Body Image/Media Education Film and Study Guide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday March 2, 2006

ACME Teams Up With Independent Filmmaker Jesse Erica Epstein
To Offer a Body Image/ Media Education Film and Study Guide!

In honor of Women’s History Month, ACME Members Receive a 20% Discount on the Film and Can Download the Study Guide For Free!

The Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) is pleased to announce the release of the Body Image/ Media Literacy Study Guide for WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES, a Documentary Short Film.

The study guide includes media education activities, discussion guides, and an extensive list of resources on media and body image, the theme of the accompanying film. This curriculum will be sure to bring thoughtful discussion of these timely and relevant issues into your classroom.

WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES has screened at over 20 film festivals and received numerous awards including:

Short Subject Jury Award, Online2004 Sundance Film Festival YALSA AWARD, Top Video for Young Adults The ALA’s, Young Adult Library Association

Best of Luna Fest
5th Anniversary Screening Series
LUNA FEST, “films by women for women”

Grand Prize, Kodak Film AwardChicks with Flicks Film Festival, NYCBest Use of TechnologyThe Urban Literary Film FestivalAudience AwardThe Chlotrudis Short Film Festival

Film Synopsis:

Dee-Dee, a Brooklyn barber, covers his wall with magazine pin-ups of women. He wishes that real women could look more like the images on his wall of beauty. However, when Dee-Dee is introduced to the art of photo-retouching, his perceptions of beauty are called into question.

WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES is an award-winning documentary film that uses humor to raise serious concerns about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection.

What teachers who use the film say:

"Revealing, sensitive, and yes, funny, WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES is a wonderful deconstruction of the construction of desire. I strongly recommend it as a teaching tool for academic as well as community environments."

-Stephen Duncombe, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies
New York University

“I use Wet Dreams and False Images with both high school and university-age students, and find it a great tool for generating conversations about the connections between media manipulation, male gaze, and unattainable ideals of female beauty. Students enjoy the film and are engaged by both the topic and the humor.”

-Matt Bradley, The University of Utah
Director, Youth Documentary Arts at Spy Hop Productions

“A candid look at a normal, seductive, and disturbingly unreal part of our visual culture. Bold and revealed, this film is true to its daring title.”

-Leon Dunkley, Ph.D., Director, Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture
Duke University

“This film makes the study of society and the media relevant to students by speaking to their everyday experiences and inspires them to speak as well -guaranteed to spark lively classroom conversations.”

-Astra Taylor, Department of Sociology
SUNY New Paltz

“This is a film that pierces through the stock footage of our lives and will provide students with a better understanding of how the physical ideals they strive for are manipulated, frozen, morbid, devoid of life. (Perfecting media images) is the undertaker's art applied to our inner lives.”

-Stuart Ewen, Distinguished Professor and Program Director MFA Program in Integrated Media Arts Hunter College, CUNY
Author of “All Consuming Images”

“This film is an incredibly valuable public health tool. It is important in any discussion of body image issues and related harmful behaviors. The value of addressing body image issues in public heath programs is only increasing.”

-John Auerbach
Executive Director, Boston Public Health Commission

To download the Study Guide, visit ACME at http://www.acmecoalition.org.

For film reviews, more teachers’ quotes, and ordering info visit:

http://www.newday.com/films/WetDreams.html.

Filmmaker contact: Jesse@Ohmsmedia.org