SXSW 2022 - Shouting Down Midnight, Video Visit, Tomorrow's Hope, and Shadow

Welcome to day three of our SXSW Film Festival coverage, and we've got four films that are certain to spark a greater conversation about the state of our country, government, and world as a whole. 

The feature documentary Shouting Down Midnight follows then Texas Senator Wendy Davis' filibuster of SB5 in 2013 that sparked a whole new generation of activists in the fight for women's reproductive freedom. We spoke with director Gretchen Stoeltje about why she felt compelled to tell this story, how she got connected with Wendy Davis, and why the next generation of activists gives her hope for the future.

In the short documentary Video Visit, we're introduced to a Brooklyn Public Library program that offers free video calls to those incarcerated and their loved ones. Director Malika Zouhali-Worrall explains how she found out about the program, how communicating with loved ones in prison has become a booming private business (PRISONS SHOULD NOT BE FOR PROFIT!), and the importance and impact of public libraries. 

Tomorrow's Hope: The Promise of Early Childhood Education is a documentary that follows the passionate educators and kids and their families on the south side of Chicago, who were determined to make it despite the struggles of living in what was at the time, the largest housing project in the world. We were joined by producers Tamra Raven and Aaron Steinberg who shared how they chose which kids they were going to follow, why it's important to invest not just in the kids, but their parents, and the trials and tribulations of producing a film with a lot of archival footage (and which producer may have worked harder than the other).

Shadow is a narrative feature about a group of activists that hold a public meeting to discuss human rights, sexual politics, and the  dominance of artificial intelligence. We spoke with director Bruce Gladwin and actor/co-writer Scott Price about this film being born from Aus

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