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Seneca Falls :
Collection code: DVDWOM DVDs women. Seneca Falls takes viewers on a life-changing journey with nine high school girls (and a lone ten-year-old boy) bound for the birthplace of women's rights in America. Part teenage road trip, part shocking history lesson, the film is, above all, an awakening of young hearts and minds. This one-hour documentary breathes life and relevance into a revolutionary act barely mentioned in history books: America's first women's rights convention, a public protest meeting held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The film follows WOWER Power, a struggling multi-cultural teen theater troupe, as they travel from San Francisco to Seneca Falls to perform their original play at the 150th Anniversary Celebration of this groundbreaking moment in American history. The troupe is guided on their journey by director Joan Mankin, a beloved Bay Area actor, who began the project with the girls when she was an artist in residence at San Francisco Community School (a public school in San Francisco), and they were just sixth graders. The troupe joins tens of thousands making the pilgrimage to Seneca Falls from around the world. Exploring sites in Women's Rights National Historical Park, they unearth the still-unfolding narrative of women's history, meeting groundbreaking historians and prominent elected officials, including U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. They examine the lives of the ordinary citizens whose courage and determination launched a nationwide movement to free women from the bonds of social, political and legal slavery. The teenagers' odyssey culminates when they perform their original play in which an African American girl time-travels back to 1848, gains knowledge and self-esteem, and goes on to become the first woman president of the United States. Stepping out onto a national stage, the young women of WOWER Power take their own place in history, passing on the torch of knowledge and activism to audiences young and old. The troupe's compelling journey, crossing generations, race, class and a continent, is the heart of our documentary. Seneca Falls takes viewers on a life-changing journey with nine high school girls (and a lone ten-year-old boy) bound for the birthplace of women's rights in America. Part teenage road trip, part shocking history lesson, the film is, above all, an awakening of young hearts and minds. This one-hour documentary breathes life and relevance into a revolutionary act barely mentioned in history books: America's first women's rights convention, a public protest meeting held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The film follows WOWER Power, a struggling multi-cultural teen theater troupe, as they travel from San Francisco to Seneca Falls to perform their original play at the 150th Anniversary Celebration of this groundbreaking moment in American history. The troupe is guided on their journey by director Joan Mankin, a beloved Bay Area actor, who began the project with the girls when she was an artist in residence at San Francisco Community School (a public school in San Francisco), and they were just sixth graders. The troupe joins tens of thousands making the pilgrimage to Seneca Falls from around the world. Exploring sites in Women's Rights National Historical Park, they unearth the still-unfolding narrative of women's history, meeting groundbreaking historians and prominent elected officials, including U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. They examine the lives of the ordinary citizens whose courage and determination launched a nationwide movement to free women from the bonds of social, political and legal slavery. The teenagers' odyssey culminates when they perform their original play in which an African American girl time-travels back to 1848, gains knowledge and self-esteem, and goes on to become the first woman president of the United States. Stepping out onto a national stage, the young women of WOWER Power take their own place in history, passing on the torch of knowledge and activism to audiences young and old. The troupe's compelling journey, crossing generations, race, class and a continent, is the heart of our documentary.