Decherney-Directed Film Honored at Festivals
Is It Because I'm a Girl, a short film directed by Peter Decherney, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Humanities, has won Best Documentary at the Venice Shorts Festival and the Industry Choice Award at the Dances with Films Festival, both held in Los Angeles in June. Decherney worked on the film with a crew of Penn students and residents of the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. It tells the story of Nao.G, the first South Sudanese woman to perform hip-hop music, dance, and poetry in the camp, where she started an all-female dance troupe.
The film was created as part of the Penn Global Documentary Institute, which Decherney directs, and its collaboration with FilmAid Kenya, a nonprofit that trains refugees in filmmaking and other media skills. Decherney has taken students to Kenya three times, and Is It Because I’m a Girl is one product of those journeys.
Venice Shorts is a seasonal IMDb qualifying competition and an annual festival with live and online screenings and networking events. Its objective is to discover and recognize independent arthouse shorts, screenplays, and indie artists from all over the globe and create further opportunities for independent filmmakers and artists to promote their projects, receive recognition, and find distribution. Emerging U.S. and international independent talents compete alongside Oscar-winning artists.
Dances with Films champions the spirit at the core of the independent film scene, relying on the innovation, talent, creativity and sweat equity that revolutionized the entertainment industry. Alumni have gone on to write, direct and produce celebrity-studded vehicles, star in blockbuster movies and television series, produce multi-million-dollar films, and create hit TV shows.
Decherney is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and author whose films have focused on migration and the political role of artists. He is the author or editor of seven books and has written for The New York Times and Forbes among other publications. He is faculty director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Innovation and holds a secondary appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication.
