National Broadcast Premiere in 2012
Well folks, it’s been a long time coming. We are so proud and excited to announce the national broadcast television premiere of our film — on Sunday, Jan 29, at 9pm EST & PST, BURNING IN THE SUN will debut to national audiences as part of PBS’ AfroPop series. Alongside some stellar documentary programming featuring stories of the African Diaspora, and hosted this season by comedian Wyatt Cenac, our film will be seen like never before! We invite you to watch, and to help us celebrate this story by spreading the word far and wide.
Happy summer everyone – lots of great news to announce these days…
First, we are happy to announce we raised $12,350 during our winter fundraiser!!! These funds went directly to Afriq-Power and will be used on solar energy projects in Mali. Thank you so much to everyone who participated, either through direct donations or by purchasing DVD’s – your power has made a direct impact!!
Next, Burning In the Sun’s main character, Daniel Dembélé, and his business Afriq-Power were featured in WIRED UK – check out the link to the article here – and get updated on the new directions Daniel and Afriq-Power are headed. We are all the more proud to have profiled Daniel’s work in it’s early stages, now seeing the various innovations he has been inspired to take on.
BITS had it’s African Premiere just recently at the Addis International Film Festival in Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA. The film was honored as one of the Opening Night Selections and showed at the American Embassy. Video will be coming soon of the Q&A session after the screening, with codirector Morgan Robinson taking questions from the audience via a live Skype feed.
And finally, our Canadian Premiere has just been announced: BITS will be showing at the Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) annual film festival this November 19th in Montreal. If you are near Montreal, please come support the film!
Burning in the States and Beyond
May already, wow! 2011 sure has flown by. Burning In The Sun continues to show in theaters and festivals around the world, with upcoming premieres in the UK and Australia, and sold out recent screenings in Washington D.C., Portland, OR, Princeton, NJ, Belmont, MA and Claremont, CA. Keep a lookout on our screenings page for upcoming dates.
We’re also thrilled to announce a new partnership with Bullfrog Films, who will serve as the film’s educational and non-theatrical distributor in the U.S. and Canada. This relationship will extend the film’s reach to thousands of high schools, colleges, universities, community centers, regional arthouses and non profit organizations in North America, a real coup in increasing the film’s visiblity and impact. If you’d like to show the film for educational or other non-theatrical purposes, please contact Bullfrog Films!
Soon we’ll be announcing the results of our winter fundraiser. To celebrate this and other successes, we’re releasing an exclusive video recently produced by BITS codirector Morgan Robinson, called Burning In the States: NYC Teens Go Solar. This piece will be available as one our DVD extras on the release from Bullfrog, but we encourage you to watch the film right here and now – enjoy!!!
Wrap for 2010
Those of you on our mailing list already know this, but we are having an end-of-year fundraiser to benefit Afriq-Power directly. In concert with a generous anonymous matching grant of $10,000, from now until December 31, 2010, 100% of proceeds from BURNING IN THE SUN DVD’s sold will be given to Afriq-Power through it’s U.S. non-profit partner Practical Small Projects, and matched dollar for dollar up to $10,000. This means that together we have the power to donate $20,000 to Afriq-Power directly, contribute in a meaningful way towards the organization’s sustainability with a healthy investment of capital, and help in the effort to provide affordable solar energy to rural communities in Mali. You also get a unique opportunity to see BURNING IN THE SUN on DVD, or give the film as a gift! Go to Indieflix at www.indieflix.com to make the purchase. To make this opportunity available to you is a big step for us, so we’re very grateful for your participation.
Also, good news to deliver: We won! Not only did we make the finalist round on Link TV’s View Change Online Contest, we won in our category of ‘Innovation!’ This means that thousands more people will have the opportunity to view, learn from, and interact with the film on Link TV in years to come. We are so honored to play this part in the inaugural launch of their View Change website and interactive portal. Check it out for yourself here. Thanks to all the BITS fans for your support and helping us to make this happen.
Finally, new festival announcements: BITS will be coming to communities in Claremont, CA, Princeton, NJ, Washington D.C. and Portland, OR! This means hometown screenings for Claire and Cambria. Check our Screening page for dates and details, and be sure to join us and spread the word.
Until then, warm holiday and new year wishes to all.
Brand New Trailer Announcement
Enjoy the long-awaited, much-anticipated trailer!
Burning In the Sun goes South
Check out Cambria’s blog posts about her experiences showing BITS in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas on the Southern Circuit’s blog here. A fun game you can play is guessing ‘Where is Cambria now?’
Art Around Town
We’ve finally got poster art! A special thank you to Vermont artist Janet Fredericks for her inspired illustration and to Wayne Michaud for his design work. Also, on the note of Vermont, what a wonderful turnout at the Vermont Int’l Film Festival over the Halloween weekend! We were able to debut both the film and our poster here in Burlington thanks to the talents of Janet and Wayne, the critical outreach work of Cami Davis, and the support of Deb Ellis, Gail Cook and the festival team. Thanks to all! Now on to the South, where Cambria will be taking the film on the Southern Circuit Tour throughout November. Check in at http://southerncircuit.blogspot.com/ where Cambria will be blogging about her experiences on the road. These may be reposted here on the BITS Blog.
Queue it up
Say what? That’s right. Behold. We are super pleased to announce that Burning In the Sun will be available next spring on NETFLIX. After a limited theatrical release, we’ll be releasing BITS for home video rental with everyone’s favorite rental site. Of course we hope you’ll rent the film when the time comes. But in the meantime, you can truly lend your support to the cause by putting BITS in your queue, TODAY! The more people who do this, the more Netflix will know that audiences are chomping at the bit to see the film, and the more *they* will support the film. Let the queue-ing begin! Here’s the site: http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Burning-in-the-Sun/70153230 Remember you must login to your account in order to ‘Save’ the film in your queue.
Vermont, Oregon and more!
We’re honored to announce screenings in the following new locations! Check the Screenings Page for exact dates and details:
Burlington, VERMONT (codirector Cambria Matlow will be present at this first screening in her old home state) – Bend, OREGON (codirector Cambria Matlow will be present at this first screening in her new home state) – Albuquerque, NEW MEXICO - and Dubrovnnik, CROATIA, at the ‘Man on Earth’ Film Retrospective! So cool! Join us!
And, if you haven’t already, please vote for BURNING IN THE SUN on Link TV! You can vote once a day until September 15th. Here’s the links, one more time:
To Register (one time only needed): http://www.linktv.org/community/join
To Watch and Vote: http://www.linktv.org/viewchangefilmcontest/films/view/737
Vote for Burning on Link TV
A 5-minute version of BURNING IN THE SUN was selected to compete in Link TV’s ViewChange Online Contest. Every film featured tells a story of progress in a developing country, and there are 6 different categories – ours is INNOVATION. At stake is $5000 for the top film in each category and $20,000 for the winning film overall . Your vote counts! Please vote for us, once a day until September 15th – only 6 days left to make a huge difference for this film. There are 3 steps: REGISTER on Link TV at http://www.linktv.org/community/join. Then WATCH THE SHORT FILM at http://www.linktv.org/viewchangefilmcontest/films/view/737. Finally, VOTE by scrolling down from the film and clicking on the green Vote button. Super easy! Thanks in advance for the support, and enjoy this short version of the film!!!! And be sure to watch some of the other films too, there are some really wonderful topics covered on the site.
