Amie Williams – Jua Kali

INFO

Amie founded her own production company, Bal Maiden Films, in 1992, graduating form UCLA's MFA program in Film Production at the dawn of the "digital revolution." Taking advantage of these new technologies, her award-winning work has focused on giving voice to the margins, exploring new ways of telling stories, and developing projects across many cultures. From labor unions to African women's micro-finance collectives, AIDS orphans to environmental truckers, Bal Maiden Films is interested in driving creative ideologies shaped for the unique challenges facing a world in constant flux. Never content to stay put when there is a rally, protest, election, or uprising to follow, Amie has been excavating stories from Siberia to Soweto, Tokyo to Nairobi, crossing borders, building bridges and pushing boundaries, as well as her art to activate dialogue and debate.

Her credits include NO SWEAT, (2006) about bad-boy clothing manufacturer American Apparel, which recently premiered at the AFI Film Festival and was broadcast on KQED and Current TV; FALLON, NV: DEADLY OASIS (2004) about a childhood leukemia cluster, an ITVS-funded film broadcast on PBS; STRIPPED AND TEASED: TALES FROM LAS VEGAS WOMEN (2001), broadcast on Canadian television; ONE DAY LONGER: THE STORY OF THE FRONTIER STRIKE (2002); and UNCOMMON GROUND: FROM LOS ANGELES TO SOUTH AFRICA (1994). These films have won numerous awards, including the International Documentary Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Media Grant, the SONY/Streisand Award for emerging female filmmakers, Pioneer Fund, Paul Robeson Fund, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Prior to her film career, she lived and worked in Kenya as a teacher and health-communications consultant for the Ford Foundation and CARE, International and recently founded the non-profit organization, Global Girl Media, which nurtures the voice and self expression of young girls in under-served communities and developing nations with a goal to inspire and empower a future generation of female "citizen broadcast journalists" around the world to speak out about the issues that affect them most. www.globalgirlmedia.org