Women's Empowerment Film Event

Troop 1500 (Screening at 3:30pm)
At Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, a unique Girl Scout troop — Troop 1500 — unites daughters with mothers who are serving time for serious crimes, giving them a chance to rebuild their broken bonds. Facing long sentences from the courts, the mothers struggle to mend their fractured relationships with their daughters.

Off and Running (Screening at 4:30pm)
With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers — one mixed-race and one Korean — Brooklyn teenager Avery grew up in a unique and loving household. But when her curiosity about her African American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. This choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity, and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known.

Bronx Princess (Screening at 6:00pm)
Rocky Otoo is the Bronx-bred teenage daughter of Ghanaian parents, and she's no pushover. She is a sassy high-achiever bound for college. With freedom in sight, Rocky rebels against her mother's rules. When their relationship reaches a breaking point, Rocky flees to her father, a chief in Ghana. What follows is captured in Bronx Princess, a tumultuous coming-of-age story set in a homeland both familiar and strange. Her precocious — and very American — ideas of a successful, independent life conflict with her father's traditional African values. Reconciling her dual legacies becomes an unexpected chapter in this unforgettable young woman's education.

Shadya (Screening at 6:30pm)
Like many 17-year-old girls, Shadya Zoabi enjoys listening to music and hanging out with her friends. But unlike most other girls, Shadya is also a world champion in karate, a feminist in a male-dominated culture, and a Muslim Arab living in Israel. Depicting a universal conflict between tradition and modernity, Shadya is the coming-of-age story of a young Muslim woman who desires to succeed on her own terms while staying committed to life within her community.