
Who's Talking About the Campaign: "In my work, I've learned that young people not only need to be inspired, but also need the vehicles for their voices to travel to the people in charge. Marguerite Casey Foundation's Equal Voice Youth Empowerment Project is creating those opportunities."
-Maria Degillo Albany Park Neighborhood Council Youth Leader, featured in Maria Full of Hope
Shelbyville Multimedia introduces you to the cast of Welcome to Shelbyville, a handful of straight-talking people in rural Tennessee who are taking immigration into their own hands—by welcoming newcomers. With many components adapted from the documentary produced and directed by Kim A. Snyder and executive produced by Active Voice in association with the BeCause Foundation, Shelbyville Multimedia is a platform to promote community-building and harmony between native-born Americans, immigrants and refugees nationwide.
About the Campaign:
Inspired by the residents of Shelbyville, who pushed past their fears and faced the rapid demographic changes in their town, Shelbyville Multimedia provides story-based tools, events and resources to help communities become more welcoming to newcomers.
Project Activities:
Screenings of the documentary in policy, faith-based and community settings around the country.
A national broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens in May 2011.
Shorter video "modules" of compelling storylines tailored for service providers and community leaders to use as training tools:
"Hawo's Dinner Party: The New Face of Southern Hospitality" tells the story of Hawo, a Somali nurse turned poultry-packer in Shelbyville, Tennessee. This 30-minute video supports community leaders who help integrate newcomers from Muslim-majority countries.
"Building a Nation of Neighbors" is a 25-minute video that hones in on select scenes that exemplify the Welcoming America model of strategically creating harmony and welcoming, while providing additional context on how it can work for a range of communities and audiences.
A comprehensive website featuring webisodes, in-depth character profiles, discussion guides, event planning toolkits and resources for getting your community involved.
Partners (partial list):
BeCause Foundation
Welcoming America
Who's Talking About the Campaign: "Active Voice, through the Shelbyville Multimedia project, is leveraging the tools of convergence culture in our age of democratized information creation and distribution to create healthier and more whole communities. Shelbyville Multimedia is indeed a model for the future of messaging with action agendas working toward a more enlightened society."
-John Bruce
Free Range Studios, Strategist
About the Campaign: Gideon's Army follows the story of "super-lawyer" Jon Rapping as he mentors and supports young public defenders in the South, highlighting the unique challenges of life as a public defender and a broken criminal justice system in need of reform. Active Voice is developing strategies to use the film to grow and strengthen Rapping's innovative model for training public defenders and reshape the way we approach indigent defense.
About the Campaign: Ever since Connected premiered at Sundance in January 2011, audiences around the world have been inspired by the documentary's personal examination of the meanings of interdependence. In fall 2011, as the film geared up for its US theatrical release, Active Voice worked with the Moxie Institute to convene a braintrust meeting among leaders in technology, human rights and the environment to understand how the films might be integrated into their work as a way to promote a more interdependent understanding of the world.
After the braintrust, Active Voice refined the campaign strategy to focus on engaging organizations around Let It Ripple: Mobile Films for Global Change, a series of short films that picks up where the documentary leaves off. The first film, A Declaration of Interdependence, is a globally crowdsourced rewriting of the US Declaration of Independence, featuring original music by Moby. When Moxie gave organizations the opportunity to customize the short film with their own brand and call to action, Active Voice worked to recruit partners and help them craft inspiring actions that promote interdependence. Partners have excitedly embraced this unusual collaboration (some samples can be found here) and Moxie plans to replicate this successful model with future Let it Ripple films.
About the Campaign: Following the twelve-year journeys of two young Black men at one of the most prestigious schools in the country, American Promise (to be released in 2013) confronts the intangible pressures and subtle factors affecting the success of male students of color. As the first longitudinal documentary exploring this issue, the film gives viewers an intimate look at the year-to-year ups and downs, while providing perspectives from students, parents, teachers and administrators striving for academic excellence. With support from the Ford Foundation, Active Voice developed a comprehensive strategic plan for a national campaign using this film and a host of innovative tools to engage parents and educators in conversations and actions to advance the success of Black males. As Active Voice continues to advise on the campaign strategy, we’re also developing partnerships with major organizations to help bring this message to communities around the country.
About the Campaign: Arab American Stories is a 13-part series presented by Detroit Public Television that explores the diversity of the Arab American experience over the past 150 years. Hosted by NPR's Neda Ulaby, and airing on public television stations in summer/fall 2012, each half-hour episode features short, character-driven documentaries by a variety of independent filmmakers profiling Arab Americans making an impact in their communities, their professions, their families or the world at large. To determine how these stories can combat stereotypes, Active Voice convened a braintrust meeting among public media strategists, dialogue experts, educators, and civic engagement specialists to develop a national strategy to spark story-sharing, bridge-building and the creation of Arab American programs.
Partners (partial list):
Detroit Public Television
American Library Association
Timeline: November 2011 - Present
The House I Live In
About the Campaign: Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, The House I Live In is an unflinching examination by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki that explores the devastating effects that America's "War on Drugs" has had on poor and minority communities, as well as its implications for the future of American society. After convening a braintrust meeting with community-based organizations, prison reformers and drug policy experts, Active Voice designed a national strategy to help this hard-hitting film inspire conversation about the "War on Drugs" and shift state and national drug policies.
Partners (partial list):
Charlotte Street Films
Ford Foundation
Drug Policy Alliance
Timeline: 2011 - 2012
Detropia
About the Campaign: Detropia crafts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. As houses are demolished by the thousands, automobile-company wages plummet, institutions crumble, and tourists gawk at the "charming decay," the film's vibrant characters strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. With support from the Ford Foundation, Active Voice conducted early strategy meetings in Detroit and Washington, DC to understand how this film can be a tool used to jumpstart community development efforts nationwide. With a fall 2012 theatrical release, Active Voice is connecting the film to important work in communities across the country.
About the Campaign: Herman Wallace has spent 40 years in solitary confinement—more time than anyone in the history of the American penal system. Herman's House captures the remarkable journey and friendship between Herman and Jackie Sumell, an artist who uses her craft to advocate on his behalf and design his dream house. The documentary both shows how art can embolden dreams and examines the injustice of solitary confinement, which affects 80,000 people on any given day in the United States. With support from the Ford Foundation, Active Voice convened a braintrust meeting that brought together criminal justice experts, policy researchers, architects, and arts advocates to develop a national strategy to shine a spotlight on solitary confinement, engage new advocates who are "beyond the choir," and ultimately reduce the number of people in solitary.
