IMPACT CAMPAIGN
The Film’s impact campaign, http://www.bodyparts.com/#moretotalkabout, launches with an in-depth More To Talk About conversation with host Andrea Ambam, scholar Stephane Dunn, and filmmakers Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Helen Hood Scheer as they explore some of the themes and questions provoked by Body Parts. Executive Producer and Impact Producer Level Forward will be announcing further engagement activities, partnerships, and resources in the near future.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Kristy Guevara-Flanagan • Director
Kristy Guevara-Flanagan is an Associate Professor at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television where she heads the MFA Directing Documentary concentration. Her most recent short film Águilas (co-directed with Maite Zubiaurre; SXSW, PBS, The New Yorker), about a group of volunteers who help recover bodies of missing migrants crossing the border, was short-listed for the 2022 Academy Awards. Kristy has been making award-winning documentary films that focus on gender and representation for over two decades. Her debut feature Going on 13 (co-directed with Dawn Valadez, 2009), covering four years in the lives of four adolescent girls, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS. Her follow-up feature, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (2013), traces the evolution of the comic book hero Wonder Woman as a way to reflect on society’s anxieties about women’s liberation. Starring Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, and real-life superheroines such as Gloria Steinem and Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre), the film garnered numerous awards, premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival and was broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens in 2013. Her short, What Happened to Her (2016), explores our cultural obsession with images of the dead woman on screen and premiered at Hot Docs, where it received an honorable mention for best short. Kristy’s work has been funded by ITVS, the Sundance Institute, Fork Films, the International Documentary Association, Latino Public Broadcasting, and California Humanities. Many of her films are currently in educational distribution with Women Make Movies.
Helen Hood Scheer • Producer
Helen Hood Scheer is a documentary filmmaker, freelance producer, and Associate Professor at California State University Long Beach, where she spearheads the Creative Nonfiction program. Documentaries that Helen produced, directed, shot, and sometimes edited screened at over 100 venues including Hot Docs, Doc NYC, True/False, The National Gallery of Art, and the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase. For other directors, she produced or served as archival producer on award-winning documentary features, shorts, and series that have been broadcast on networks including HBO, PBS, ABC, A&E and National Geographic and screened at a variety of venues including Tribeca, SXSW, Museum of Popular Culture, the Getty Museum, and the British Film Institute. Helen made her directorial debut with JUMP!, a documentary feature film about competitive jump rope that earned numerous accolades and was acquired by Showtime. She also made several short films including The Apothecary, which won the Student Academy Award and both Jury and Audience Recognition at the Aspen Shorts Fest. Helen was recently nominated for a 2023 Distinguished Teaching Award and she received the CSULB President’s Award for the Advancement of Women for her instructional, creative, and service activity. Her work has been funded by Sundance, California Humanities, International Documentary Association, Level Forward, The Harnisch Foundation, The deNovo Initiative, and more. Helen earned a BA with Highest Honors in American Studies and a minor in History from University of California Santa Cruz and a M.F.A. in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford University.
About Shout! Studios
Shout! Studios is the filmed entertainment production and distribution arm of Shout! Factory, specializing in all aspects of distribution, including theatrical, VOD, digital, DVD/Blu-ray, and broadcast. Shout! Studios works with creators at the forefront of pop culture, driving creative expression and diversity in independent storytelling. Shout! Studios finances, produces, acquires, and distributes an eclectic slate of movies, award-winning animated features, specialty films and series from rising and established talent, filmmakers, and producers.
Upcoming releases include topical drama On Sacred Ground, starring William Mapother and David Arquette, the sci-fi comedy-drama Linoleum, starring Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn, epic fantasy adventure The Magic Flute, executive produced by Roland Emmerich and starring Jack Wolfe and Oscar®-winner F. Murray Abraham, neo-Western thriller Head Count starring Aaron Jaukobenko, Melanie Zanetti, and Ryan Kwanten, and documentary feature Refuge from levelFilm, Katie Couric Media and Artemis Rising.
About Level Forward
LEVEL FORWARD is a story-driven / impact-minded, Tony Award winning, ACLU/NYCLU honored film, theater, and television for-profit mini-studio comprised of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers. On project and systems levels, the Level Forward Team is striving to balance artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. Films include Body Parts, The Year Between, The Big Payback, The Assistant, Holler, Rebel Hearts, Topside, You Resemble Me, On The Record, and American Woman. Stage work includes POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumb Ass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive, Slave Play, What The Constitution Means To Me, Jagged Little Pill, and Oklahoma! Engage with our work at More To Talk About.
