Bishop Gene Robinson comes to ITVS Community Cinema (June 23)

UPDATE:
THE 5 PM EVENT ON JUNE 23 IS FULL
AN ADDITIONAL SCREENING HAS BEEN ADDED AT 8 PM – SEATS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
Bishop Gene Robinson who’s featured in the film LOVE FREE OR DIE will be our special guest at the ITVS Community Cinema presentation of the film Sunday, June 23 at 5 PM at Busboys and Poets (2021 14th Street, NW). Retired from the Diocese of New Hampshire in January this year, Bishop Robinson is currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Directed by Macky Alston, LOVE FREE OR DIE follows Gene Robinson, the first openly gay person to be elected bishop in the high church traditions of Christianity. His 2003 elevation, in the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire, ignited a worldwide firestorm in the Anglican Communion that has threatened schism. Even as he has pushed for greater inclusion within his own church, Bishop Robinson has become a standard bearer in the fight over the rights of LGBT people to receive full acceptance in church and state.

The ITVS Community Cinema [DC] event with Gene Robinson is free and open to the public. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. Reserve on Eventbrite, or call 202-939-0794.

Community partners: WHUT, Busboys and Poets, Washington DC Jewish Community Center, Center for Social Media, Institute for Policy Studies, Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, Reel Affirmations, Washington National Cathedral, SMYAL

Bishop Gene Robinson. Credit: Gillian Laub

About Bishop Gene Robinson — Diocese of New Hampshire
V. Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire on June 7, 2003, having served as Canon to the Ordinary (Assistant to the Bishop) for nearly 18 years. He was consecrated a Bishop on All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2003, and was invested as the Ninth Bishop of New Hampshire on March 7, 2004.

He holds two honorary doctorates and has received numerous awards from national civil rights organizations. His story is featured in the 2007 feature-length documentary, “For the Bible Tells Me So” and his book In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God (Seabury Books, New York) was published in 2008.
Bishop Robinson has been particularly active in the area of full civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Working at the state, national and international levels, he has spoken and lobbied for equal protection under the law and full civil marriage rights. He has been honored by many LGBT organizations for this work, including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, GLAD, NH Civil Liberties Union, GLAAD, and the Equality Forum.

Bishop Robinson was invited by Barack Obama to give the invocation at the opening inaugural ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2009. The Bishop’s recent book, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage, was published by Alfred Knopf in September 2012.

He is the father of two grown daughters and the proud grandfather of two granddaughters. He lives with his husband, Mark Andrew, who is employed by the State of New Hampshire’s Department of Health & Human Services.

ADDITIONAL ITVS COMMUNITY CINEMA [DC] “LOVE FREE OR DIE” screenings
Sunday, June 9 at 3 PM – Washington DC Jewish Community Center
Thursday, June 13 at 7 PM – Hill Center at the Old Naval Hosptial

Meet Our Speakers: The Revolutionary Optimists

Washington, DC will have 4 screenings of THE REVOLUTIONARY OPTIMISTS – Sunday, May 19 (Washington DCJCC); Sunday May 26 (Busboys and Poets), Tuesday, May 28 (Hill Center at the Old Naval Hosptial), and a Global Perspectives Film Series screening at Meridian International Center.

Sunday, May 26, 3 PM (Washington DCJCC)

Film followed by Q&A via Skype with filmmaker Nicole Newnham
Nicole Newnham is a documentary filmmaker and writer based in Oakland, California. She recently co-produced and directed the critically-acclaimed, Emmy-nominated documentary, The Rape of Europa, about the fate of Europe’s cultural treasures during the Third Reich and Second World War. Nicole also co-produced and directed Sentenced Home, an Emmy-nominated documentary that follows three Cambodian refugees in Seattle who are deported back to Cambodia after 9/11. She field-produced Skin, a special for PBS and National Geographic about the science and culture of human skin, and co-produced They Drew Fire, a widely-acclaimed special for PBS about the combat artists of World War II, and authored the companion book distributed by Harper Collins. Her independent work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sundance Documentary Fund, and the Independent Television Service, among others. She has also worked producing short films, segments, and advertisements for a wide range of broadcast, corporate, and non profit clients, including Martha Stewart, Kohls, Virgin America, Country Music Television, Teachscape, and Catholic Charities. Nicole earned a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from Stanford University in 1994.

Sunday, May 26, 5 PM (Busboys and Poets)

Film followed by presentation by Young Playwrights’ Theater
Young Playwrights’ Theater gives voice to a new generation through the art of playwriting. A nationally recognized leader in arts education, YPT strives to make the arts, and specifically theater, a core part of every student’s education. YPT proves the value of the arts in the classroom by demonstrating the direct and positive impact of an active, arts-integrated process on student learning. By exploring playwriting, revision and performance with professional artists in the classroom, students learn the power of language and create exciting new plays that reflect and engage their communities. YPT shares student-written work with local, national and international audiences to provide a window into students’ lives, cultivate an appreciation for young artists and inspire others to write. By seeing their work brought to life for their community, students realize their ability to affect the world around them.

This year, YPT published their first book, “Write to Dream,” a collection of 30 student-written that cover friendship, gentrification, bullying and greed, among many other topics. In 2010, Young Playwrights Theater received a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady Michelle Obama.

