Thursday, May 20, 2004
Update on JUVIES
Dear friends of JUVIES
We wanted to drop you a few lines and let you know what's going on with JUVIES and the awareness campaign we've mounted on the back of it.
We've had screenings galore from Hollywood all the way to Arizona and North Carolina, with audiences of 8 to 800. We had a California legislative screening sponsored by Senator Sheila Kuehl in Sacremento, prompting the Youth Law Center to write two bills aimed at helping our incarcerated juvenile population - sb 1151 and sb 1223.
Here's a quick calendar of JUVIES screenings:
June 7th - screening in Berlin, Germany at Conference on Crafting Together Against Right Wing Extremism, sponsored by the Ministry of the Interior
June 7th - screening in Vienna, Austria at Symposium on Youth Violence
June 9th California Public Defenders Conference Q & A with Dr. Aaron Kipnis
June 11th, 12th & 16th - Human Rights Watch International Film Festival screenings in New York
June 14th - Boston premiere at Sanders Theatre in Harvard University @ 7:00 pm with Q & A with Dr. James Gilligan and others.
June 17th Pacifica Graduate Institute Faculty Q & A with Dr. Aaron Kipnis
July - in the pipeline: Washington DC premiere, and Human Rights Watch screening in San Francisco (more details soon)
Fall, 2004 - Open Society Institute Juvies School Tour - of 50 schools around the country courtesy of a Soros grant. We're also honored to announce that Juvies has received two awards to date: Beverly Hills Film Festival - Best Documentary Award US International Film and Video Festival - Creative Excellence Award
Win some lose some:
We were working with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Non-Governmental Organizations Committee on Human Rights to present a screening at the United Nations on June 10th targeted at the international community and affiliated groups at the UN. Although things seemed to be moving ahead positively on the groundwork of putting the event together, the UN pulled the plug on proceedings saying that they had a problem with screening the film because "it focused on a specific country and it is their policy not to sponsor such events". We can speculate on this diplomatic response to no end. Our sense is that, at the present time with what is happening with the Iraq prison abuse issues and the ripple effects of that worldwide and here in the U.S., the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sponsoring a screening that questions the U.S. juvenile justice system is too political and too high a risk for a multi-lateral, neutral, balance-holder like the United Nations.
Our vision was that, as we reach out at the grassroots levels, so must we reach out to the international movers and shakers at the big picture level, to drive home at every level possible, that this issue of juvenile justice is urgent and in need of attention from all of us. The UN experience indicates to us the timeliness and potency of our message. FYI, we have received requests for Juvies from Australia, Japan, Guam, Cuba and Poland.
So, it looks like the fight is really in our hands, folks. It's up to us to find smart, strategic and collaborative ways to blaze the trail and push this movement for reform forward.
In peace and justice,Leslie, Traci & Cynthia at Chance Films and Aaron Kipnis at Pacifica Graduate Institute
# 5/20/04; 4:44:09 PM
