Fiscal Sponsorships:
*Please note: WE ARE NOT CURRENTLY TAKING ON ANY ADDITIONAL FISCAL SPONSORSHIPS.*
Trust by Diane Lansing & Renee Dorian
Trust is based on a true story that is all too familiar today. A moment in time set in Varese, Italy during WW2, when a young jewish girl is questioned by a Nazi Lieutenant who wiles her with chocolate and outdoor play then tries to trick her into revealing their true identities by switching languages to expose her family is Jewish.
All donations through this page will go toward supporting the Women's Weekend Film Challenge.
Pitch Her Productions is a fiscal sponsor for the Women's Weekend Film Challenge!
The Women's Weekend Film Challenge is a women-in-film initiative by Katrina Medoff and Tracy Sayre that creates teams of all-female casts and crews to write, shoot and edit short films in just one weekend.
After a successful inaugural challenge held in New York City in January 2018, in which 160+ participants completed 9 short films, WWFC will be holding more challenges in New York City as well as in Los Angeles and other cities.
Boxers of Brule by Jessie Adler
The documentary short The Boxers of Brule follows 23 year old Shaionna Grass Rope as she creates a girls’ boxing team in memory of her best friend - amateur boxer Cheryl Ziegler - who she lost to suicide in January 2017. As she fights to lead the girls of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe towards a safer path, she struggles with her own past trauma and addiction.
Longer by Susana Darwin
An opera superstar only needs to hear the tune “Longer” once in a smoky club for her keen eye and cheeky mouth to bring a jazz musician’s secret crush to light. And she only needs a bit of practice to surprise both the crush and the musician with a special performance of the song. But does she really forget the words, or is she playing Cupid in a silver lamé tunic?
Three women with a shared passion for music navigate the tensions among unspoken ardor and long-standing affection, fame and obscurity, music in performance and music as obsession.
Longer reminds us of the thrill and terror of a crush.
Pink & Blue by Níkẹ Uche Kadri
Pink & Blue is the third short film from actor and writer Níkẹ Uche Kadri. After a surprise pregnancy with her Asian trans partner, a Black straight-laced lesbian must confront heteronormative societal pressures and her Christian father to determine her child’s future. Pink & Blue stars a cast of lesbian, gender queer, trans, non-binary, and cis-gender actors of color, and through our sponsorship with Pitch Her Productions, will have the same inclusiveness behind the camera.
Right now in America, trans folk of color experience the most extreme violence. Pink & Blue is a love letter to the LGBTQ+ community celebrating a love story for all, that humanizes and normalizes the experience of creating life/parenthood for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Pink & Blue combats the negative rhetoric around trans and queer folk with a celebration of a loving, healthy relationship between a trans woman of color and a cis lesbian woman of color and addresses the growing need for more on-screen representation of the myriad of LGBTQ+ relationships that occur in real life.
Please support us in acknowledging the power of film and visuals to create a safer world for marginalized people.
fishing: a series by Alicia Carroll
FISHING is a comedy web series that explores the world of online dating and current attitudes toward cyber-identity and authenticity through the eyes of eight distinct people in search of love, purpose and justice. This is a series for lovers of Romantic Comedies, Crime shows, and Shakespeare, alike. Fishing is produced and directed by a badass team of entirely women, and is written, designed, and crewed by phenomenal women, POC, and LGBTQ+ artists.
Duncan wants love. Casey wants justice, but their Catfisher’s unknown identity poses a slight problem for them both. Fishing is a series about love, technology, and lying. This dark and timely comedy is written, crewed up, and ready to rock your understanding of modern love.
Pete's Valve by Katy-May Hudson
Prudence and Roger meet for the first time. After asking him a series of unusual qualifying questions, we see them begin a temporary "relationship”, leading to the saving of one life and the ending of another. Pete’s Valve is a kooky, dark comedy about duty under duress, missed connections, deep regret, and the metaphorical, as well as physical placement of the human heart.
Katy-May Hudson is an interdisciplinary artist who has collaborated with artists and organizations such as Youtube TV, Whohaha, New York Women in Film and TV, ART/NY, Funny or Die, SVA Theater, University of Delaware and Hofstra University. She is the Creative Director of She Said Productions, Founder/Festival Director of The Brooklyn Women's Film Festival, & Co-Artistic Director of The New York Neo Futurists. Pete's Valve is KM's directorial debut and she could not be more thrilled to be doing it as part of SVA's Masters of Directing program.
What She Said by Shallow Graves
PHD candidate, Sam, should be nearly finished with her dissertation. Instead, she’s spent the the last year in and out of court pursuing charges against her rapist. When she receives news that the trial is postponed yet again, Sam heads to her family’s remote cabin in the Virginia woods, effectively ghosting everyone in her life. A few days before Thanksgiving, Sam’s oasis is interrupted as her brother comes barging in with Sam’s closest friends in tow, to stage a pseudo-intervention and convince her to return to the city and finish out the trial.
