support feminist filmmakers: Therese Shechter needs your help!

You can support the completion of How to Lose Your Virginity (image courtesy of theamericanvirgin.blogspot.com)

A long, long time ago – okay really back in March – I wrote a brief linked-up post in which I commented on the blog, The American Virgin, which acts as a forum for the documentary-in-progress titled How to Lose Your Virginity. Well Therese Shechter – the director of this documentary who also previously directed I Was a Teenage Feminist – could use your help raising funds to finish her film. Before I get into how you can help – here’s a little information on what the film is about and what you’d be supporting. First off here is a trailer for How to Lose Your Virginity:

Now maybe you’re watching the trailer and you think it looks good – but maybe you want to hear more from Therese on the film and on the subject of virginity. Luckily several ladies have stepped up in promoting the film, and many of these same women are featuring interviews with Therese on their blogs.

Amanda Hess who blogs at The Sexist posted her Q & A with the filmmaker.

Melanie Klein who blogs at Feminist Fatale posted her Q & A too.

and Kyna who blogs at Her Film posted her Q & A as well.

Now here’s how you can help. Therese and friends started a fundraiser project over at Kickstarter. The site works so that people can pledge as little as $10 and upward. Even better you can keep track of how close Therese is to reaching her goal. As it stands right now she has 125 backers for her film. She’s raised $8,555 out of the $10,000 she hopes to raise and she has 8 days left to reach her goal.

Here’s another important tidbit – there are rewards based on what you pledge. See I’m all for supporting independent, smaller films, but I’m also typically cash-strapped thanks to student loans and general bills (gotta eat and drive sometimes). This means a pledge as seemingly small as $25 is a lot to me and not something I hand out willy nilly. But that’s exactly how much I pledged to Therese and How to Lose Your Virginity – why? Because pledging $25 means that I’ll receive my own copy of the film once it’s released – and that reward is important to me.

As a girlhood studies scholar I hope to one day have the opportunity to talk to girls about things like the sexual double standard and the madonna/whore complex – and a documentary like How to Lose Your Virginity that discusses virginity from a feminist perspective could help facilitate that discussion. In this respect my pledge is less of a donation and more of an investment!

If you can assist Therese in reaching her goal please do so – even if you can’t pledge a single penny, simply spreading the word during these last 8 days can make all the difference. Thanks!

~ by actyourage09 on June 23, 2010.