A Night of Inspiration; 2014 "It's My Life' Youth Film Festival!

The 2014 “It’s My Life” film festival was a huge success and a truly inspiring night with young film makers around Atlanta. One unique aspect of the “It’s My Life” film festival is that it’s open to all youth under 23, whether you’re in college, high school, middle, or elementary school. Our youngest film maker was just seven years old this year!

This year we had twelve entries that were selected to be a part of the festival.  Every film maker was given a certificate for being selected and we’re super grateful that WonderRoot Community Art Center awarded every film maker with a free year membership! Young film makers now have access to all sorts of really amazing resources and classes! Big props to WonderRoot for providing this really important resource year after year!

Four films were given special recognition and two received a grand prize:

What If?

By Tameka Campbell and KeSaunna Irby 

Received the Student Career Alternatives Program award presented by Victoria Temple

Home Defenders

By Dillon Meusa and Jahla Jeffry

Received the Occupy Our Homes Atlanta award presented by Mildred Obi

It's My Life Undocumented

By Meredith McKay

Received the WonderRoot award presented by Josie Figueroa

After showing the film took a collection from the crowd to help fund Freedom University

Psychological Warfare

By Taj Omari

Received the Georgia WAND award presented by Becky Rafter

My Life My World

By Rich Will

Received the over 18 grand prize awarded by Dawn Gibson of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition

Show Me My Options

By Thalia Butts and Sydney Seabron

Received the under 18 grand prize awarded by Kamau Franklin with the American Friends Service Committee

Check out all the other “It’s My Life’ film festival selections here

We want to give a special thanks to:

All of our AMAZING volunteers, you all made this happen!!

Our Sponsors:

WonderRoot Community Art Center

Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition

Georgia WAND

Occupy Our Homes Atlanta

…and a big thanks to the Plaza Theater!

Be sure to join the new "It's My Life" facebook page to keep in touch!

"It's My Life" Film Festival Hit's Atlanta 4/29!

Join us at our 4th annual screening of the "It's MyLife" Youth Film Festival!

FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

6:30-- filmmakers walk the red carpet, take photographs, "Make the Connection" intros with youth justice & arts organizations

7:00--screening immediately followed by awards ceremony

afterward--networking in the lobby

"It's My Life" challenges youth filmmakers age 23 and under from around metro Atlanta to think about tough social justice questions and express their solutions creatively through 3 minute films. Every submission is shown on the big screen at the Plaza Theatre, and winners will be announced in person at the event.

This free event is a great networking opportunity for young filmmakers, family, friends, teachers, youth workers, and the community. Let's celebrate local youth using their talents to think about how to make change for peace and justice!

The dealine to enter is 4/24 at midnight, still time! Youcan also see info for the 2014 contest, including the guidelines and themequestions here.

Like our page and learn more about the festival here.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @itsmylife_atl for news and updates!

Prizes are provided by our wonderful sponsors:

American Friends Service Committee

Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition

Georgia WAND (Women's Action for New Directions)

Occupy Our Homes Atlanta

WonderRoot Community Arts Center

ATL Youth Building Skills With SCAP!

This past Sunday, AFSC's Student Career Alternatives Program hosted a “Movie Making Day” for youth.  Thanks to WonderRoot for the donation of their space and editing lab,  students flexed their creative muscle in storytelling through video.

Those in attendance learned filmic storytelling from start to finish as they explored writing, recording, interviewing, and editing. 

Each student personally interviewed, recorded, and edited a story that was uniquely their own. Whilst each story varied in tone, the general motif became a summers gone by as the four reminisced of adventures from a year or so past.

While the students learned a new camera, program, and medium, they more importantly learned a new way of expression and a voice that has existed in them ever-presently.

Victoria Temple

American Friends Service Committee

Wonderroot Day 2!

With the success of our first day facilitating field trips for CEO Kids summer camp, the group was anxiously awaiting our next meeting. We followed up with yet another day at Wonderroot Community Arts Center. The students were eager to check on their projects from the last Wonderroot visit and excited to see what other projects they could create.

On Friday at Wonderroot two of the volunteer staff were able to share with us the vision of Wonderroot of contributing to social change through art and also by providing a safe space for youth of their surrounding communities. This past Friday the students were taught how to make creative collages of things they felt passionately about. The collages ranged from themes of Justin Beiber to themes of the camp itself. Another new project they took on was patch making, where we saw similar themes to those that were in the collages. The students were excited to wear their patches proud!

The kids were also able to check in on their ceramics projects and were looking forward to coming back to Wonderroot on their own time to glaze their pieces. Finally, the most anticipated part of Friday was for the kids to get to listen to the final product of their 'Monkey Fist' track. It's definitely going to be a hit and will soon be up on the blog for others to have a listen!

CEO Kids is looking forward to SCAP further introducing them into the social justice world. We have a couple more field trips planned with the group that include serving food to the homeless with Food Not Bombs, and also a trip to the King Center! We're excited at every opportunity to reach youth, and even more excited that the youth we encounter want to continue to learn and be a part of SCAP!

Josie Figueroa

American Friends Service Committee

Social Justice Summer Camp Day One!

