Programs
Screenings | Events
Screening: ME AND ORSON WELLES
IAFF hosted Zac Efron, Claire Danes and Director, Richard Linklater for the Washington, DC Premiere of their new arts-education film, ME AND ORSON WELLES. Partners included The Washington Post and Americans for the Arts.
IMPACT Film Festival in Washington DC
IMPACT is hosting its second annual IMPACT Film Festival in Washington DC from October 27th - 29th. The 2009 IMPACT Film Festival will showcase six documentary and narrative films. Additionally, IMPACT will host panel discussions after each screening with an engaging mix of filmmakers, journalists, lawmakers and other civic leaders to discuss the issues featured in the films. The featured films will be powerful, thought provoking and relevant - exploring subjects on the minds of Americans today.
MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE
(directed by: Andrew Fredericks)
MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE provides the essential introduction Americans need to become knowledgeable participants in healthcare reform, now and in the years ahead. A behind-the-scenes look at how our 2.6 trillion dollar a year healthcare system went so terribly wrong.
PLAYGROUND
(directed by: Libby Spears)
Appalled by modern day sex slavery, filmmaker Libby Spears began a covert investigation to document the worldwide child sex trafficking problem, and to see how and if it led back to the United States. What she discovered is astonishing.
CLIMATE REFUGEES (directed by: Michael Nash)
CLIMATE REFUGEES explores the plight of the 25 million people around the world displaced by climatically induced environmental disasters. Interviews with refugees, scholars and politicians put a human face on the collision of overpopulation, lack of resources and our changing climate that is creating what is quickly becoming mankind’s greatest challenge.
SAINT MISBEHAVIN’:THE WAVY GRAVY MOVIE (directed by: Michelle Esrick)
Filmed over ten years, SAINT MISBEHAVIN’ journeys from the hills of California to the Himalayan Mountains to reveal the life of this one of a kind servant to humanity.
Featuring Wavy Gravy, Jahanara Romney, Jordon Romney, Dr. Larry Brilliant, The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Odetta, Patch Adams, Lisa Law, Buffy Sainte Marie, Denise Kaufman, Tom Law, Steven Ben Israel, The Hog Farm, A panel discussion with policy makers, Wavy Gravy and director Michelle Esrick will follow the screening.
THE MESSENGER (directed by: Oren Moverman)
Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front.
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN
IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG
AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (directed by: Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith)
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA catapults us back to 1971 where we find America in the grip of a familiar scenario: a dirty war based on lies. And Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, one of the nation’s leading war planners, has the documents to prove it.
Screening: Good Hair - September 2009
IMPACT Arts + Film Fund recently hosted the Washington DC premiere of Good Hair, a hilarious documentary produced by and starring Chris Rock. Good Hair visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community. Chris Rock and cast mate Nia Long were in attendance.
Screening: How to Fold a Flag - September 2009
In September 2009, IMPACT Arts + Film Fund helped support the Premiere of How to Fold a Flag at the Toronto Film Festival.
Screening and Discussion: In the Loop - July 2009
In July 2009, IMPACT Arts + Film Fund screened In the Loop, featuring discussion with filmmaker Armando Iannucci and the cast of the film. In the Loop is a smart new comedy and Sundance Film Festival hit from the acclaimed team behind the award-winning BBC TV comedy series Thick of It. With razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue the film pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders.
Screening and Discussion: Food, Inc. - June 2009
In June 2009, IMPACT Arts + Film Fund screened Food Inc., featuring discussion with filmmaker Robert Kenner, Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation). In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.
August - September 2008
IMPACT Film Festival in Denver, CO and St. Paul, MN
At the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Impact Film Festival showcased 14 socially themed documentary and dramatic films, followed by panel discussions with an engaging mix of filmmakers, entertainers, lawmakers and other civic leaders. The featured films were powerful, thought provoking, relevant to our times, exploring subjects on the minds of the activists, delegates, party leaders and candidates attending the Conventions. The films included:
14 Women (directed by: Mary Lambert)
Narrated by Annette Bening, this film follows female Senators such as Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton and Blanche Lincoln in the Capitol, on the road, on the campaign trail and even in their kitchen, exploring the issues, advantages and disadvantages of being a female politician in today’s political climate.
