Seneca Falls - Educational Outreach Project
LOUISE VANCE
http://www.beyondsenecafalls.com/
Seneca Falls takes viewers on a life-changing journey with nine high school girls bound for the birthplace of women's rights in America. Part teenage road trip, part shocking history lesson, the film is, above all, an awakening of young hearts and minds. This one hour documentary film breathes life and relevance into a revolution barely mentioned in history books: America's first women's rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The film follows WOWER Power, a struggling multi-cultural theater troupe, as they travel from San Francisco to Seneca Falls to perform their original play at the 150th Anniversary Celebration of this groundbreaking, yet largely forgotten, moment in American history. Accompanied by three adult women and one very thoughtful ten-year-old boy, the girls join tens of thousands making the pilgrimage to Seneca Falls from around the world. They unearth women's history and draw inspiration from leading historians and prominent elected officials, even meeting their own Congresswomen: U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Barbara Lee. They examine the lives of ordinary citizens whose courage and determination launched the largest social transformation in American history – uncovering a remarkable story of the few who freed the many.
The girls' odyssey culminates when they perform their original play on the “sacred ground” of Seneca Falls. In it, an African American girl time-travels back to 1848, gains self-esteem and courage from her foremothers, and goes on to become the first woman president of the United States. The young women of WOWER Power take their own place in history, passing on the torch of knowledge and activism to their audience. The troupe's compelling journey, crossing generations, race, class and a continent, is the heart of our documentary.
Why this film?
Just 160 years ago, women in America lived in social, civil and religious conditions that kept them in bondage. Enslaved women were considered property of their slave owners, and “free” women were considered property of their husbands or fathers. Regardless of race, married women could not keep their own wages, and no women could vote, hold public office, divorce an abusive husband, own or inherit property, sit on a jury, enter into a profession, attend college, or keep custody of their children. Denied all basic rights of citizenship, one half of the country was an indentured class, held in submission into the early 20th century. While these truths are shocking enough, even more shocking is that most of us know nothing about it. Filmmaker Ken Burns put it this way: "Women's history is starkly absent from the American narrative." In fact, the nationwide movement begun at Seneca Falls barely rates a one-paragraph mention in textbooks. Because of this, the citizen-led struggle to free women is absent from our national consciousness, our national memory.
Seneca Falls sets out to remedy this. Fundamentally, this is a film about courageous action in the darkest days for American women and blacks. It's a modern tale of nine dynamic young women and their dedicated director reclaiming this history. And it’s a quest to make “Seneca Falls” a household term, so that people everywhere will understand what happened there. Women and girls in particular need to know that ordinary citizens like themselves have shaped the country’s destiny, and can play a major role in shaping its future.
Outreach & Distribution
Seneca Falls tells a story that resonates with audiences regardless of age, gender or racial background. It is a universal journey of discovery, but one that holds exceptional promise for America’s girls and young women, as well as boys and men, who will at last know the remarkable story of the women and men who started down the road to gender equality a hundred fifty years ago. While much has been written about the alarming confidence gap among adolescent girls today, precious few media resources have been produced to counteract this disturbing trend. Seneca Falls sets out to offset this by providing a powerful blueprint for girls and young women to explore their history and become active participants in creating a healthy future for themselves and their communities.
Vance intends to distribute the film through as many outlets as possible, with the goal of creating maximum cultural impact. With our television broadcast premiere on PBS in Spring 2010, and an innovative outreach strategy via our web community, www.beyondsenecafalls.com, we hope to reach a broad range of people wherever they receive media. In addition, we have created an educational version of the film for distribution through schools and colleges, museums, libraries, community screenings and organizations serving young women and girls. Our Viewing Guide is online, and we will develop specific study guides for classroom use in 8th and 11th grade history, as well as sociology and English classes, in conjunction with teachers.
Organizations that have expressed interest in using the film to generate dialogue, inspire and educate include:
- The National Women’s History Project
- The White House Project
- Girls for a Change
- Girls, Inc.
- Girls Speak Out
- New Moon Magazine for Girls
- The Seneca (the women’s club at Harvard University)
- The Frazier International History Museum, Louisville, KY
- Susan B. Anthony Center for Women in Political Leadership, Rochester NY
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER: Louise Vance
Louise Vance has been creating award-winning television and film projects for the past twenty-five years. Specializing in content-rich, real world stories, she strives to bring the voices of a diverse range of people and cultures to mainstream audiences. Louise honed her storytelling skills as a producer/director/writer at CNN, TBS, PBS and Denver’s NBC affiliate. As a freelance producer/director/writer in San Francisco since 1989, she creates television, educational, and corporate documentaries for organizations nationwide. Louise’s achievements include her landmark two-hour documentary, Iran: Behind the Veil (TBS and PBS) and its companion news series, Iran: In the Name of God (CNN, dupont-Columbia Award); the Peabody-award winning, five-year series, Portrait of America (TBS); Not in Our Town II: Citizens Respond to Hate (PBS, the Democracy Project); Livelyhood (PBS); Speaking Freely: An Evening With Remarkable Women (KQED/PBS); A Passion for Justice: 21st Century Feminism (CA NOW), a half-hour film for NOW, aired nationally on Free Speech TV; Inside/Out: Real Stories of Men, Women and Life After Incarceration, an AIDS prevention film satellite-fed nationally by the CDC; Levi Strauss & Company: Built on Values, a 45-minute company history told through the lens of its values; and Lost in Transition: Moving Beyond Cancer, a Freddie-Award winning film she wrote and co-produced for the National Institute of Medicine.
In 2004, Louise served as curator and moderator of a community film series for San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts entitled Information Warfare, a look at media propaganda in times of war. Recently completed projects include writing and co-producing Missing Opportunities, a twenty-minute documentary for the National Institute of Medicine on the adolescent health care crisis in America, and directing The Mission Asset Fund: Investing in the American Dream, an educational doc about a unique asset-building initiative serving immigrants in San Francisco's Mission District. Her recently completed independent documentary, Seneca Falls, premiered on 110 PBS stations across the U.S. beginning in March 2010, and its companion social networking site, www.beyondsenecafalls.com, launched in July of 2010.
