WexCast: Pens to Pictures

(Photo: Katie Spengler)

On September 6, our 2017 Director’s Dialogue on Art and Social Change featured as its focus the inspired project Pens to Pictures. Created by filmmaker and Wright State University professor Chinonye Chukwu, it empowers incarcerated women to share personal, original stories through basic training in the art of film. Each participant was paired with a volunteer filmmaker to create a short film for the project, and each had near-total control over the final product. In this WexCast, Chinonye joins in a discussion on the stage of Mershon Auditorium following a screening of the films and a short documentary about the program. It's led by Townsand Price-Spratlen, an associate professor in Ohio State's Department of Sociology focused on issues of faith, social justice and community capacity building, and also includes input from Audrey Begun from Ohio State’s College of Social Work and Tammy Fournier-Alsaada, a Columbus-based author and community organizer for Ohio Juvenile Justice Coalition. The cast begins with an introduction by Wex Director Sherri Geldin.

As Sherri notes, this is in many ways the most ambitious project the Wex has ever taken on for Director’s Dialogue, Through the course of over a year, Chinonye worked with Director Jennifer Lange and Editor Paul Hill from the Wex’s Film/Video Studio Program to help shape the participating women’s short films and create the documentary. We've been thrilled to be able to share these brave, powerful films with audiences, and to share the discussion that followed with you now.

In addition to the podcast link, below you'll find links to video of this program and of another program for the 2017 Director's Dialogue: a discussion with Chinonye and the women directors of Pens to Pictures.