The Accidental Advocate (directed by: Jessica Gerstle)
When Claude Gerstle, a surgeon and athlete, suffers a tragic bicycle accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, he and his daughter, Jessica (former producer, Dateline NBC), embark on a moving odyssey to track down the thinkers, politicians, crusaders and nay-sayers at the heart of the federally funded stem cell research quagmire. Featuring Michael J. Fox, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Orin Hatch, Sam Brownback. World Premiere.
Battle in Seattle (directed by: Stuart Townsend)
IMPACT's featured narrative film, Battle in Seattle is an all-star, edge-of-your-seat glimpse at the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle, told from the perspective of protesters, police, and city officials.
The Black List (directed by: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)
In a film that works as series of living portraits, twenty prominent African Americans of various professions, disciplines and backgrounds offer their own stories and insights on the struggles, triumphs and joys of black life in this country and manage to re-define "blacklist" for a new century in the process.
Boogie Man (directed by: Stefan Forbes)
A comprehensive look at Lee Atwater, the blues-playing rogue whose rambunctious rise from the South to Chairman of the GOP made him a household name. He mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush while leading the Republican Party to historic victories and transforming the way America elects its Presidents. Featuring Ed Rollins, Michael Dukakis, Tucker Eskew, Howard Fineman, Mary Matalin, Sam Donaldson and more.
FLOW (directed by: Irena Salina)
Flow: For Love Of Water highlights the local intimacies of an emerging global catastrophe: African plumbers reconnect shantytown water pipes under cover of darkness to ensure a community's survival; a Californian scientist forces awareness of shockingly toxic public water sources; a ‘Big Water’ CEO argues privatization is the wave of the future; a “Water Guru” in India sparks new community water initiatives in hundreds of villages; a Canadian author uncovers the corporate profiteering that drives global water business.
Freeheld (directed by: Cynthia Wade)
Ripped from the headlines, Freeheld is a touching and compelling story about one woman who fights for domestic partnership while struggling to survive lung cancer. Forced to leave her job because of her diagnosis with the disease after 25 years spent serving Ocean County, New Jersey, Lieutenant Laurel Hester is committed to changing state law and leaving her pension to her loving partner, Stacie. Acclaimed director Cynthia Wade weaves a gripping and tender documentary that is filled with courage and hope for all of the LGBT community in the struggle for equal rights. Academy Award winner for documentary short subject.
I.O.U.S.A. (directed by: Patrick Creadon)
I.O.U.S.A. is a documentary film that explores the United States’ current economic situation, including the country’s ever growing federal debt, over extended entitlement programs and increased foreign competition. As the baby boomers prepared to retire, an economic disaster of epic proportions awaits. In this non-partisan film, director Partick Creadon demystifies the nation’s financial practices and policies. I.O.U.S.A. drives home the message that when armed with the facts and figures, the American public can hold accountable those entrusted with the grave responsibility of running the country.
Kicking It (directed by: Susan Koch, Jeff Werner)
It began in 2001 as a wild idea by a Scot and an Austrian -- to give homeless people a chance to change their lives through an international street soccer competition. The word went out on the streets. Five years later, 20,000 homeless people from 48 countries were training hard and competing to represent their country in the 4th Annual Homeless World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.
RFK Remembered (directed by: Charles Guggenheim)
Charles Guggenheim's portrait of Bobby Kennedy who gave voice to the aspirations of a generation and who continues to inspire with his message of hope and commitment to social justice. The film was originally presented at the1968 Democratic Convention forty years ago.
Trouble the Water (directed by: Carl Deal and Tia Lessin)
A 2008 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, Trouble the Water is a riveting exploration of poverty in America as seen through the eyes of a couple trapped in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This film received the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The New York Times says "Superb... One of the best American documentaries in recent memory."
