New film: DHS, Give Us Back Our Children

Four videos made by community groups will premiere Tuesday .

_{By Carolyn Davis}
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Lawanda Connelly won't be stepping out of a limo or walking the red carpet when she attends the premiere at the International House Tuesday of a documentary she helped make .

But she will be dealing with some of the same emotions, good and nerve-racking, that professional filmmakers experience at their debuts .

"I'm going to try to keep my composure," she says at first, then adds, "There's just a huge sense of accomplishment that we were able to do this . "

Connelly, 42, and others at the Every Mother Is a Working Mother Network produced DHS, Give Us Back Our Children, which will be screened Tuesday along with three other films produced as part of Scribe Video Center's Community Visions program .

The film, whose name is derived from a support group the network sponsors and to which Connelly belongs, documents the stories of mothers and grandmothers fighting to keep their children out of foster care .

The Community Visions project fits snugly into the mission of Scribe, an organization begun in 1982 as a place where people could come together to share video skills and knowledge, and have access to equipment - and, therefore, to an influential medium, said center founder Louis Massiah .

Scribe facilitators take participants selected for the program through all the phases of making a documentary . Their final videos must center on an issue that is important to the constituency of each group .

This year, four films were produced . In addition to Every Mother's production, other films were by Chester 's Community Grocery Co-op, which explored a community's access to healthful food; the Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project, which addressed the effect on youths of being tried and incarcerated as adults; and Bridgeway Inc . , which delved into its relationship with its Tioga community .

"The idea of Community Visions is that making film and videotapes is a form of literacy," Massiah says . "A video is a very powerful way of communicating to a broad constituency . It's a basic form of communication . "

From the first round of documentaries in 1990, he says, the videos also have been artistic expressions .

Connelly, a senior administrative specialist at a pharmaceutical company, wasn't thinking about art as she worked with the Every Mother Is a Working Mother Network to produce DHS, Give Us Back Our Children .

Her story, not surprisingly, is complicated . She says it begins with false allegations of abuse, ultimately proven untrue, and ends with getting her daughter back after a month of court wrangling .

She was excited to learn how to use the documentary form to teach people what she and others have been through - an experience that is largely hidden, she says .

Which also makes it isolating for those going through it, so passing on lessons and support to others in similar circumstances is hard to do .

"In that situation, you really don't have a voice - you are thought to be guilty until proven innocent," Connelly says . "I have always more than anything just wanted the opportunity to tell my story . This gave me an opportunity to tell my story . "

Not only was the Southwest Philadelphia resident interviewed for the documentary, Connelly also helped set up video shoots and position lighting . Until the project, she never realized how sights and sounds intersect every moment in life .

One time, the crew was filming a woman who was explaining what had happened to her .

"She was very nervous and the chair she was in was rocking back and forth," Connelly says . "It was creaking and she didn't realize it . "

The video team members realized they had to interrupt her .

"It was awful because she was right in the middle of telling this gut-wrenching story," she says .

For Connelly, editing 100 hours of tape down to the required 12 minutes was the most grueling part of the project . The best they could do was get it down to 15 .

"To us, everything was relevant and we wanted to include everything," she says .

Emily Rollins, 82, has always tried to work behind the scenes at Bridgeway, the nonprofit Tioga community group she started in 1974 .

Rollins calls her organization "a community-based empowerment center" that helps people realize they have possibilities in life . Its services include a food pantry and it also provides shelter, transportation, information, and moral support for area residents who are struggling .

"We help people to unscatter their minds," she says .

She remained behind the scenes as her group's documentary was made, but has become an enthusiastic advocate of using technology to educate people about the relationship between Bridgeway and its community .

"You have to show and tell," Rollins says with a laugh .

So she did for this project what she does best for people . She urged on her teammates as they shot interviews and neighborhood scenes, and wrestled with lighting and other technical chores . She assisted in the final editing, which she shepherded along by constantly reminding her colleagues of their common purpose - "to have people see the possibility of community processes," she says .

Like Connelly, Rollins thinks she and the other Community Visions participants will use their new skills long after the premiere is movie history .

"Our future depends on knowing how to do a great deal of managing and marketing," Rollins says, "and that will depend on our technical skills, our use of technology . "