Growing Up Female

Screen grab from Growing Up Female.

A letter from Mary J. Schirmer.
Hi, folks. I don't usually make requests like this, because I know everybody's busy. But this is the opportunity to make a difference for an important documentary made by a female filmmaker. Please consider emailing dross@loc.gov (Donna Ross) to request that the film GROWING UP FEMALE is included in the National Film Registry.

The nomination committee chooses 25 films per year, and GROWING UP FEMALE has come close to making the cut for the last five consecutive years. As you know, women are seriously underrepresented in the film industry on the whole, and we can make a difference by including this film in the Library of Congress.

I've met filmmaker/college film instructor Julia Reichert who, with James Klein, produced, wrote, directed, and edited this feature film in1971 -- right in the midst of the modern feminist movement.

GROWING UP FEMALE looks at the lives of six females, ages 4 to 35, and the "forces that shape them -- teachers, counselors, advertising, music, and the institution of marriage," Reichert said.

The film has been shown in colleges and high schools over the past decades and earned glowing recommendations from Susan Sontag and Gloria Steinem.

GROWING UP FEMALE has screened at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and the American Film Institute in Washington DC. This month it will be shown at Lincoln Center.

The film recently received a grant to restore it on a new film print.

Find more information about the National Film Registry at www.loc.gov/film/filmnfr.html.

So, if you feel moved to help in this effort to include a film about women and produced by a woman, please take a moment RIGHT NOW to email Donna Ross, National Film Preservation Board, at dross@loc.gov.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mary J. Schirmer (screenwriter/instructor)
www.screenplayers.net

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/the-womens-film-preservation-fund