Female - The World War on Women, is a documentary film addressing the various forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the globe.
Female - The World War on Women, is a documentary film addressing the various forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the globe.
Female - The World War on Women, is a documentary film addressing the various forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the globe.
Female - The World War on Women, is a documentary film addressing the various forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the globe.
Female - The World War on Women, is a documentary film addressing the various forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the globe.
A schoolgirl named Malala
refused to stop advocating for education for girls in Pakistan, even after
being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman.
An imam named Demba from a small village in Senegal visited 10 intermarrying
villages of his extended family and convinced them to end Female Genital
Mutilation. Now more than 5,000 other Senegalese villages have joined a growing
movement to end the practice.
Hundreds
of outcast and ostracized widows in Vrindavan, the city of widows in India, threw off
social stigmas and celebrated in the festival of Holi for the first time,
breaking centuries-old tradition and creating new hope for widows in India.
A
new generation of girls are resisting the age-old tradition of early marriage
and are insisting on finishing their education and ending the practice of child
marriage in their communities.
These
are the stories that inspire a new vision for ending violence against women
throughout the world today. These are the stories that need to be told, to
mobilize the world community to act.
The Film:
Female -- The World War on Women (working title) is a documentary film addressing the various
forms of violence and abuse suffered by women on every continent around the
globe. While exploring personal stories illustrating an array of issues such as
the feminization of poverty, gendercide, female genital mutilation, child
marriage, and the objectification and exploitation of women, experts seek
to identify the cultural mindsets and traditions that result in such human
rights violations while activists offer hope of change through viable solutions.
The Back Story
In the
recent groundbreaking documentary film, It’s
a Girl, the world was introduced to gendercide,
the global female genocide that has resulted in nearly 200 million ‘missing’ women in the world today– killed, aborted and
abandoned simply because they are girls. Shot on location in India and
China, It’s a Girl reveals the issue
and asks why this is happening and why so little is being done to save girls
and women.
Through It’s a Girl, Director Evan Grae Davis succeeded in leveraging the
power of documentary storytelling to engage nearly half a million people to
take action to end gendercide in India and China, and countless more were made
aware of this major global human rights violation.
It's a Girl has
screened in hundreds of locations in over 20 countries, including colleges and
universities, film festivals and symposiums, and most notably, in the European
and British Parliaments and on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
It’s a Girl has been featured in
countless interviews, articles, and reviews of major media outlets such as BBC
Radio, NPR, New Internationalist, Ms. Magazine, World Magazine, The Atlantic,
Voice of America, Christianity Today, Emirates Woman Magazine, CBC Radio, IndieWire, Movie Guide, Frontpage
Magazine, The Washington Times
and many more.
Evan Grae Davis has taken his film
and the issue of gendercide to some of the largest TEDx stages in South Asia
and the U.S., challenging leaders and influencers from all over the world to
take action to end gendercide – one of the most significant human rights issues
of our time and the greatest form of violence against women in the
world today.
See the It's a Girl trailer here:
It's a Girl is a huge success, and now it's time to think about what's next!
Introducing a second, and equally powerful, documentary
film project taking the It's a Girl
cause to the next level!
As the It’s a Girl action and screening campaign continues to gain
momentum, and with the recent successful release of It’s a Girl on DVD and iTunes, Evan Grae Davis is ready to take his
mission to the next level with his next feature length documentary film: Female
– The World War on Women.
The devaluation and subjugation of
women worldwide continues today on a scale never seen before in history. What
kind of epidemic is at the root of such widespread and methodical violence
targeting half of the world’s population?
The answer is misogyny: the hatred of women, or the belief that women are inferior to men.
It comes in many forms, including social discrimination, physical abuse, legal
discrimination, and the generalized objectification of women. Misogynistic
cultures often give husbands and fathers full legal rights over their wives and
daughters.
Misogyny can be found in every part
of the world, where one out of three women will become a victim of violence in
her lifetime. In many parts of the developing world, however, misogyny is even
more deeply woven into the fabric of the family and social culture – making the
violence inescapable.
Female – The World War on Women will explore this conspiracy of silence; this epidemic of
criminal cultural entrenchment, from the most compelling angles, enlisting the
help of some of the world’s leading authorities who will bring the issues into
bold focus.
Some of the possible stories to be
explored:
Feminization of Poverty
Poverty today has a woman's face.
Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s
income and own 1 percent of the means of production. Two out of three people
living in extreme poverty in the world today are women.
