Trail of Feathers: The Missile Dick Chicks Take on America
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Images
2004 George W. Bush Pre-Emptive Victory Tour
Website
http://www.trailoffeathersmovie.com
Topics
Arts & Culture: Mixed Media, Popular/Participatory Dance, Theatrical Movement
Economy: Business, Consumption, Corporations, Debt, Finance
Environment: Renewable Energy
Human Development: Energy, International Cooperation, Labor
Human Rights: Civil Rights, Gender, Religion, Sexuality, Social Exclusion
Information & Media: Culture, Freedom of Expression, Science
Peace and Conflict: Arms & Military, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Nuclear Arms, Peace, Security, Terrorism
Politics: Activism, Civil Society, Codes of Conduct, Corruption & Transparency, Democracy, Ethics & Value Systems, Geopolitics, Globalization, Governance, Justice and Crime, Law
Identity Niches
Budget
Raised to date: $ 200,000.00
Estimate to complete: $ 30,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $ 230,000.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 05/01/2009
Status
Post Production
Media Type
Video
Project End Use
Other: Projected End Use: Theatrical/Broadcast/Educational/Home Video/Internet Download
Key Personnel
Randi Cecchine
Director/Producer/Videographer
Randi Cecchine is a documentary filmmaker, freelance shooter/editor and educator based in New York City. She completed a BA in film, photography and media studies at Hampshire College in 1994 and earned an MFA in Media Arts Production at the City College of New York in 2000. Her MFA thesis film Scrambled; A Journey Through Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is an entertaining personal documentary about a women's health condition experienced by nearly 10% of all women. The film has helped many women with PCOS and has been used for community organizing.
Since 1994 Cecchine has lived in New York City where her first job was working with veteran documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles. Over the years she has been making and teaching media to youth and adults in community settings and schools. She has worked with such organizations as Paper Tiger Television, Deep Dish Television. SOS Haiti, Global Action Project and Working Playground. She has also shot and edited numerous freelance projects in education, healthcare and the arts.
From 2002-2007 she was an adjunct professor of video production and media studies at the College of Staten Island and in the fall of 2007 she also taught media studies at Marymount Manhattan. She is currently working full-time on her documentary Trail of Feathers.
Jill Woodward
Editor
Jill Woodward is a filmmaker/journalist/editor who has returned to the US after three years in Amsterdam. She specializes in Avid and Final Cut Pro editing, and also shoots and directs independent projects. She moved to Amsterdam in June 2006 from New York City. In New York and Atlanta, she worked for CNN for 16 years, gaining invaluable experience as a short-form editor for news and magazine reports. She received recognition for contributing to CNN's 2005 DuPont Award for coverage of the Tsunami Disaster in South Asia.
In Amsterdam, she was a contributor to the Dutch news agency ANP and Radio Netherlands Worldwide, and freelanced as a video producer for Greenpeace International. In addition to her journalistic work, she edited several short documentaries about the New York based artist Ursula von Rydingsvard. She recently completed directing an educational documentary about compulsive videogame playing, and is now editing her first full length documentary, Trail of Feathers: The Missile Dick Chicks Take on America with director Randi Cecchine. She graduated from the College of Communication at Florida State University in 1989.
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
I hope that the film will be an important look back- a historical document about a painful period in American and world history and a celebration of the vibrant and diverse American anti-war movement that grew during these years. The military industrial complex doesn’t appear to be vanishing, and I hope that the film educates audiences to peer deeper into the corporate structures that continue to propel our nation towards unjust, costly wars.
My highest goal for the film is that the raw, outrageous and courageous methods of the Missile Dick Chicks continue to energize and inspire audiences towards creative action. In the new Obama administration, during a time of economic turmoil and social upheaval/restructuring there will be more need than ever for citizens to speak their convictions and be active in creating a new society. I see Trail of Feathers inspiring US and international audiences to be more creative participants in their communities, and I hope it helps build excitement towards the use of street theater/performance in creating dialog. The Missile Dick Chicks show that being an activist can be fun and energizing, can give us a sense of community and help us grow as individuals.
The current cut of the film was shown at the International Women's Film Festival in Seoul, Korea in April. Audiences were moved by the story and activists were inspired to imagine new, positive ways to approach creative action.
We are currently sending rough cuts of the film to festivals, and we are exploring various distribution possibilities – with the goal of international broadcast, limited theatrical/university/community screenings, and web/dvd sales. I hope to travel to universities with the film and lead workshops with the Missile Dick Chicks on creative activism. We will be working with a distribution consultant to build a more comprehensive plan.
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Puffin Foundation | $ 700.00 | 02/01/2009 | |
| The Puffin Foundation | $ 750.00 | 02/01/2005 | |
| Individual Donations | $ 30,000.00 | ||
| Personal Contribution/ Deferred Pay | $ 168,550.00 |
Location(s)
365 West 25th Street Apt 21A
New York, NY, 10001
See Google Maps
Short Synopsis
A musical documentary that asks the question: What would make a group of New York Women strap missiles to their crotches and take to the streets of the US in a parody celebration of war and greed?
Description/Treatment
Trail of Feathers is a feature length musical documentary about The Missile Dick Chicks, a woman’s political street theater group based in New York City. The film paints a portrait of the U.S. political landscape from 2002-2008 as the Missile Dick Chicks sing and dance their way through the country, celebrating war and war profits in a parody of the Bush administration and the corporate interests that support and profit off the war and environmental destruction. In the film we meet the Missile Dick Chicks in and out of character, revealing both their powerful method acting creation and the ‘real’ women under the wigs who have committed years of their lives to this evolving form of political/creative action.
In a post 9/11 New York City a group of women come together to seek out a new form of political protest. They'd watched the Bush administration use the September 11th attacks to justify violence against civilians in a grab for profit and global dominance. They felt that this absurd situation needed an absurd response, so in 2002, The Missile Dick Chicks begin strapping on paper maché missile "dicks" and dressing as patriotic, war-mongering super-villains.
The film follows the stories of several key participants, including Menusch who plays the role of Candy Can. Menusch's German heritage motivates her to speak out against war, largely because of the complicity of German citizens with the Nazi regime. A long-time political activist in the US and Europe, she can’t understand why Americans don't wake up to reality. Haideen (Dolly Daily Bombings) has been using theater and visual arts, including paper maché, to add a colorful element to traditional street protest since the 80’s. She was particularly outraged about US taxpayer funds being spent to support fascism in Latin America, while US citizens suffered homelessness and hunger. Debbie (Bubbles Bomlovah) was born in Greece and raised in America. Her immigrant parents were confused by her youthful rebelliousness and sent her to a "rehabilitation" facility they saw advertised on TV by then-vice president George H.W. Bush. Debbie's 18 months in this notoriously abusive facility “Kids of Bergen County” and the suicide attempt that was her only method of escape shaped the next 20 years of her life, and fuels her revenge towards the Republican ideologues who backed an institution that almost destroyed her spirit.
By delving deep into their Missile Dick Chick characters, sometimes living as their alter-egos for days on end, these women are engaging in a complex form of psychological ‘shadow work.’ Playing women who cherish greed, competition, power and violence, the Missile Dick Chicks examine their own complex relationship to these very human elements. Over the course of the film we see them open their hearts, fall into despair, doubt their power, and remain committed to creative expression. The film paints a hilarious and dynamic portrait of courageous women sharing their talents and creating a supportive community in a time of great fear and uncertainty.