OUT IN THE SILENCE

Click here to ask for more information about this project:

Images

Wilson and Hamer on location

Cj & Kathy

Diane Gramley, American Family Association of Pennsylvania

Pastor Mark Micklos

Wedding Announcement

Area countryside

OUT IN THE SILENCE poster

Linda & Roxanne

Oil City Prayer Day

Budget

Raised to date: $258,000.00
Estimate to complete: $200,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $458,000.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 04/02/2010

Status

Distribution

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Other: Public Television and Extensive Community and Educational Screenings

Key Personnel

Joe Wilson
Co-Producer / Director
Joe Wilson is a documentary filmmaker who focuses on controversial and often ignored human rights issues. His first film, Otros Amores, about “other ways of loving” in Oaxaca, Mexico, won the Videomaker Magazine National Documentary Challenge. Since then he has produced and directed over a dozen pieces for national cable television and won numerous awards including Audience Prize at the One-in-Ten Film Festival, Best Short at the Barcelona Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, runner up in the Seeds of Tolerance Competition, and official selection at festivals in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, London, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Cape Town and Melbourne. Joe also served as Program Officer for Human Rights and Global Security at the Public Welfare Foundation in Washington, DC.

Dean Hamer
Co-Producer / Director
Dean Hamer aims to make films that emanate from the voices of those on the outside, that inspire creativity, and that incite the audience to abandon their comfortable role as spectators. He directed The Preacher and the Poet, which was a winner of the PBS Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival, and has collaborated with Joe Wilson on numerous pieces that have been broadcast on cable television and won awards at film festivals around the world. He has also consulted for documentary and news productions by the BBC, Discovery Science and network news channels and written three award-winning nonfiction books.

Nels Bangerter
Editor
Nels Bangerter is a documentary film editor with a keen sense of story and an alert eye for revealing moments. His most recent feature War Child, which documents hip hop artist Emmanual Jal's remarkable journey from Sudanese child soldier to international star and activist, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. He has worked with Whoopi Goldberg on a series of short documentaries for MSNBC's Mississippi Rising after Hurricane Katrina and on numerous other short and long projects for screen and television. Nels received his MFA in film production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Art.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

As mentioned above, the overall goal of this project is to open new opportunities for rural and small town LGBT people and their allies to connect, engage and organize in order to develop local systems of support in the fight against bigotry, harassment and discrimination.

This will be accomplished by using OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign events, often the first of their kind in small towns and rural communities, as catalysts to raise LGBT visibility, spark dialogue and inspire new leaders in the search for common ground.

Building on its early successes, and working with groups such as the ACLU, Equality Federation, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), Campus Progress, schools, colleges and universities, and dozens of state and local organizations around the country, the Campaign will help bring new energy and excitement to efforts to strengthen the movement for fairness, equality and human rights and the overall progressive organizing and advocacy infrastructure in rural and small town America for the long term.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
Wyncote Foundation	$75,000.00	03/01/2010
Wyncote Foundation	$67,000.00	10/01/2009
New Tudor foundation	$10,000.00	10/01/2009
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program	$7,000.00	09/01/2009
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program	$30,000.00	11/26/2008
New Tudor Foundation	$10,000.00	10/01/2008
James H. Bryson Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation	$5,000.00	09/01/2008
Individual Contributions	$54,000.00	09/01/2008

Location

1111 W Street, NW
#8
Washington, 20009

See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

OUT IN THE SILENCE is more than a movie, it's part of the movement for fairness, equality and human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, with an emphasis on rural and small town America.

Description/Treatment

Overview

For the past 40 years, the conservative movement has dominated the social, political and educational landscape of rural and small town America, largely because those with a more inclusive, welcoming worldview have failed to show up. While the conservative politics and policies that have resulted from this dynamic have harmed many groups, they have been particularly devastating for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, especially teens, who have been forced to live in silence, in fear and isolation, unable to speak out about issues that matter for fear of losing their families, friends, jobs, even their very lives.

OUT IN THE SILENCE is a documentary film-based campaign that aims to increase LGBT visibility in rural and small town America and to promote dialogue and action that will help expand and strengthen the struggle for fairness, equality and human rights for all. Working with Active Voice and a host of youth, civil and human rights, rural and LGBT organizations, the campaign has developed a highly effective engagement strategy that has already produced significant outcomes in Pennsylvania, the state where the stories in film take place. The campaign is now poised to achieve major national impact by expanding to strategically chosen target areas across the country through collaboration with state and local cross-sector partner organizations.

The Film

After the filmmaker’s own same-sex marriage announcement ignites a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, the small western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago, OUT IN THE SILENCE follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend the filmmaker and begin to rethink their most deeply held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished small town values really mean.

The approach to the film is aimed at breaking the mold of the traditional documentary. It is not solely observational. It is not a memoir, and it is not a news piece. The filmmaker, as protagonist, as insider and outsider, uses the camera to empower, to challenge, to confront, and to look beneath the veneer of the fragile balance of order in his small hometown. It is a provocative, entertaining, and deeply personal social issue documentary that dramatically illustrates the challenges of being different in small town America and the transformation that is possible when those who have long been constrained by a traditional code of silence summon the courage to break it.

Exploring topics ranging from religion, safe schools and economic development, to discrimination, tolerance and understanding, OUT IN THE SILENCE offers a compelling model for civic engagement and dialogue and is an ideal tool for bringing people of all ages together to begin the process of building bridges rather than walls on issues that have divided our communities for far too long.

Visibility & Outreach

Produced in conjunction with the Sundance Institute and Penn State Public Broadcasting, OUT IN THE SILENCE is an Official Selection of the 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, and has appeared and won awards in dozens of film festivals around the country. It began PBS broadcast on the Pennsylvania Public Television Network in September 2009 and will be broadcast on PBS stations across the country beginning in June 2010.

While such exposure is incredibly helpful to the overall goals of the campaign, the most important and impactful work is being done at the community level. To-date, over 75 events have been held at public libraries, churches and community centers around Pennsylvania and in a few other states, with several town-hall-style events done in conjunction with major civil rights and faith-based organizations, and more than 125 youth-initiated screenings have occurred at middle and high schools, colleges and universities.

At each event, there is a diverse and lively audience eager to engage in dialogue about community problems and potential solutions. In addition to raising LGBT visibility and awareness about issues of concern, the events serve as important opportunities to sign people up for ongoing work with local and state organizations as well as to engage them in specific actions and campaigns that need organizing, advocacy and political support to succeed.

Click here to ask for more information about this project:

return to search

Main Menu

Featured Project