Podcast: Filmmaker Roundtable from the Global Peace Film Fest

[Note: In the above podcast, we had some technical strangeness that merged two separate shows together during recording. You can still hear the conversation, but there is a funky beat playing at the same time. Apologies.]

Carolina Groppa (producer of Autism in Love), Mike Snyder (director of The Vision Within) and Nina Gilden Seavey (director of Parables of War) joined us to talk about their films on Wednesday, September 30th  to inspire audiences ahead of an upcoming screening at the Global Peace Film Festival. Also joining us was Nina Streich, producer of the festival.

About the FilmS

The Vision Within: A group of college students travel deep into the heart of the Amazon rainforest to meet an ancient dream culture living today in much the same way that they have lived for thousands of years and learn how inner visions can play a critical role in our lives and in awakening a socially just, environmentally sustainable future.

Autism in Love: What happens when children with autism grow up and want to have lives of their own? Autism in Love follows Lenny’s search for the perfect woman, Lindsey and David as they consider the next step in their relationship, and Stephen as he faces the end of his marriage as best he can. Capturing the usually unexplored experiences in the lives of autistic adults, this touching documentary presents a personal and critical perspective on the most important aspect of the human condition… love.

Parables of War: Based on excerpts from the creation process of MacArthur “Genius” Award-winning choreographer Liz Lerman’s theatrical dance piece, “Healing Wars,” Parables of War explores the intersection of art with artist and the ways in which art can help bind the wounds of war — both for the soldiers and for those they left behind.  Parables of War witnesses the journey of three men who are in one way or another casualties of war: actor Bill Pullman; dancer Keith Thompson; and former Marine Josh Bleill. Transcending performance, ‘Parables’ explores the intricate nexus that exists between art and artist, between presentation and personal narrative, between historical truth and contemporary experience. Ultimately, what is laid bare is the struggle of the wounded and their healers that expresses itself both in art as in life itself.

About the Festival

The Global Peace Film Festival (GPFF) celebrates its annual event from September 28 through October 4 in various locations throughout Orlando and Winter Park Florida. This unique event draws together filmmakers and filmgoers from all walks of life into a community of people inspired to take action in their daily lives. The program includes nearly 60 films from around the world, K-12 Peace Art Exhibit, and panel discussions.

The Global Peace Film Festival was established to utilize the power of the motion picture to further the goal of peace on earth. The GPFF presents films from around the world and global discussions that highlight the power of this extraordinary medium as it relates to new peace issues. See films from around the world, attend educational panels, meet filmmakers and special guests and hear from local activists about their work. Visit peacefilmfest.org for more information.

This show originally aired LIVE on September 20, 2015 at 4pm EST on WPRK 91.5 FM in Winter Park, FL.

Podcast: “The White House Overture” featured in the upcoming Global Peace Film Fest

[Note: In the above podcast, the conversation starts around the nine minute mark.]

The revolution will not be televised – it will be danced into being in living rooms like the very special one tucked inside The Timucua White House.  Steve Radley, director of “The White House Overture,” along with Benoit Glazer and wife Elaine Corriveau held a lively conversation on Wednesday, September 23rd  to inspire audiences ahead of an upcoming screening and live performance at the Global Peace Film Festival. Also joining us was Nina Streich, producer of the festival.

Screen shot 2015-09-30 at 11.08.47 AM

About the Film

“The White House Overture” is a 35 minute feature film about an underground cultural institution in Orlando, The Timucua White House. Montréal-born Benoit Glazer has been making music professionally since 1981. He is a trumpet player, arranger and a conductor for Cirque du Soleil, La Nouba in Orlando, Florida. His love for music runs deep, so deep, in 2007 he and his wife, Elaine Corriveau, built a concert hall in their house. Just about every Sunday night, strangers (who become friends) gather in their (state of the art) living room turned concert hall to share a unique experience of music and art. Admission is a dish, snacks or a bottle of wine. They’ve hosted over 400 concerts, musicians from 24 countries along with 300 artists.  Watch the trailer:

The white house Overture (trailer) from Steve Radley on Vimeo.