Meet Our Speakers: The Island President (April 20, 21)

The Institute for Policy Studies, community partner for the ITVS Community Cinema [DC] presentations of “The Island President” has programmed our panel for the Saturday, April 20 screening at Busboys and Poets at 5 PM. The panel will be moderated by Janet Redman co-director of IPS’s Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. Her recent studies on the World Bank’s climate activities include World Bank: Climate Profiteer, and Dirty is the New Clean: A critique of the World Bank’s strategic framework for development and climate change. She has appeared on several radio programs and C-SPAN sharing positive visions for fair and equitable climate action in the United States and overseas. As a founding participant in the global Climate Justice Now! network, Janet is committed to bringing hard-hitting policy analysis into grassroots and grasstops organizing.

Before joining IPS, Janet was a visiting faculty member at the College of the Atlantic and directed the Watershed Initiative of the Center for Applied Human Ecology at the College. Her work in youth and women’s empowerment through community farming and sustainability has brought Janet from coastal Maine to the heart of Worcester, Massachusetts to Bangladesh.

Janet holds a Master’s Degree from Clark University in International Development and Social Change, where she focused her graduate research on regional trade integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont.

Janet will be joined by Titi Soentoro, Asksi – for Gender, Social and Ecological Justice, Indonesia. More about Titi is in this video interview:

Titi Soentoro, Indonesian Activist from Henry Curtis on Vimeo.

And Shefali Sharma, Senior Advisor for Trade and Global Governance for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Shefali’s work has focused on international trade and financial institutions, and international food and agriculture policies, with a particular interest and focus on India and South Asia. She has published several reports and articles on the WTO, the Agreement on Agriculture, bilateral free trade agreements and the impacts of free trade rules on developing countries from a social justice perspective. She has worked in Delhi as the South Asia coordinator for the Bank Information Center, and also recently served as senior researcher for Third World Network in Delhi. Shefali has a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the College of William and Mary and a master’s in philosophy in development studies from the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex.

Sunday, April 21 at 3 PM, the Washington DC Jewish Community Center will present “The Island President” followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Jon Shenk via Skype. Jon Shenk is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and founder of Actual Films. He was the Director of Photography for the Academy Award-winning Smile Pinki (2009). He was awarded an Emmy for Blame Somebody Else (2007), a feature story about human trafficking, he wrote, produced and photographed for the PBS series, Exposé. Shenk directed and photographed the Emmy-nominated Lost Boys of Sudan (2004), a feature documentary that follows two young refugees of Sudan’s civil war through their first year in America. Lost Boys of Sudan was released theatrically, received the Independent Spirit Award, and aired on PBS/POV. He co-directed and photographed Democracy Afghan Style (2004, 80 minutes), a PBS/ITVS/Arte film about the post-war constitutional process in Afghanistan. In 2005, he directed and photographed segments for The New Heroes (PBS). He directed and photographed The Beginning (1999), an observational chronicle of George Lucas’s complex creative process during the making of Star Wars: Episode I that some reviewers consider to be “the best DVD behind-the-scenes documentary ever made.” Shenk has produced and photographed dozens of documentaries for PBS, the BBC, A&E, Bravo, CBS, NBC, and National Geographic. He has been nominated twice for Emmys for his cinematography.

Meet Our Speakers: Wonder Women!

The March 10 and March 16 Community Cinema presentations of WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines will each have a different theme for the Q&A: The March 10th screening at the Washington DCJCC will focus on comics; the March 16th screening at Busboys and Poets will celebrate Wonder Latinas and include remarks by a representative from Eileen Fisher Inc., national community partner for the ITVS previews of “Wonder Women!”

Of course, a program like this will have plenty fans especially Wonder Woman fans. The March 10th screening is already FULL according to our Eventbrite page, but we’ll have a wait list at the door. The March 16th screening is almost full.

Here are our guest speakers for the events.

SUNDAY, MARCH 10 at 3 PM

WASHINGTON DC JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER (1529 16th Street, NW)
MONICA GALLAGHER, professional graphic artist, comicker.

Read more about Monica and Bonnie N. Collide (above) at eatyourlipstick.com. Monica is based in Baltimore, MD.

MARK PAYNE, Wonder Woman fan. This was Mark Payne’s introduction, courtesy of Big Planet Comics in Washington, DC. My hunch is Mark has a background in graphic design. There’s always mystery in comics.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16 at 5 PM

BUSBOYS AND POETS (2021 14th Street, NW)
GRACE FLORES-HUGHES was born in Taft, Texas on June 11, 1946. She began her federal career as a GS-2 at Kelly AFB in 1966 and subsequently transferred to the Department of the Air Force and later to the Department of Health, Education & Welfare where she assumed higher levels of management responsibility. She worked in the Department of Health & Human Services as Acting Director of the Office of Hispanic Americans where she was responsible for the development and implementation of social policy and programs regarding Hispanic Americans and where she helped coin the term “Hispanic” for the federal government. Grace was the first woman to serve as the Director/Assistant Attorney General level of the Community Relations Service (CRS) for the Department of Justice from 1988-92. Appointed by President Reagan and later kept on by President H.W. Bush, Flores-Hughes was responsible for developing policies and establishing priorities with respect to the resolution of racial and ethnic conflict in communities throughout the country, and the resettlement of Cuban/Hispanic refugees in the United States.

ELIZABETH ANDRADE is Vice President and Director of Production at Pixeldust Studios in Bethesda, MD, which specializes in Animation & VFX. Elizabeth and her husband, former National Geographic art and animnation director Ricardo Andrade (presdient) started Pixeldust Studios in 2006. The studio has received 15 Emmy awards for their work. Pixeldust has created work for National Geogrpahic, A&E Television Networks, NBC, Spike TV, Travel Channel, TLC, Discovery, Channel, The British Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, and others.

Community Cinema DC