Home Stretch for the rough cut

Tapestries is beginning its home stretch (woo hoo!). With a strong post production team in place - led by line producer Christopher Bankston, editor Jessica Sison and writer Susan Black and backed by the amazing post production facilities at FatBox Films - the team, led by director Michealane Risley is hoping to have a rough cut in the Fall, in preparation for premiere in 2009!

Thanks for all your support (real world at our fundraisers, blogosphere and everything in between). We'd love to see you at an upcoming fundraiser on October 19th at the McGrail Vineyards in Livermore (see invitation below). Signup online.

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Also, Tapestries was invited to a panel discussion organized by the Producers' Guild of America featuring pathbreaking filmmakers who are leveraging new media to raise money, build audience and find distribution for their projects. Other filmmakers included Mark Jonathan Harris, who is behind Darfur Now and other Oscar-winning documentary films and the panel was moderated by Peter Broderick, who has worked with Christopher Nolan and 600+ other filmmakers on online strategies.

ps: huge shoutout to Jessica (our editor) whose short is screening at festivals everywhere. Track a screening near you!

Christian Science Monitor feature + Women@Google Speech

Christian Science Monitor recently wrote a feature about filmmakers successfully leveraging their online / social network fans to help with fundraising, and Tapestries was featured in this story. An excerpt:

Filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley has connected with activists concerned about sexual abuse by blogging about her experiences, which include being arrested and detained in Africa for filming without a journalist’s permit. “[The documentary] goes after that niche audience that is aware of the issue, that is somewhat socially conscious,” says Anand Chandrasekaran, one of the film’s producers.

The film is well into post production and preparing to be completed in the Fall. Also, director Michealene Risley was invited to the Women@Google series, which has featured Sen.Hillary Clinton among others in the past. Below is the video from the talk: