FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sessions to include panel featuring academy award-winner Alex Gibney

July 15, 2008--Netroots Nation organizers announced today that the schedule for its Screening Series is set. The three-day series celebrates the best in progressive films, shorts, vidcasts and other visual media and examines new messaging tools for progressive activists, candidates and officeholders.

The Series includes a panel featuring Academy Award-winner Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”), who will present never-before-seen clips from his upcoming film “Casino Jack: United States of Money.” Gibney will be joined by a panel of experts discussing transparency in government and how the internet has changed the way Washington D.C works. Panelists include: Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post; Naomi Seligman Steiner, deputy director of CREW; Michael Silberman of EchoDitto and former MeetUp director for Howard Dean’s Presidential Campaign; and Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico. The panel is Friday, July 18 at 9 a.m.

Other sessions include:

Media That Matters Film Festival
July 17, 3 p.m., Room 16
The Media That Matters Film Festival is the premier showcase for short films on the most important topics of the day.

“A Bad Situationist,” A Film by Sam Seder
July 17, 9:15 p.m., Room 16
Written and shot in the months before 9-11-01, this film starring Seder, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman and Ross Brockley remained unfinished until 2008.

Can Film Do the Job Media Used To Do?
July 18, 10:30 a.m., Room 16

Viral Video Comedy Workshop
July 18, 1:30 p.m., Room 16

“Crawford,” The Movie
July 18, 3 p.m., Room 16
This award-winning documentary takes on the town the President “claims” as home and looks inside the lives of the residents and their mixed feelings toward their presidential neighbor. With Austin-based director David Modigliani.

“Trouble the Water,” The Movie
July 18, 5 p.m., Room 16
This Sundance grand jury prize winner takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen.

Progressives Go Viral: Creating and Distributing Video For Internet, iPod and Mobile Audiences
July 19, 10:30 a.m., Room 16

Creating Political Community Around Film
July 19, 1:30 p.m., Room 16

Live Earth Video Program
July 19, 4:30 p.m., Room 16

“STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote,” The Movie
July 19, 6 p.m., Room 16
Academy Award nominated filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman shines a spotlight on the gritty reality of the last decade’s most egregious incidents of U.S. electoral insecurity.

The Screening Series is presented in partnership with Screening Liberally and Doc Workers. For more information about Netroots Nation, the Netroots Nation Screening Series or to request credentials, please visit www.netrootsnation.org/press.

Netroots Nation amplifies progressive voices by providing an online and in-person campus for exchanging ideas and learning how to be more effective in using technology to influence the public debate. Within that campus, we strengthen community, inspire action and serve as an incubator for progressive ideas that challenge the status quo and ultimately affect change in the public sphere.