Spotlight: Media That Matters Film Festival

Each June, Media That Matters Film Festival debuts a collection of twelve shorts under twelve minutes. The festival is one of the first and largest online film festivals and uses independent media to inspire civic engagement. In its eleventh year, the festival debuted films about female firefighters in Burning Barriers, a low-income dancer from Oakland in Sick Wid It, a call to action to prevent infant deaths in India in It’s In Your Hands, and nine others.

The festival has had other popular films, including 2006’s Something Other Than Other about a multiracial couple’s reflections on their youth and hopes for a future in which their son is able to check a box for his race other than “other.” The Media That Matters’ most famous films include AGirl Like Me, which was made by a sixteen year old girl in Harlem and draws attention to problematic beauty standards for African American girls, and World on Fire with Sarah McLachlan that compares the cost of a media set in LA with that of international aid from bicycle ambulances in Nepal to West African educational film screenings for refugees.

What is unique about the Media That Matters Festival is that it provides justice-based content that is immediately and publicly available. This interview with Katy Chevigny, founder of the organization behind the festival, Arts Engine, sheds light on the impact of short films that are available online plus their reception in the art and nonprofit communities. The festival actively manifests its mission to “engage diverse audiences and inspire them to take action” because it is available to anyone with access to the internet. Chevigny points out that while the festival does not inhabit a physical space, it is constantly in flux and is engaged with external audiences online as well as the internal community of filmmakers.

Take a look at this year’s twelve films here.