Project title: www.girltrouble.org
Collaborating Organizations: Critical Images, Inc. and The Center for Young Women’s Development
Lead Artist: Shivaun M. Nestor
Genre and Date Awarded: Media Arts, June 2003
To be Completed: June 2005

Collaborating with documentary filmmakers Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko of Critical Images, Inc. (makers of the PBS documentary Girl Trouble), and with staff and youth from the Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD), media artist Shivaun Nestor will create www.girltrouble.org, a 60-80 page web site incorporating the experiential journey, “Caught Up,” video clips, on-line forums, and other community building and advocacy tools.

“Caught Up” will provide visitors with a sense of what life is like for girls trapped in the juvenile justice system. Visitors will take the role of “Everygirl,” entering a universe of situations and choices common to poor and incarcerated young women. Pages at each decision point will include video clips of the young women featured in the documentary, links to poetry or other artwork created by girls who have been incarcerated, and at least two choices. At rare crossroads during the journey, “Everygirl” will be offered opportunities to take advantage of workable alternatives to the system in which she is trapped. While the experience will be personal in nature, “Caught Up” will also provide journeyers with an analysis of the social, economic, institutional factors, including the racism, classism and gender bias, that make the juvenile justice system so unresponsive to the needs of young women. This will be done through the use of relevant statistics, links to an interactive curriculum on juvenile justice issues, and video interviews with well-intentioned adult officials who, hands tied by the system, find they cannot act in the best interest of the girls in their charge. While an outgrowth of the film Girl Trouble, the web site www.girltrouble.org will stand on its own as a work of art while providing tools for social change.

During a series of workshops facilitated by a senior CYWD staff member and with Ms. Nestor’s and the filmmakers’ participation, young women from the Center will write all storylines for the interactive journey. Key CYWD staff members will plan and give feedback on other web site sections, which will include features through which young women can share their stories and participate in advocacy efforts with peers national-wide. Ms. Nestor will design the graphic interface and navigational structure, provide all CGI and JavaScript programming, manage and edit content for web accessibility, and oversee the site’s production. Critical Images, Inc. will provide content, execute production of the site’s animation and video components, and help to develop the curriculum and discussion guide.

Lead artist Shivaun Nestor is a film producer, art director, freelance media artist and graphic designer with seven years of experience designing web sites. Her Internet work includes two multi-year collaborative projects: Free Zone, an HIV prevention and anti-harassment media campaign; and the African American Telehealth Project. Ms. Nestor writes, “…in particular the game “Caught Up” will provide me with the opportunity to develop an interactive storytelling artwork on a new and much bigger scale than I have ever attempted before.”


Critical Images, Inc. is dedicated to the creation of social justice media. Filmmakers Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko founded Critical Images in order to raise public awareness of what is happening to poor and young women of color who have been institutionalized. Girl Trouble is the organization’s first work, although its founders have collaborated on previous documentary projects.

The Center for Young Women’s Development is a nonprofit organization located in San Francisco. Our mission is to provide gender specific, peer based opportunities for high-risk low- and no-income young women to build healthier lives and healthier communities. We work to ensure that young women who have been homeless, incarcerated, involved in the juvenile justice system, or otherwise severely impacted by poverty are able to achieve self-sufficiency and become positively engaged in their communities. All of our programs have been designed using a holistic approach that recognizes each young woman as a whole person who already has the experience and strength necessary to become a powerful leader and agent of change.

Shivaun M. Nestor is a film producer, art director, graphic designer, and freelance media artist with six years of experience designing web sites. She regularly collaborates with programmer Patricia A. Boyd for the more complex database and other web site programming needs. Her work includes web sites for Tranny Fest, independent filmmaker Jon Moristugu, the California Council of Local Directors of Health Education, and the Architecture Institute of America (AIA) Large Firm Roundtable Program. Her Internet ventures include two multi-year projects requiring extensive collaboration: Free Zone, an HIV prevention and anti-harassment media campaign and web site by and for gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning male youth; and the African American Telehealth Project through which community residents created web sites promoting health and community change. Ms. Nestor’s films have screened nationally and internationally, winning such awards as Best Narrative at the 1994 Atlanta International Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize from the National Educational Media Market.

SELECTED WEB SITES

Advanced Management Institute
African American Telehealth Project
Architecture Institute of America (AIA) Large Firm Roundtable Program
BAYAC AmeriCorps
California Conference of Local Directors of Health Education
Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military
Film Arts Foundation, Film Arts Festival, 2001
New York City Films, site developed for Jon Moritsugu
Tranny Fest Film and Cultural Festival
Youth Media

SELECTED FILM AND VIDEO EXPERIENCE

Producer/Director, “Words Hurt and Slurs Suck,” anti-harassment audio PSAs, 1999
Co-Producer, “Pit Bull I & II,” Video PSAs, Director, Frank Crosby, 1997
Associate Producer/Art Director, “Donence,” music video for Turkish group Cemali, aired on European MTV, 1996
Co-Producer/Art Director, “It’s On,” music video for Chris Abad, On the Rise Records, 1995
Producer/Art Director/Story Editor, The Hunger of Memory, Director, Frank Crosby, 1993
Co-Producer /Writer, “Smart Talk,” STD educational documentary, Director, Mark Kreigbaum, 1989

