Originally posted at Proj:Pedal...

On a positive note: last night I watched a documentary titled, Girlhood, by Liz Garbus, the film follows two girls over the course of three years, beginning with their stay at Waxter Juvenile facility... here's the films synopsis:

"...tells two coming-of-age stories from the real America: Shanae, ten years old when she was gang-raped by five boys, responded by drinking and drugging, and then graduated to murder, with the stabbing death of a friend, at age 12. Megan, whose mother abandoned her to turn tricks to support her ravaging heroin addiction, ran away from ten different foster homes before being arrested for attacking another foster child with a box cutter. Both girls ended up in the Waxter Juvenile Facility, home to Maryland's most violent juvenile offenders. It is here that their journeys really begin".

It was a really nice change in the topic of documentaries I've been finding myself watching lately, in the past month I've rented: Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Control Room, and more that I can't seem to remember right now. I'm not sure what got me on the political-docu-kick. As far as homework goes, their argumentative structure isn't at all the direction I need to be shooting for, not to mention afterwards I am left feeling depressed and overwhelmed.

So last night's Girlhood, a simple story following the lives of two people and the friends and family they encounter along the way, was exactly what I needed. In it's own way, I found it very inspiring - not necessarily in a filmmaking-sense, just inspiring on a every-day-life level, it was interesting to watch how differently the two girls reacted to life after 'juvi', I don't want to give any of the story away for those of you who might watch it in the future, so I will move on.

On a not-so-positive note: I'm finding myself running into dead-end after dead-end with the film's finances, recently I've been researching grants for independent documentaries and every-time I find one that I 100% qualify for, I find it's application deadline has passed. I've looked everywhere I can think of: IFP's Anothony Radziwill Fund, Film Arts, IDA, Moxie Docs, Next Wave Films... I'm running out of places to look. No matter what combination of words I Google I get the same twenty results.

Amanda and I are driving down to San Diego tomorrow night to catch the last screening of Go Further, [coincidentally] a film following Woody Harrelson on a coastal bicycle trip - but with more of a twist, the documentary revolves around the idea that there are "viable alternatives to our habitual, environmentally-destructive behaviors". The travellers include a yoga-teacher, a raw food chef, a hemp-activist, a junk-food addict, and a college student who suspends her life to impulsively hop aboard.

Amanda has been dying to see this film for the past year, I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of their tag-line: "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and organic farming"? That kind of Elvis Costello reference is hard to top, not that I'm necessarily out to "top" Go Further, but you know what I mean - it's something to shoot for.