Welcome to our new festival site. Enjoy our sixth annual festival and let us know your thoughts. What's your favorite film?

Should send this one to the new Canadian Prime Minister Harper

Evidently, you have a virus. Your site videos hang up and then stop. This happened with the dvd showing at the Arts Festival, July 8-9, Youngstown, Ohio. (They thought it was a computer problem but I see it now happening on your site.)

Hope you can get it fixed. You have so many great videos to show the world.

There is a great article on Alternet about farmers and ensuring they are making at least a living wage. While attention is being paid to the food on our plates and the provisions for the humane treatment of animals, we must not ignore regulating the working conditions for humans on the farm.

Read the Alternet article, "Bringing A Living Wage to the Farm."

Thank you!

Dear Harry,

Thanks for taking the time to post your comment. I really enjoyed sharing the festival films with all of you in Youngstown earlier this month.

We do apologize for the blips during the screening. As with all technology, quirks can sometimes come up unexpectedly no matter how much you test beforehand.

Thanks for letting us know about the streaming problem. What film was it, so that we can look into it?

Thank you again for coming and we hope that you order a DVD and organize your own screening in Youngstown later this year.

Anayansi

Good design!

There are many angles to this story.

Hi. Thanks 2 Steve Harvey's morning show, I wouldn't've known this site existed. Excellent!
For some reason, I can't watch the film on my computer, but I saw the list of topics and am very impressed. I will tell others about this site.

By the way, I wrote a rap. How can I get it on here? How can its lyrics become a video? Its lyrics were written to recognize the good kids who are over looked in school.
Keep being a blessing.

I viewed films 1-3 and they were excellent in content. I just want to say that these kinds of things are more confirmation for me that without GOD in our lives we wouldn't stand a chance. I'm not talking about the go to church on sunday morning god. I'm speaking of the GOD whom has established his Kingdom on this earth so that we may have a chance at true life. Please go to www.kingdomofyah.com

Thank you very much and I'm doing my part to help.

I have a general comment - poetic and artistic license notwithstanding... this film festival should be called "Media that Matter" since the word 'media' is plural and not singular.

This is a GREAT idea. I just put my first attempt at being a filmmaker up on GOOGLE with a 29min documentary called "Heaven's Heroes".
I also just found out about a cool short film project at the Gulf Islands Film school called "Peace it Together" that Palestinian, Israeli & Canadian Youth Collaborate on Cross-Cultural Media Projects at GIFTS

Where the media is too afraid to 'Report the TRUTH' when they 'Make the NEWS', the documentary filmmaker becomes the voice of TRUTH that is being oppressed by governments.
KEEP up the GREAT work.
your humble servant,
Ancient Clown

The films are great, but several had problems with frequent freeze-ups (especially the Water and Wallmart films). Please check them and correct the problem, if possible. Thanks! Carolyn

I was just wondering what song is playing in the Permission piece.

Thanks for your interest in "Permission" The song from the PSA is "I Don't Blame You" by Cat Power.

I just looked at "A Girl Like Me". It is wonderful to know that someone out there is addressing these issues. I am the mother of four grown women, but a lot of it I remember dealing with when my girls were young. It is sad that beautiful girls such as those in the film are still tackling the same issues my girls did ove 35 years ago. I think a heavy weight is hanging over our society and our country. Thank You

"A Girl Like Me" this is a powerful film. As an older black woman, it impacted me in a powerful way. It reminded me of the struggle I had before I came to know that I am beautiful just the way God made me. I no longer had to measure my beauty by the worlds standard. I desire to help other young girls through their struggle. this film hit a nerve, and lit my fire to get up and help my young black brothers and sisters accross that bridge of excepting their heritage of black beauty.

Please tell me how I can acquire this powerful film. It speaks to the subject so well.

LaNita Armstrong
Memphis, TN

On A Girl Like Me:
So sad. It reminded me of something that happened when my daughter was about six. She wanted a Black gymnast Barbie. We took her to Toys-R-Us and she found the doll. A lady came up to her and took the doll away and said to her, "Honey, you don't want this doll....This doll is for black girls." My daughter took the doll back and answered, "No. This doll is for ALL girls."

I want to commend Kiri Davis for exposing a shameful situation in our community; the fractured self-esteem experienced by the average African American child, predisposing them to under achievement, at-risk behavior, and depression. We co-sign their poor self esteem by not investing in the minds of our children, with books & media that positively represents them from at the earliest possible age.

Every year, and especially on "Black Friday", African Americans spend billions on TVs, video games and music media with negative black images, and invest less & less on children's books and multimedia that contain positive self-images and positive character messages.

And there are even black parents who will buy white dolls for their daughters or white superheroes for their boys, with the remark, "Oh, it shouldn't matter what color the doll is!" The good news is that it is within the power and priority of the African American community to reverse the constant assault on our children's self esteem, in spite of institutional racism and negative media images. It is possible to raise empowered & self-confident children, if we make that our non-negotiable mandate.

Now that Kiri has exposed the wound, I hope that she will keep the film rolling, and hold us accountable to healing it.

Your site is a great resource for young filmmakers. One of our Teen Net Advisors is writing a review of the site for our own interactive youth media site, which will launch around June 1, 2008. I'll post the review here when it's completed. Thanks for the excellent and thoughtful work.

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The Media That Matters Film Festival is a project of Arts Engine, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization.

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