Every seat was filled at the Hollywood Theatre Sunday, as the Produced by Her program culminated with the premiere of four short documentaries made by 11 girls this summer.
Facilitated by creative change agency Vox Siren, Produced by Her was a unique opportunity for adolescent girls to develop, direct, write and edit their own films on topics they want people to know about.
The young filmmakers chose challenging topics for their films:
- Traffick, an exploration of the causes and effects of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the Portland region
- Empowered Streets, a celebration of women-led street art creation
- We Are Black Women, a frank conversation about the experience of Black girls and women in Oregon
- A Space for Us, on the importance and vulnerability of safe places for LGBTQ people
For each film, the filmmakers identified subjects to interview, wrote scripts, chose music and completed all the filming and post-production. All in the span of five weeks.
Metro was a major sponsor of the program, which brought together a diverse array of partners and sponsors, including Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest, NW Documentary, Travel Portland, Cycle Oregon, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, Portland Community Media, Upswell and more.
The Sunday premiere at the Hollywood featured all four films along with a making-of documentary about the program, as well as a selection of films from the Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival's POWGirls program, which also trains girls in the art of filmmaking.
Content available online
As part of the Produced by Her program, Metro staff created an immersive online story site of the films and the participants' experience through the summer.
The site includes the films along with biographies of the participants, maps of their experiences and behind-the-scenes information about how the program was created.
Experience Produced by Her online