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Invisible Revolution

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Mature Language & Content

Official Selection, 2001 Sundance Film Festival

2001 ALA Awards

MOMA Documentary Fortnight

Human Rights Watch Int'l Film Festival

Broadcast: Sundance Channel, CBC's Passionate Eye. Portions were aired on ABC, Dateline, & HBO's America Undercover


"unsettling and disturbing…" Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America

Invisible Revolution captured a revealing interview with a young racist, Ben Smith, just 2 weeks prior to the deadly shooting rampage he went on in Indiana and Illinois before shooting himself. Among the stolen lives was the much beloved Ricky Birdsong, the former Northwest University basketball coach. Peterson's extraordinary access to skinheads, gutter punks, and mainstream kids drops the viewer into the front lines of a powerful, passionate, and very raw youth subculture. She documents not only the young people involved in the pro-white movement, but also the countermovement that demonstrates against and often clashes with them: Anti-Racist Action (ARA). After a decade of going unheard, these voices create a stirring and unique look at urgent and timely issues that can be conveyed only by actually viewing the physical confrontations between the two groups as they collide in a war of ideas. Viewers will also become aware of the extreme danger that ARA members expose themselves to: in 1998 two members of ARA were murdered in the Las Vegas desert. Leonard, a 21-year-old neo-Nazi skinhead sums up: "We are two separate groups . . . There's always going to be racism. There's always going to be hate. We're going to do whatever it takes to get the other one out of the way . . ." Educational Distributor: Alexander Street/Filmakers Library

71 West Broadway: Ground Zero, NY

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2002 Library of Congress 9/11 Commemoration

Walker Art Museum

The Warhol Museum

The Kitchen

Wisconsin Int'l Film Festival

Broadcast: Sundance Channel, PBS (WNET) "REEL NY

'Take One' [WNET PBS} boasts the true gems in this collection. It begins with the longest and strongest piece, Beverly Peterson's '71 West Broadway, Ground Zero, NY' That's her home address, and the film recounts what happened to her place and her friends and neighbors as everyday life stopped, then struggled to resume." - NY DAILY NEWS, David Bianculli, 6/7/02"

 

The highlight of [the Sundance Channel] by far is the first-person short titled "71 West Broadway, Ground Zero, NY" by Beverly Peterson who lives just two blocks from the attack site..." - TIMES PICAYUNE PUBLISHING, Dave Walker 9/08/02

 

" … this poignant documentary …gives a valuable record of how the attacks on the World Trade Center affected Lower Manhattan and its inhabitants." School Library Journal

Like thousands of New Yorkers who live downtown, the filmmaker Beverly Peterson witnessed close-up the horrific events of 9/11. Her first instinct was to grab her video camera in order to bear witness to the tragedy unfolding. Filming became a way of surviving the following months as she documented what was happening to her community. Beverly and her husband were forced to evacuate their apartment on West Broadway for several weeks. Then the hard work of cleaning up began. Some businesses in the neighborhood had been forced to close, others limped along, helping each other survive. Many were owned by recent immigrants to N.Y.C. who are featured in the film. The community was forced to organize to demand financial assistance from the government for the cleaning and rehabilitation of individual residences and businesses. They are still rebuilding their lives thanks to their strenuous efforts to help themselves and each other. 20 Minutes ©2002 Educational Distributor: Proquest/Filmakers Library

The Andre Show

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San Francisco Int'l Film Festival,

Taos Talking PicturesFilm Festival

Sydney Int'l Film Festival

Exit Art

Broadcast:  PBS 

In this poignant documentary, filmmaker Beverly Peterson and her adopted son Andre share the story of an extraordinary friendship. Despite living with HIV from birth and experiencing poverty, deprivation, and the loss of his mother, this remarkable young boy chose to face life head-on, fiercely determined to take control of his destiny and make sense of it all. Much of the story is told through Andre's own video diaries and drawings, as he comes to terms with the physical and emotional challenges of his short yet intense life, and the struggles to create the family he had always wanted.  43 minutes © 1997

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