PATRICIA BOYD, SOFTWARE PROGRAMMER

Selected Internet-Based Projects

ConserVision Consulting, 2001-ongoing

Emory University, Council of Regional Networks for Genetic Services (CORN), Atlanta, GA, and University of Texas, National Newborn Screening and Genetics Resource Center, Austin TX, 2001-ongoing

Pacific Northwest Regional Genetics Group (PacNoRGG), Oregon Health Sciences University, Eugene, Oregon, 2002

Interactive Web Calendar, multiple clients, 2002

Advanced Management Institute for Architecture and Engineering (AMI), San Francisco, CA, 2001-ongoing

Seahorse Tanks Database, 2000-ongoing

LEXI LEBAN, PRODUCER/DIRECTOR

Lexi Leban is an award-winning independent filmmaker and television producer. She is the Co-Producer of Mama Wuhunzi (Women Blacksmiths) a film shot on location in Uganda and Kenya about women with disabilities who spark a wheelchair building revolution. Mama Wuhunzi screened on PBS in 2002 and was the recipient of the Kodak Award at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. Lexi is the Associate Producer of Everyday Heroes, an intimate portrait of several bold young workers in the AmeriCorps program of national service. Everyday Heroes screened nationally on PBS in 2002 on nationally diversity day. Her short films, More Than a Paycheck, Her Tattoo, labor, and Tick Tock Bio Clock have screened at film festivals at home and abroad, from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and the Mill Valley Film Festival to the Berlin International Film Festival, and MIX Brazil. Lexi was an Artist in Residence at Southern Exposure Art Gallery in San Francisco where she produced Reel Stories, a collaborative video with Mission neighborhood youth about proposition 21, California’s measure to try and incarcerate youth in the adult criminal justice system. She was nominated in 2001 for a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellowship. Lexi holds a BA from Barnard College, an MFA in Film Production from San Francisco State University and is the Chair of the Digital Motion Picture Program at Cogswell College in Silicon Valley.

Selected Filmography

Girl Trouble, feature-length documentary, digital video, 2000

Project Discover, promotional video, Digital Video, 2000

Reel Stories, blue-screen composite made in collaboration with high school students, Southern Exposure Gallery, Digital video, 2000

Positive Art, 30-minute documentary, digital video, 2000

Mommy and the Man in Black, personal documentary, digital video, 1999

Girls in Charge, promotional video, digital video, 1999

Selected Screenings and Exhibitions

Berlin International Film Festival

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Mill Valley Film Festival

Women in the Director’s Chair National Tour

Ann Arbor Film Festival

Cine Latino, San Francisco

Film Arts Foundation Film Festival, San Francisco

San Francisco Cinematheque

Selected Awards

Christine Saxon Memorial Cash Award

Best of the Fest-San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Short)

LIDIA SZAJKO, PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
Lidia Szajko is an award-wining independent filmmaker and film educator whose works have screened on public television and at festivals internationally. Her films, which explore social and human rights issues, and the experiences of people living in translation, have won awards such as the Isabella Liddell Art Award for Most Promising Woman Filmmaker, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Award of Merit at Superfest XVIII, An International Media Festival on Disabilities in Berkeley, and the People’s Choice at the Humboldt Film & Video Festival. Ms. Szajko is Chair of the Film Production Department at City College of San Francisco. She was appointed to the San Francisco Film Commission in 2001.

Selected Filmography

Girl Trouble, 60-minutes, digital video, in progress Festival Trailer, Budapest International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, 3 minutes, video, 2002

“Other Considerations,” video installation, Budapest Pride Festival, Budapest Hungary, 45 minutes, 2001

“Five Women on a Hill in Spain,” video, 22 minutes, 1998

“Mickey Spencer, Visual Artist,” 15 minutes, 1997

We Can’t All Have Come from That Island in Greece, video documentary, 45 minutes, 1997

“A Constant State of Departure,” experimental 16mm film, 11 minutes, 1989

Selected Festivals and Exhibitions

Budapest Pride Festival

Bay Area Playwrights Festival

Active Edge Film and Video Festival, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco

Superfest XVIII, An International Media Festival on Disabilities, Berkeley

Sixth Annual University of Oregon Queer Film Festival

Buda Fest, Budapest Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

San Francisco Cinematheque, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Austin Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, Austin, TX

Utah Short Film & Video Festival

Ann Arbor Film Festival & National Festival Tour

San Francisco International Film Festival

Women in the Director’s Chair Film & Video Festival, Chicago, IL

Experimental Film Coalition, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1991

Selected Awards

The Isabella Liddell Art Award—Most Promising Woman Filmmaker, 28^th Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1990Cash Award Winner, Utah Short Film and Video Festival, 1990

Best Student Film, 14^th Annual Atlanta Film & Video Festival, 1990

Honorable Mention, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1990

People’s Choice, 23^rd annual Humboldt Film & Video Festival, 1990