“You Have the Power,” a public appeal for parental involvement sponsored by the territory’s Stop the Bleeding Foundation, won national recognition recently at the third annual Baltimore Women’s Film Festival.
The foundation’s founder Cheryl Francis—who is also the wife of Lt. Gov. Gregory Francis—announced that the video message, in which three junior high school students plead with V.I. parents to take responsibility for their children’s lives, won the award in the category of “Best Film Under Five Minutes.”
Local television stations including TV8, TV2 and several of the cable channels aired the announcement, which premiered last April.
Shot on location at St. Croix’s John H. Woodson Junior High School and at several abandoned buildings at the Ralph De Chabert Housing community, the video was produced by SitaRam Filmworks under the direction of local filmmaker Cathy SitaRam and in cooperation with Stop the Bleeding’s Parent Involvement Drive Committee.
The committee is one of the entities in the coalition of non-profit agencies and community members working with Francis to protect, educate and expose V.I. youth to happier homes and brighter futures.
“We are absolutely thrilled by this selection,” Francis said. “The volunteers and agencies supporting this movement work to bring solutions to important issues, such as curbing violence and illegal drug use, reducing teen pregnancy and the school drop-out rate—particularly during the transition from junior high to high school. We see this as a wonderful and positive national endorsement of the work we do here in the territory,” she said.
Marisa Cohen, founder and director of the film festival, said the event is dedicated to promoting cinema created by and/or for women. Cohen said that hundreds of films were submitted this year with five selected to compete in the best short-short category ultimately won by “You Have the Power.” In advising SitaRam of the award, Cohen wrote, “The judges loved ‘You Have the Power.’ They said it was extremely powerful and effective … it did a great job making a strong impact in a very short amount of time.”
The festival also seeks to advance solutions to women’s health issues, she said. One half of all festival ticket proceeds from the thousands who annually attend the festival are donated to The Johns Hopkins Hospital Avon Breast Cancer Center for further research and outreach/survivor programs.
SitaRam, a former Miss U.S. Virgin Islands and graduate of the University of Maryland, said she considers it a tremendous credit to have won the award because of the powerful and resounding message the short film sends out to V.I. families.
Francis praised SitaRam and the student actors—Lyrissa Samuel, Cassandra Santiago Gary Jarvis—for showcasing V.I. talent.
“The response from the actors’ peers has been phenomenal,” Francis said. “A lot of the kids are using the commercial’s words to communicate with parents, using the venue to say things they didn’t know how to say.” Francis said parents say they have been impacted by the message in understanding the need to bond with their children.
Francis is currently trying to raise $15,000 to produce a third public service message in the Stop The Bleeding series. She said the next one will be filmed on St. Thomas, and that there will be auditions at a school there to be named soon.
Parents needing assistance with family concerns can call 773-HELP. For more information about Stop the Bleeding Foundation, email stopthebleedingusvi@gmail.com or go to www.stopthebleedingusvi.org.