About the Festival

The Global Peace Film Festival (GPFF) celebrates its annual event from September 28 through October 4 in various locations throughout Orlando and Winter Park Florida. This unique event draws together filmmakers and filmgoers from all walks of life into a community of people inspired to take action in their daily lives. The program includes nearly 60 films from around the world, K-12 Peace Art Exhibit, and panel discussions.

The Global Peace Film Festival was established to utilize the power of the motion picture to further the goal of peace on earth. The GPFF presents films from around the world and global discussions that highlight the power of this extraordinary medium as it relates to new peace issues. See films from around the world, attend educational panels, meet filmmakers and special guests and hear from local activists about their work. Visit peacefilmfest.org for more information.

This show originally aired LIVE on September 23, 2015 at 4pm EST on WPRK 91.5 FM in Winter Park, FL.

On “Sweetening the Pill” with Laura Wershler

With just a few days left for the Kickstarter campaign by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein to raise the funds needed to make their next documentary, Julie spoke with Laura Wershler about many of the topics to be brought into main stream attention about hormonal birth control.

Topic of Conversation: Synthetic Birth Control

“Inspired by the provocative 2013 book Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control by Holly Grigg-Spall, Sweetening the Pill, the documentary, aims to fairly critique hormonal birth control and raise awareness of non-hormonal alternatives. Lake and Epstein hope to do for birth control what their acclaimed documentary The Business of Being Born did for birth, get us thinking beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Currently for contraception, that one-size approach is all about synthetic hormones packaged as—what are now being called—modern contraceptive methods.” Read the full article here.

Our Guest: Laura Wershler

Laura Wershler, B.Sc., is a veteran pro-choice sexual and reproductive health advocate and women’s health critic who has worked for or volunteered with Planned-Parenthood-affiliated organizations in Canada since 1986. Ms Wershler wrote the foreword to the book, Sweetening the Pill. Laura graduated with a Certificate in Journalism from Mount Royal University in 2011. She has contributed columns on women’s health to Troymedia.com and blogs regularly for re:Cycling, the blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. Follow her on Twitter @laurawershler

Resources for Further Reading

Body Literacy, “Sweetening the Pill” Book, Cycle Tracking App

Global Peace Film Festival Filmmaker Roundup with Nina Streich

Click the arrow to listen in:http://www.websightdesigns.com/frontporch/stream.php?id=2011-09-21_Front_Porch_Radio

Nina Streich is the Producer of the Global Peace Film Festival now in it’s ninth year here in Central Florida. This podcast discusses the festival and several filmmakers filled the studio to share about their films and the important topics they are so passionate about.

  • Lisa Tillmann, director of Off the Menu and a Rollins professor
    Whose political and economic interests are served by the ways people in the U.S. tend to relate to our own bodies, to others’ bodies, to eating, and to food? In the arenas of body and food, who has what kind of power? Who profits, and at whose expense? How can everyday people—like us!—resist and promote healthier relationships with body and food? Off the Menu documents a collaboration between 24 students and one professor of a course called The Political Economy of Body and Food. Through research, personal narratives, and critical art, contributors interrogate body and food-related assumptions, stereotypes, attitudes, values, and practices. 
  • Aleksey Siman, director of Food for Granted
    Food for Granted explores the issues of food waste and ostensible overproduction of food in restaurants, buffets and convention centers. Food industry tosses away tons of good, unused food everyday, while one in five people in United States struggle to put food on the table. Using Central Florida as the example of this underrated subject matter, filmmaker Aleksey Siman poses candid and inquisitive questions to food industry professionals in hopes to find a solution to a food waste epidemic. 
  • Emmanuel Itier, director of a film in last year’s festival – The Invocation – and he has a work in progress called “Femme: Women Healing the World” http://www.wonderlandentgroup.com/?n=news
  • Bob Frye, director of In My LIfetime