Female Feticide and Infanticide
More girls are killed in India and
China each year than are born in the U.S. as a result of gendercide. And
despite growing awareness about the plight of millions of girls being killed
every year, the practice continues to increase. The cultural preference for
sons, combined with the One Child Policy in China and dowry practices in India,
has resulted in a female genocide that far outnumbers the lives lost in all of
the major genocidal events of the 20th Century combined.
Female Genital Mutilation
According to the World Health
Organization, about 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living
with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation. In Africa, an estimated 101
million girls ten years old and above have suffered this brutal non-medical
procedure believed to reduce a woman’s libido and ensure premarital virginity
and marital fidelity. But the price paid by those who suffer this brutal practice
is a lifetime of pain, infections, increased risk of childbirth complications
and newborn deaths and often infertility.
Early Marriage/Child Brides
It is estimated that as many as 100 million girls will be given as child brides in early marriage over the next decade. Child brides are the victims of
cultural “norms” that turn a blind-eye to the unspeakable sexual exploitation
and rape of little girls made legal through marriage. Neither physically nor emotionally
ready to become wives and mothers, these girls are at far greater risk of
experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, becoming
infected with HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence. With little access to
education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely
to live in poverty.
Rape in War
Rape:
The physical, social, mental and emotional weapon of war targeted at
defenseless women and young girls.According
to the United Nations, women can face devastating forms of sexual violence
during times of war, which are sometimes deployed systematically to achieve
military or political objectives.
Widows
One of the greatest untold stories of
violence and abuse against women of our time is that of over 80 million women
thrown away today in the brutal aftermath of their husbands’ deaths. Tossed out like an unwanted garment,
they are left to fend for themselves in the face of strong social stigmas that
ensure they will not find work or a friendly hand up. Left with few options,
they often must resort to prostitution or begging. Subjected to social
isolation, rape or murder, forced into prostitution or remarriage, victims of property
theft and all kinds of physical and psychological abuse, hope is lost and their
lives become a daily hell.
What is the answer?
Woven throughout stories that capture the greatest forms of violence against women in the world today, the narrative of activists and experts will explore the hope for change seen in the
inspirational stories of those who are leading the way to greater rights and
freedoms for women within their own cultures, who are inspiring movements
demanding equality and justice.
We’ll also examine movements of the past that have been
successful in winning equality and justice, like the International Suffrage
movement and the women’s liberation and civil rights movement here in the US.
What made those movements successful and where can we find and support similar
movements in critical regions of the world today?
Why a Documentary?
Evan Grae Davis’ passion as a
filmmaker is to leverage the power of documentary storytelling to engage the
heart of the viewer in the critical issues of our time. A documentary film has
the ability to educate and mobilize grassroots action, allowing those who are
passionate about the issue to host screenings in their community. Through a
worldwide action and screening campaign, then through DVD, digital
distribution, television broadcast and educational use, a documentary film can
bring important issues like gendercide and violence against women to the world
stage unlike anything else.
Where’s the Money Going?
The goal of the films Evan Grae Davis
creates is to educate and mobilize a broad audience to take action and
collaborate with grassroots partner organizations working to restore dignity
and justice to those featured in his films. Evan creates his films to leave one
dominating question in the minds of the viewer: What can I do to help?
As a result, Evan’s distribution
model is designed for impact over profit. Funding his films through donations
frees Evan from the profit motive and empowers him to focus on getting the
message and issue in front of as many people as possible with the hope of
creating a grassroots movement.
Here’s how your money will be spent:
Why $30,000/ Why $300,000?
$30,000 will fund the development and
pre-production, getting us well into the production phases of the film,
allowing us to conduct the research, identify key stories, travel and capture
some preliminary footage and put together a trailer and other tools we will need to
raise the remaining funding for post production and distribution.
$300,000 is the overall budget for
the film and is our ultimate fundraising goal. A film like this, that captures
a global human rights issue, requires travel to multiple countries. Included in
this budget are research, travel, translation and transcription, equipment
costs, editing, art and design, original music, licensing footage, color
correction and sound sweetening, and marketing and distribution.
Our experienced team has learned how
to produce a high-quality product on an economically reasonable budget and will
begin work on this film immediately with the goal of releasing the film in the
fall of 2015.
What do I Get Out of This?
Besides the satisfaction of knowing
you helped create a grassroots movement restoring justice to millions of women
suffering unimaginable wrongs throughout the world today, you’ll get some
awesome rewards! Listed in the right column of this page are a number of gifts
we would love to give you to show our gratitude for your generous support for
this project.
How Can I Help?
Glad you asked! Crowdfunding
campaigns live and die by the extent to which they are shared with others.