During a career fair at Stephenson high school Student Career Alternatives Program was approached by an enthusiastic faculty member,Tonetta Collins, who was organizing a summer camp for youth age 10-13. It's the first time Tonetta has organized a summer camp and she wanted to reach out to for ideas.

SCAP ended up agreeing to facilitate six all day field trips designed to open up dialogues with youth about social justice, grassroots community organizing, civic engagement, and arts as a medium for positive social change. Yesterday was day one and we all had a blast. SCAP partnered with Wonderroot Community Art Center for not just one but two field trips. Yesterday youth learned their way around Wonderroot digital media lab, recording studio, and ceramics studio. One of the exciting collaberative projects we all worked on that day was the recording of a song. Youth came up with a song that was about the famed martial arts move, "Monkey Fist" which ended up being an analogy for hidden strength and self defense. We'll be putting out the song on this blog tomorrow evening!

Youth also learned how a community art center works, and how they can access all the resources Wonderroot offers young folks. Camp participants were treated to a delicious lunch in Wonderoots community garden provided by Homegrown restaurant.

It's an understatement that day one went well. All the youth were super excited about their day and it was clear that they eagerly await day two. We want to give an extra big shout out to wonderroot, and all the amazing staff that devoted their time to our kids.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Atlanta Rallies For the Arts!

Today various art organization’s Including WonderRoot Community Art Center, Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Living Walls, Spellman Museum, and Dashboard Co-op pulled together a last minute demonstration outside of the regularly scheduled city council meeting.

The reason for the gathering? Mayor Kasim Reed has purposed that the council approval a 2012 budget that would reduce its funding for arts based grants to$250,000. To put those digits into perspective Nashville granted $1.8 million directly to arts and culture organizations. The City of Charlotte granted more than $3 million. Both cities are of course smaller than Atlanta.

It’s an established fact that every dollar investing into the arts in Atlanta produces jobs and profit hand over fist. It’s a curious move for Mayor Reed considering the lip service he’s given to the arts in the past.

Case in point:

“Atlanta, if it is to become the world-class city we all hope it will be, must invest more heavily in arts and cultural attractions. Arts and culture are more than just recreational activities. Studies have shown a direct correlation between arts funding and increased tourist and convention revenue, attraction of a more talented work force, and increased SAT scores for public high school students. We need to increase our capital contributions as well as the annual support we offer for operations and grant making. A robust public art program is a vital portion of public support for the arts & cultural community, but we must also build the necessary infrastructure, including affordable live/work space for young artists. I believe that $10 million is the minimum annual commitment we should be making, and I would absolutely support it.”

-Mayor Reed’s 2010 Cultural Platform.

Today over a hundred people came out of the woodwork to demand that city council reject Mayor Reed budget slashing proposal. It never ceases to trouble me that our Government has no problem finding an abundance of capitol when it comes time to building a new jail or prison to house non-violent drug offenders. It just seems to endlessly rain billions of dollars when Wall Street needs a handout, and the cash flows event harder for seemingly endless war in the Middle East.

What’s the price of recklessly holding up death, oppression, and people who are already rife with overabundance?

It forces our budgets to de-prioritize human need, programs of real social uplift. We are living in our countries’ greatest crisis of economic priority in my lifetime. Never has the public sector been forced to endure the dramatic budget cuts it now faces on every front, and it seems funding for the arts in Atlanta is no exception. I can’t think of a more crucial time for folks to have their political awakening and hit the streets, pick up the phone, and make some noise. We are clearly far beyond the point at which we can expect elected officials to do the right thing and lead us to the world we want to live in. It seems that we must provide that leadership, and they’ll have no choice but to follow.

Coverage from Channel 5 News

Creative Loafing Article

Call/ Email City Council and demand they support funding for the arts, not cuts!

City Council Members

Ceaser C. Mitchell / President
(404) 330 6052
ccmitchell@atlantaga.gov

Carla Smith
(404) 330 6039
csmith@atlantaga.gov
District 1

Kwanza Hall
(404) 330 6058
khall@atlantaga.gov
District 2

Ivory Lee Young
(404) 330 6046
ilyoung@atlantaga.gov
District 3

Cleta Winslow
(404) 330 6047
cwinslow@atlantaga.gov
District 4

Natalyn Moslay Archibung
(404) 330 6048
narchibung@atlantaga.gov
District 5

Alex Wan
(404) 330 6049
awan@atlantaga.gov
District 6

Howard Shook
(404) 330 6050
hshook@atlantaga.gov
District 7

Yolanda Adream
(404) 330 6051
yadream@atlantaga.gov
District 8

Felicia Moore
(404) 330 6044
fmoore@atlantaga.gov
District 9

C. T. Martin
(404) 330 6055
cmartin@atlantaga.gov
District 10

Keisha Bottoms
(404) 330 6054
kbottoms@atlantaga.gov
District 11

Joyce Sheppard
(404) 330 6053
jmsheppard@atlantaga.gov
District 12

Michael Julian Bond
(404) 330 6770
mbond@atlantaga.gov
Post 1 at LARGE

Aaron Watson
(404) 330 6302
aaronwatson@atlantaga.gov
Post 2 at Large

H. Lamar Willis
(404) 330 6041
hlwillis@atlantaga.gov
Post 3 at Large

Tim Franzen

American Friends Service Committee