“I had journalists say to me: ‘I saw the women on the field. But they were so pitiful-looking that I didn’t film them,’” recalls Gini Reticker, director of the 2008 documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which documents women’s peace efforts in Liberia. While she had trouble finding footage of Liberian women’s peace actions, […]
Author: Ariel Dougherty
Ariel Dougherty – teacher, filmmaker, producer, writer, advocate – has worked in the feminist media and cultural communities since 1969. Her nescient youth film teaching merged with the birth of the women’s liberation movement. Women Make Movies was co-founded by her in 1969, first as a production collective, and in 1972 with Sheila Paige she created the organization as a community based production teaching workshop for women, with distribution set up as a critical income arm. Ground breaking and award winning films she produced are: The Women’s Happy Times Commune (1971); Healthcaring (1976); and most recently, !Women Art Revolution (2010). Songs, Skits, Poetry and Prison Life (1974); Surviva (1981) and From the Interior, Colonized (1992) are among her own films. She also anchored a public access show, Cultural Democracy/Ecology (1989-91) In recent years Ariel has zoomed in on increasing the visibility, use of and support for women-centered content. She advocates in writing, before funders and donors, at meetings and conferences for the inclusion of more feminist content in our daily media. And for its funding! She initiated Media Equity Collaborative to umbrella this work.