Local Filmmaker Wins 2 Awards at Pan African Film Fest in Los Angeles for Spelman Documentary

Director and Atlanta native, Alvelyn Sanders, returns to Atlanta with two big awards for her documentary, which showcased at the 21^st Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) in Los Angeles.  Her documentary, “Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964”, won Best Documentary-Short and also the Audience Favorite Award in the Documentary-Short category.

The film, “Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964”, is an independent documentary about women in the Class of 1964 at Spelman College, who participated in the largest coordinated, series of civil rights protests in Atlanta’s history as college freshmen.

The film is actually a mother-daughter team collaboration, with the mother being one of the women who was part of the 1964 Spelman College class, and the daughter being the director to bring this compelling story to light.  Dr. Georgianne Thomas, Alvelyn Sanders’s mother, is the creator and executive producer of the documentary. She and her daughter worked on the project together for three years before screening it.

According to Sanders, she was, "so happy that the audience embraced the story of the ‘foot soldiers.’ It made the hard work of getting this documentary made and the personal sacrifice worth it.”

“Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964” premiered in the BronzeLens Film Festival in Atlanta in 2012. It made its television debut on Atlanta’s PBS station, WPBA-TV30 in December 2012, with encore presentations in January 2013. The trailer for the film can be seen in the attached video or by going to YouTube.

The next local screening of "Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964" is during Founders Day 2013 at Spelman College, Wednesday, April 10, 5pm-6pm in the Cole Living Learning Center II Auditorium.

Sanders and Thomas hope to let a national audience see this powerful documentary, and are currently working to identify a media outlet for a national broadcast, as well as international distribution.

“Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964” is an independent documentary about women in the Class of 1964 at Spelman College, who participated in the largest coordinated, series of civil rights protests in Atlanta’s history as college freshmen.
As young women – sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years old – these willing souls were some of the foot soldiers of the Atlanta University Center who carried the Atlanta Student Movement through relentless picketing, sit-ins, kneel-ins, and other non-violent demonstrations. Their bold activism is an Atlanta story that helped change the world. For decades, the faces in the crowd have gone unnamed; their voices unheard.
Who were these young women? What motivated these students who had just completed high school to get involved in such a movement? What in their family background prepared them for such an undertaking? How did their activism as young college students impact the remainder of their college matriculation and the rest of their lives?
These questions are answered in “Foot Soldiers: Class of 1964.”

To order a DVD: Visit www.facebook.com/FootSoldiersClassOf1964