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New Day Films is a member-owned distribution cooperative offering quality, compelling social issue films to educational and community organizations. Democratically run by our more than 100 filmmaker members, New Day delivers films that challenge and engage, bringing real people, their voices and struggles into the classroom. Founded in 1971, New Day is very selective about the films in our catalog. Our films have won an Academy Award, nine Academy Award nominations, four Emmys, and hundreds of top honors at the most prestigious film festivals, as well as broadcasts on PBS, HBO and other cable stations. So you can be assured when you buy a New Day film that it is a quality film that will enrich your classroom. Since we are filmmakers and film distributors, our creative passion during production continues with our commitment to finding each film’s audience and to meeting your programming needs. New Day has brought dynamic, provocative storytelling to educational institutions for close to 40 years. Each year, new films and filmmakers are brought into the cooperative, ensuring that you have access to our classic films and current stories. As an organization that began in the early 1970s period of political and social upheaval, New Day sustains many of the ideas of those times: collaboration, hope, social change: The feminist movement had just arrived. And a group of independent filmmakers could not find distribution for their feminist films. “We met at the 1971 Flaherty Seminar, where some of our films were programmed,” recalled founding member Amalie Rothschild. “I was in production with It Happens to Us. I'd been trying to get distribution for Woo Who? May Wilson. I'd take it to non-theatrical distribution companies and they'd say 'It's wonderful, dear, we really like it. But there's no audience...’ ” Founding members Julia Reichert and Jim Klein had already started self-distributing their film, Growing Up Female. "The whole idea of distribution," explained Julia Reichert, "was to help the women's movement grow. Films could do that, they could get the ideas out. We could watch the women's movement spread across the country just by who was ordering our films. First it was Cambridge and Berkeley. I remember the first showing in the deep South." Soon, a fourth member joined the three. "When I first met them," Liane Brandon explains, "I'd been inundated with requests to show Anything You Want To Be. I'd been running back and forth to the Post Office, making myself crazy. Other distributors wanted my film, but the most they would offer was a two-year contract, as they were sure the women's movement wouldn't last any longer than that. Because I'd been active in women's groups since 1969, I knew there was a huge demand, but most distributors didn't, so they offered bad deals, or they wanted to ghettoize the films. When I first talked with Jim and Julia and Amalie, I thought 'Ah-hah! Someone else who's experiencing the same things I am.' Much has changed in media distribution since 1971 when the early members were selling 16 mm film prints! But the commitment to quality content and cutting edge distribution remains. |
School and Institution Access
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Featured Films
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