Q:  WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?
A: Every Woman in America Who Ever Tried to Create Anything, That’s WHO!

“Who Does She Think She Is?”  This is the film the New York Times called “…An engaging documentary about the struggle to create … an enlightening primer on sexism in the art world.”

“Who Does She Think She Is?” follows five women artists as they navigate the challenges of making work outside the elite upper echelons of the art world.  It examines some of the most pressing issues of our time:  parenting and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art.

Director Pamela Tanner Boll and the Women of “Who Does She Think She Is?”

Director and Executive Producer Pamela Tanner Boll is an artist, writer, filmmaker, and activist. She co-executive produced the Academy Award-winning Best Documentary Feature "Born into Brothels."  She is currently producing the film projects: "Global Moms;" "Life on the Edge: True Stories of Doctors Without Borders;" "9/12: From Chaos to Community;" "Kashmir;" and "In a Dream."  Pamela grew up in Parkersburg, West Virginia, then graduated from Middlebury College. She and her husband live in Massachusetts where they have raised their three sons.

“As a young woman, as soon as I learned to print I began to make up stories,” recalls director Pamela Tanner Boll.  “In college I read books about creative women, but few seemed to have had families of their own.  Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Virginia Woolf haunted me.  After ten years working on Wall Street, I became a mother at 32, and the buried creative part of me came roaring back to life.   I painted and wrote but always in the spaces left over after my family’s needs.  If I did the work it was with guilt.

“Twenty years later, I was in the middle of my life.  My boys were in their teens.  Launched.  Beautiful.  But, what had I to show for this?   No book to my name.  Hundreds of paintings, but few that had left my studio.   Then, in 2003, I heard about Maye Torres, a mother of three boys like me, who made sacred images of women protecting the earth.   She had no income outside of her art.  How had she managed to make a life out of her art while I had not?   I wanted to find out how other women had managed to mother and create.”

“Who Does She Think She Is?” asks some critical questions:  How do women continue to do the creative work they feel called to do while not turning their backs on their families? What do those efforts mean for their children, their families, and their communities?  Why are women still whip-sawed between giving to others and developing their own skills?

The film focuses on five women artists, each radically different in background, race, religious creed and choice of artistic field.  They range in age from 27 to 65, and live in communities as different as the suburbs of Ohio and Hawaii’s Big Island, New York City and the deserts of New Mexico.  But they all share the common challenge of making careers in various art worlds.  In tandem with their creative existence, they are pulled in different directions as they try to answer the competing demands of artistic fulfillment, marriage, motherhood and economic survival.

The women are:

Maye Torres is a "thirteenth generation Taosena" living on the far side of the Rio Grande.  She works on paper, in metal and in clay; her subjects are primarily strong women with a spiritual need to care for the earth.  The mother of three boys with a dedication to both her craft and her children, she lives on very little income.

Janis Wunderlich is a Mormon mother of five children. When she isn’t shepherding them to and from soccer and school, she is making art and showing it around the world.  Her work is a study in contrasts -- she sculpts dark, quirky mother figures, often laden with devouring animal-like children, while her five children play happily in her sunny studio.

Mayumi Oda was born in Japan right after World War II, when girls were supposed to be quiet and subservient.  Mayumi was treated harshly by her grandfather much to her mother’s sorrow.  As a result, she grew up wanting to protect the feminine and became a renowned print-maker focusing on goddess imagery.  At the age of 60, she turned her back on the art world and began to cultivate a run-down former ranch on Hawaii’s Big Island where she now runs "Goddess Retreats" to teach young women how to take care of the earth.

Camille Musser, a painter living Cambridge, Massachusetts, had no idea how much she missed her Caribbean birthplace and its people until she began to paint St. Vincent’s, the island where she had been born and raised.  Over the last twenty years Camille has created a vibrant body of work, yet she and her family regarded her painting as a hobby.  Dedicated to the idea of giving back to her native island, Camille founded a summer arts camp for children where she returns each year run the camp and renew her connection to the place which inspires her work.

Angela Williams, mother of two nearly-teen-age girls, got married when she was 20.  She and her husband started a church, ultimately building its congregation to nearly 800 parishioners.  At 30, Angela got the call to act; the film follows her as she auditions for Broadway and as her marriage begins to unravel in the face of the choice she must make:  her creative calling or her family.

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Dr. Cara Barker of The Huffington Post wrote, “Every school in every town and city should show this film…  It is a testimonial to the human Spirit alive and well in the lives of those who dare to stand up and be counted in original ways.”

The team behind “Who Does She Think She Is?” has taken Dr. Barker’s advice --and then some.   They’ve teamed up with Emerging Cinemas, its chain of art house theatres in cities across the country, and Lifetime Networks’ Video On Demand. Working together, this in-homes-in-theatres-and-online group is orchestrating a shared national experience for women --- and the men smart enough to want to know what unique challenges the creative life presents to women.  Whether in a theatre in San Diego, in front of a suburban Chicago television set or watching on a computer screen in Miami, all viewers will see the film, and the lives of the women it portrays, as if sitting together in one place at the same time with everyone else who’s watching.

Immediately following the screenings and in-home viewings, those with access to an internet connection will be able to participate in a live interactive panel discussion between national women leaders that will be taking place in New York City.  Online and in-theatre audiences will be able to see the panelists in real time and ask questions of them via keyboard.

Says director Boll, “The opportunity to have audiences across the country see ‘Who Does She Think She Is?’ simultaneously is extraordinary.  The experience will be particularly unique because immediately afterward, even though separated from each other physically by thousands of miles, we’ll all be able to discuss the film and our own experiences as women, as creators, as mothers and fathers, sisters, husbands and children of creative women.  The potential reach and connectedness is breathtaking.”

Special Who Does She Think She Is House Party Kits that contain a DVD of the film, invitation cards that can be sent to invite guests to attend a viewing at a host’s home, discussion topic cards and other elements are being offered in advance via Emerging Cinemas.  The House Party Kits will become available for sale from (www.whodoesshethinksheis.net ; link to “Buy DVD”) beginning August 15th.

A special educational edition has been developed for public libraries, primary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities.  It includes a public performance license and a curriculum guide with sections on such topics as feminism in the U.S., women in the art world, work-life balance issues, representations of women in the media, questions and answers for students, and additional research resources.  The special educational edition is currently available for sale; for information go to: www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/educational.

For more information, screeners or artwork, please email your request to RLForsythe@RLForsythe.com.