Shallow Graves strives to tell small stories that embody the human experience while exploiting the universal three-dimensionality of all people — whether those people live on a small screen, big screen, or eight times a week in a tiny blackbox. In this political climate and beyond, the goal is to focus on stories — damn good stories — by women about women, while providing platforms for intersectional storytelling by amplifying the voices of women of color and other marginalized groups. Follow them @shallowgravesNY
Baby Steps by Dava Krause
Baby Steps is a single camera comedy about an Advertising Exec turned Stay-at-Home-Mom, who’s trying to reconcile her feminism while scraping banana off the floor.
Stripped by Stephanie Bonner
Set against the background of a speakeasy-style strip club run by women out of a Brooklyn apartment, Stripped is an exploration of what it means to be a feminist in these modern, divisive times.
In Stitches by Hannah Rafkin and Meg Robbins
In a country with 11 national languages, not all are equal. South African comedians are fighting back by standing up for their mother tongues—and healing the wounds of apartheid in the process.
In Stitches follows three trailblazing South African comedians who are bringing their mother tongues to the stage. More than two decades after the fall of apartheid, 11 official languages thrive in South Africa.
Despite this, English continues to dominate the comedy scene. Sixty percent of the population cannot understand a word.
Vernacular comedians Noko Moswete, Luphelo Kodwa, and Zicco Sithole are flipping the script. Addressing the long-ignored South African majority, these artists are decolonizing comedy. Audiences are hooked. Vernac shows buzz with unparalleled energy, somewhere between a rock concert and a sermon. Never before have black South African audiences shared such powerful catharsis, led by magnetic comedians who look and sound like them. If laughter is the best medicine, these artists act as guerrilla medics, using humor to tend to the untreated masses.
This work isn’t easy. Offstage, these comedians face immense obstacles: media disinterest, family conflicts, sexism, and pressures to succeed in the nation’s fastest city.
ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Hannah Rafkin and Meg Robbins are co-directing and co-producing IN STITCHES, their first documentary. They are no strangers to working together, though—after meeting as freshmen in Film 101 and realizing they share a birthday, they soon became best friends and creative partners. Both Hannah and Meg are experienced storytellers, with backgrounds in print, digital, and photo journalism. They graduated from Bowdoin College in 2017 and spent a semester in Cape Town in 2015.
the CREW:
Directed & Produced by Hannah Rafkin & Meg Robbins Associate Producers Pitch Her Productions Edited by Khalid Shamis & Kyle Wallace Original Music by Dumama & Kechou Animations by Kiyomi Taylor Director of Photography Hannah Rafkin Sound Engineer Meg Robbins Audio Mixer Vuyo Rhoda Colorist Regardt Voges Story Consultant Kurt Orderson Production Assistants LeeRoy Moyo & Aphendule Pakade Translators Noma Moshani, Rhandzeka Mawuku, & Gelo Maredi
The Boxers of Brule by Jessie Adler
A documentary about a young Lakota woman who creates a girls’ boxing team on her reservation after losing her best friend to suicide.
Amidst rising suicide rates on the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation, Shaionna creates a girls boxing team with urgent hope of leading them down a safer path. The sassy pre-teen squad faces daily challenges with humor and slushy-stained smiles, but Shaionna’s lingering drug addiction taunts her all the while.
Magic Hour by Jacqueline Christy
Magic Hour is the first feature film by Jacqueline Christy. In this semi-semi-autobiographical film, Harriet, a 40-something housewife decides it is finally time to live for herself when her two-timing husband leaves both her and her bank account completely drained. She takes it upon herself to enroll in film school behind both her daughter and estranged husband's backs, and starts living life on her own terms. This Manhattan-based comedy starring acclaimed actress, Miriam Shor, explores the difficulties of starting anew as a woman in mid-life, and celebrates the notion that it is never too late to start again.
Read more about it from The Hollywood Reporter here & in Broadway World here!
Magic Hour is a film about a female filmmaker, which is being made by a diverse group of women both in front of and behind the camera. The film celebrates women of all ages and celebrates the idea that our best years are ahead of us, no matter age, gender, or creed.
Wham! by Wi-Moto Nyoka
Aquila and Sadiquah are two of the best students at 362 MLK Middle School. But when the school begins to break out into mysterious rage episodes, the uninfected will have to find the courage to save their school. And their future.
Courting Simone by Mariel Neto
Mariel Neto began her career in entertainment working in professional theatre by the age of ten. After a success career on the stage, she fell in love with the camera after acting in her first feature film, Seven Minutes. Since then she has worked on a variety of films and television shows, including Showtime’s critically-acclaimed Masters of Sex. An avid writer of short fiction, poetry, and plays, Mariel was driven to explore screenwriting after moving to Los Angeles. Usually in front of the camera, this is her first foray into the production side of filmmaking. She has a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts where she studied Acting and Playwriting.