After you've made a pledge, here are a few things you can do to spread the word
and keep the momentum going:
•Use the SHARE buttons (below
the video) to share this campaign on Facebook and/or Twitter (be sure to use
#?).
•Use the EMBED button (below the
video) to embed our Indiegogo video on your blog, Facebook, etc.
•Email friends, family and
co-workers about this campaign.
•Do all of the above again
throughout the duration of the campaign.
•Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the most up-to-date news & promotions
regarding the campaign.
•And, we'd love to hear from
you! Leave us a message and keep the conversation going on our social networks.
Lastly, thank you. This film will not
be possible without you.
Risks and Challenges:
This film will get made. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. I
believe that.
Justice matters. Compassion matters.
The human rights of these women should matter. You matter. This is your chance
to do something. Join us. We're an experienced team and know what it takes bring
this film to the marketplace and achieve maximum exposure. That said, there are
many risks associated with documentary filmmaking and things may take longer
than expected. Documentary filmmaking is a very unpredictable and fluid process
during which the scope and story continually evolve. It may take longer than we
estimate to obtain the necessary footage we're seeking (7-8 months). It may
take longer than we estimate to assemble the project together (6-8 months) and
deliver a final cut to our backers. These are the challenges and realities of
independent filmmaking today. It would
be AMAZING to raise our entire budget of $300,000 with your generous support
here on Indiegogo; nevertheless we are committed to pursuing all available
funding options to ensure this important film gets made. We believe in this
project because we believe in the dignity of women, and we are willing to go to
the mat to right this wrong and do what we can to restore value and equality to
women worldwide. Will you help us?
Looking for more information?Check the project
FAQ
Get a DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE including a DIGITAL COPY of Female- The World War on Women, along with other digital files of the POSTER art (19X27, suitable for printing in any size) and MUSIC made for the film.
9 claimed
It's a Girl Preview DVD
$25 USD
Give $25 and receive a PREVIEW COPY OF IT'S A GIRL ON DVD autographed by the director (contains film and trailer) plus the DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE plus a Female Film POSTER (19X27 folded- as seen in campaign description to left above "Why a Documentary"-- available in pink or blue) (add additional $10 for shipping outside the continental US)
Estimated Shipping
January 2014
3 out of 350 of claimed
It's a Girl Deluxe DVD
$35 USD
This newly released DELUXE IT'S A GIRL DVD contains the film, trailer, plus many special features and a discussion guide! You will also receive the DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE and POSTER (10X27- folded)
Estimated Shipping
January 2014
6 out of 200 of claimed
Female Film DVD
$35 USD
An AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF THE DVD, Female– The World War on Women once complete, along with a POSTER (folded) and the DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE. (add additional $10 for shipping outside the continental US)
5 claimed
It's a Girl and Female DVDs
$60 USD
$60 backers will receive the DELUXE IT'S A GIRL DVD plus FEMALE– THE WORLD WAR ON WOMEN DVD (both autographed) and a POSTER (folded) and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE. (add additional $10 for shipping outside the continental US)
5 out of 100 of claimed
Special Thanks Credit on Film
$100 USD
Have your name listed in the SPECIAL THANKS credits at the end of the film plus BOTH FILMS on autographed DVDs, POSTER and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE.
17 claimed
Skype Call with Director
$200 USD
Give $200 and receive a ONE HOUR SKYPE CALL with the film's director, Evan Grae Davis, plus AUTOGRAPHED DVDs OF BOTH FILMS, POSTER (folded) and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE. The Skype call will be scheduled based on Evan's availability over the next few weeks and the rest will be delivered upon completion of the film.
2 out of 30 of claimed
Tickets to Premiere Event
$500 USD
TWO TICKETS TO PREMIERE EVENT (city TBA, travel and accommodations not included) plus BOTH FILMS on autographed DVDs, POSTER and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE.
1 out of 10 of claimed
Director Live at your Event
$1,000 USD
Director Evan Grae Davis will ATTEND YOUR SCREENING EVENT in person. You will also receive TWO TICKETS TO THE PREMIERE SCREENING event (city TBA, travel and accommodations not included) plus AUTOGRAPHED DVDs OF BOTH FILMS, POSTER and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE. (Backer responsible for organizing event and covering all travel expenses for director.)
0 out of 5 of claimed
Executive Producer Credit
$5,000 USD
Backers who give $5000 or more receive an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER CREDIT on the film, along with TWO TICKETS TO THE FILM PREMIERE (city TBA, travel and accommodations not included) and BOTH FILMS on autographed DVDs, a SKYPE CALL with the director, POSTER and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD PACKAGE.