by Shine Global | Dec 7, 2015 | new blog, Shine a Light On, Shine News
Sundance Institute today completed its feature film lineup for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival with the announcement that Eagle Huntress, directed by Otto Bell and produced in association with Shine Global, will be having its world premiere in the Sundance Kids section. The Shine Global team will be in attendance at the festival.
The film follows Aisholpan, a 13 year old nomad girl, as she prepares to take on the all-male, all-grown-up world of Eagle Hunters at the annual Festival in the snow-capped Altai Mountains of North West Mongolia. Through breathtaking and intimate cinematography, this film will frame the universal themes of female empowerment, coming of age, and the onset of modernity.
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. Shine Global’s first documentary War/Dance, directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, won the Best Director – Documentary award at its world premiere at the festival in 2007.
by Shine Global | Nov 23, 2015 | new blog, News, Shine News
We have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finish Shine’s latest film Selling Our Daughters. Check out the video and pledge to support!
Selling Our Daughters explores the dark side of child advocacy through the story of an “activist” who misrepresents Thai girls as sex trafficking victims for his own gain.
The film unfolds as a mystery, revealed to viewers through the eyes of the filmmakers as they themselves discover it. In 2013 we went to northern Thailand to film a story about girls who had been sold into the sex trade by their parents. Our guide was activist Mickey Choothesa. What we discovered instead is that Mickey has been deceiving both the public and those he claims to be helping. Since founding his non-profit organization, COSA, in 2005, Mickey has marketed it globally as a sanctuary for trafficked and at-risk girls while describing it to the girls it houses and their families only as a unique educational opportunity.
Watch the Kickstarter video with Directors Josie Swantek Heitz and Dave Adams to learn more about the film and why we need your help to finish it — then make a pledge!
Why we are making this film
Sensational and dramatic storytelling gets ratings, attracts an audience, and helps secure funding but it has a real world, negative impact on those we are (mis)representing. Power dynamics between storytellers, promoters, audiences, and subjects raise difficult ethical questions we face everyday as filmmakers. So when we became entangled in the deception Mickey was perpetrating, we knew we had to keep our promise to the girls and their families to share their story with the world.
Why on Kickstarter?
Thanks to the generosity of many individual donors and foundations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fledgling Fund, the Irving Harris Foundation, and Greystone Co., we have been able to complete the shooting and editing of the film. We are seeking $50,000 to help us finish it so we can premiere at festivals and bring the film to audiences around the world in 2016. We need to hire a composer to do the music, a sound designer to do the sound mix, and do color correction, HD mastering, and output the final film onto formats that we can play for audiences. We are so close to finishing this film but we need you to help bring this story to the world!
by Shine Global | Nov 19, 2015 | Events, new blog, Shine News
By Susan MacLaury, Executive Director
As one of our board members so aptly put it the day after our 10th anniversary party: “Oh what a night!”
It was a night that saw more than 130 of our closest friends and supporters join us to celebrate this wonderful journey that began in the spring of 2005 when Albie and I first decided to start Shine Global. Many who attended had been with us from the very start. Others joined us along the way, some only very recently, and all are meaningful to us.
We had a wonderful band – the Stingers – who rocked it. We had a terrific silent auction put together by a former board member and good friend. We had a great party-planning committee to help Alex, Kiana, and me make this happen. More than a dozen young volunteers came out that night to help us with everything from checking coats to dispensing gift bags to running out for 60 lb. of ice at the last minute!
And most meaningfully, we had a chance to thank some of the young people who were the subjects of our films as well as the directors, cinematographers and editors who brought their stories to life. I think all who attended would agree that they were the highlight of the evening.
So thank you all – those of you who were able to come and those who joined us in spirit. Albie and I are grateful for every one of you and we look forward to what the future brings.
Love, Susan
by Shine Global | Oct 19, 2015 | From the Executive Director, new blog, Shine News
By Susan MacLaury, Co-Founder and Executive Director
It occurs to me that milestones in life prompt reflection and often change. So it is for us at Shine Global as we acknowledge our first 10 years as a non-profit organization dedicated to making films about children at risk. We look back at the choices we’ve made, our films and their impact, and we consider our growth along the way.
In 2005, my husband Albie Hecht and I decided to form Shine Global to produce our first film, War/Dance. Since it told the story of three young teens brutalized by civil war and the Lord’s Resistance Army, Shine’s mission statement reflected their stark, dangerous world: “Shine Global is dedicated to ending the exploitation and abuse of children worldwide through the production of films and media that raise awareness, promote action, and inspire change.”
Since then, we’ve gone on to address a number of issues affecting children: The lack of legislative protection for child farm workers; the numbers of homeless children in the US and special problems encountered by those who are also undocumented; the need for funding for arts programs for kids; the importance of sports as a vehicle for self-definition; the impact of parental incarceration on children; how child “enemies” can partner together; and how young girls can defy local customs that would deny them their rightful place in the world.
As our films increased in number and scope we began to look hard at our original mission statement and to ask ourselves if it wasn’t time to change it. One point we heard ourselves make internally and when describing Shine to others was that the children in our films always demonstrate great resilience, courage, and grace. We also emphasized that it was our goal to give voice to children who might otherwise remain unheard, but that we tried to do this through the words of the kids we profiled themselves.
After months of discussion, we decided to broaden our mission statement in anticipation of the documentary, narrative, and animated films, cable series, and web series we intend to make. I’m very happy to share it publicly here for the first time:
Shine Global gives voice to children by telling their stories of resilience to raise awareness, promote action and inspire change.
We hope you agree that this captures our essence and our passion to make films that will transform children’s lives.
by Shine Global | Aug 13, 2015 | new blog, Shine News
Anybody and everybody can vote for Shine Global’s proposed panel “The Long Term Impact of the Sexy Story” to be a part of the 2016 SxSW film festival in Austin, TX this coming March.
Vote here before September 4, 2015: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/53691
The Long Term Impact of the Sexy Story
Sex sells. If it bleeds it leads. This reality means that stories like “starving sex trafficked war orphans in Africa…with AIDS” bombard us daily. Sensational and dramatic storytelling gets ratings, attracts an audience, and helps secure funding but it has a real world, negative impact on those we are (mis)representing. Power dynamics between storytellers, promoters, audiences, and subjects raise difficult ethical questions. Our panel brings together storytellers who’ve worked on controversial topics with vulnerable people and explore ways that creatives can approach ethical issues in narrative in a way that produces a compelling story, yet involves subjects in safe and respectful ways.
Questions Answered
- How does our appetite for sensational stories have a real world impact on subjects as well as viewers/consumers of stories?
- How can filmmakers guarantee subjects’ informed consent and why does this matter?
- Do the ends of obtaining compelling footage ever justify the sacrifice of informed consent by subjects?
Speakers
- Lina Srivistava, Regarding Humanity
- Susan MacLaury, Shine Global Inc
- Josie Swantek, Run Riot Films
- Linda Raftree, Regarding Humanity
by Shine Global | Jul 8, 2015 | Events, new blog, News
Celebrate our 10th Anniversary with a dance party in NYC!
More details to come
Info: 646-535-6703
or Kiana@shineglobal.org
