ITVS Launches Campaign to Focus on Female Leadership

SAN FRANCISCO: The Women and Girls Lead campaign is a new public media initiative from the Independent Television Service (ITVS) that uses independent documentary films to tell stories that support female leadership and development.

The initiative from ITVS is being done in partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS. More than 50 documentaries, both premieres and archive selections, are set to air on PBS over the next three years as part of the campaign. The documentaries will all focus on telling stories about the leadership of women and girls facing challenges. Among the titles are Women, War and Peace, a five-part series from THIRTEEN/WNET, and Kind-Hearted Woman, a Frontline/ITVS special presentation that spotlights the journey of a 31-year-old Oglala Sioux woman risking it all to help her Indian community and abused women.

"We are living in a brand new age where citizens exchange media and ideas on a continuous basis; public media has a responsibility to lead our audiences to content that has the potential to lift us up and move us forward as a society," said Sally Jo Fifer, the president and CEO of ITVS. "This serves not only our mission and our viewers, but our community of independent producers as well by extending the reach of their diverse voices."

The films will broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens, Frontline, P.O.V. and other PBS programs, and as stand-alone presentations on PBS and other public television distribution platforms. All films in the initiative will be supported by online efforts that incorporate social media and original digital content.

ITVS is also building partnerships with service organizations such as CARE, World Vision, and the Girl Scouts of the USA. These partners, along with others, will join ITVS and independent filmmakers in more than 1,000 community, educational and public-affairs events throughout the campaign and will also have access to documentary content to help educate communities.