Why It Matters:
On January 27th, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, which suspended the entry of immigrants from seven countries, and forced the United States to reckon with a wrenching question: can America still stand as a beacon to newcomers?
In South Portland, Maine, this question has been playing out well before Trump's election, and in every possible place: on the streets, in homes, and even in the local high school. Considered the “whitest” state in the nation, even with immigration on the rise, Maine offers a fitting backdrop for a film that takes place during an increasingly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim time in the US.
Against the backdrop of terror attacks in Paris and the 2016 US presidential campaign, 13 teenage girls at South Portland High School work to get to know each other. The girls, hailing from the Congo, Jamaica, Somalia, Vietnam, and Maine, begin to understand what fuels mistrust, fear and violence against recent immigrants and how to build bridges instead of barriers between different people.
The film follows the young women over an eight-week program of face-to-face encounters as they learn about each other, healthy eating, and hip hop. A year later, following the 2016 US Presidential election, the filmmakers re-visit the young women to talk about the changes in their lives, school, community, and the enduring effects of participating in the program. Maine Girls illuminates not just differences between us, but inspires concrete steps for building understanding and acceptance.
How You Can Help?
With shooting now complete, funding is needed to edit and finish the film. We need to raise funds for color-correction, sound mix, editing, and graphics. We ultimately will create an effective outreach and educational program which will be used to foster awareness and dialogue in schools and communities around the issues facing immigrant and non-immigrant youth as well as programs aimed at addressing their needs.
All donations are tax deductible.
Meet Our Team
Yael Luttwak, Director/Producer
Yael directed and co-produced her first feature A SLIM PEACE, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast worldwide and on the Sundance Channel in the US. Yael's recent films include My Favorite Neoconservative screened at the San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C., Jewish Film Festivals and To Step Forward Myself which premiered at the 2016 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival and won the Audience Award and The Robinson International Short Film Silver Prize. Currently, Yael is in post-production on Maine Girls, making films for production and commercial companies, local organizations, non-profits and serves on the Advisory Board of Stone Soup Films. Yael Luttwak graduated from the London Film School, where she specialized in directing. She assisted the Oscar-nominated Mike Leigh's production, "Two-thousand Years," a play at London's National Theatre. Her short films have been widely distributed, among them HANS RAUSING and YITZHAK RABIN: 1922-1995, a New Regency production.
Yael lives in Washington, D.C. with her son.
Abigail Tannebaum Sharon, Director/Producer
Abigail Tannebaum Sharon is a native Washingtonian and discovered her love for cinema at the age of two during a drive-in movie. Her love for film has not faded and she has been telling stories ever since. Abigail feels fortunate to make a living at it as a documentary filmmaker-- she produced/directed three independent documentary films. Her first independent film Rudy & Neal Go Fishing is an award-winning film about a U.S. Veteran coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who goes fishing for therapy. Rudy & Neal Go Fishing made its broadcast premiere Memorial Day 2015 on Fox Sports 1. Her work over the past two decades includes an Emmy-award winning program with clients ranging from a national commercial campaign, National Geographic Channel, UpWorthy, PBS, Discovery Channel, TLC, HGTV, and VOA. Abigail graduated from McGill University in Quebec, Canada, and received McGill’s Scarlet Key Award celebrating excellence in leadership and is a member of McGill's Scarlet Key Society.
Sonnie Dockser, Executive Producer
Sonnie is president of the Dockser Family Foundation. The foundation supports education, humanitarian needs, scientific and medical research, and the arts. She is a member of the Board of Vital Voices, and a member of the Executive Committee. Since 2003 she has played an active role in Vital Voices Middle East/Northern Ireland program, working with women leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Arab Israeli, and Arab leaders from the West Bank and Gaza. The program grew to include women from South Africa to bring greater understanding as they work toward peace. She is a member of the International Governing Board of the Weizmann Institute of Science. She is president of Slim Peace Groups. She is a member of the Women’s Leadership Board at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Sheila Kinkade, Co-Producer
Writer, storyteller, and filmmaker Sheila Kinkade has spent much of her career advocating for the needs of young people in the U.S. and internationally. She is co-producer of Cafeteria Man, a feature-length documentary chronicling a pioneering school food reform effort in Baltimore, MD; co-author of Our Time is Now: Young People Changing the World, a book profiling 30 young heroes in 20 countries; and the author of four nonfiction children’s books celebrating our world as a common home. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism with roots in Maine, Sheila brings to Maine Girls a passion for the documentary tradition, combined with 25 years of experience in developing results-based communications strategies for nonprofit organizations.
Susan Barocas, Co-Producer
Susan Barocas is a writer, producer, and director specializing in documentary film and films for non-profit organizations. Her broadcast credits include projects for Discovery, Channel 4 (London), PBS, Maryland Public Television, and Sierra Club, among others. Recently, she served as the National Outreach Manager for National Geographic’s North American release of the award-winning 3D giant screen film Jerusalem and in a similar position for the Justice Matters Impact Project for the Washington, DC International Film Festival. Also an experienced producer of special events, Susan served as director of the Washington Jewish Film Festival for several years as well as the Women in Film and Video International Film Festival. A board member of CINE, she chairs the Circle Award jury for the Washington, DC International Film Festival.
David Grossbach, Editor
David Grossbach has been editing films professionally for more than 30 years, including Cafeteria Man, which was an Official Selection at the prestigious Silver Docs Film Festival in Washington, D.C. He has produced, written, and edited shows for PBS, DISCOVERY Channel, National Geographic, The History Channel, and for theatrical release. Currently he’s editing films about Henrietta Boggs, the former first lady of Costa Rica and the DC Divas Women’s full contact football team. He lives in Baltimore and NYC with his wife, the novelist Jessica Anya B
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