The Flagmakers

Q&A with director Cynthia Wade, moderated by co-founder of Chicken & Egg Pictures Wendy Ettinger

2022. 35 m. Cynthia Wade and Sharon Liese. National Geographic Documentary Films. USA. English. Rated PG-13.

Series

Shortlisted for Best Documentary Short Film for the 2023 Academy Awards®

From Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Wade (Freeheld) and award-wining director Sharon Liese (Transhood), The Flagmakers poses one of today’s most pressing questions: who is the American flag for?

Employee-owned Eder Flag in Oak Creek, Wisconsin sews and ships five million American flags a year. The flagmakers—locals, immigrants, and refugees—stitch stars and stripes as they wrestle with notions of identity and belonging. Sewing manager Radica, a Serbian immigrant, believes every flag has a soul. Ali, a war survivor from Iraq, is learning how to use a sewing machine after arriving in the United States just 90 days prior. Midwestern-born Barb’s genuine friendships with her immigrant co-workers belie her staunchly conservative beliefs.

After the Q&A, please join us across the road at the Media Arts Lab for a reception, sponsored by National Geographic.

Tickets: $11 (members), $16 (nonmembers)

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Q&A with director Cynthia Wade, moderated by co-founder of Chicken & Egg Pictures Wendy Ettinger

Sunday, Jan. 8 2023, 4:00

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Cynthia Wade is the director of films including Freeheld (Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Short Film), Mondays at Racine (Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Film), and Born Sweet (Sundance Film Festival Honorable Mention in Short Filmmaking). Cynthia directs commercials for brands such as Kellogg’s, Dove, and WW, among others. She is writing a feature-length screenplay about the Shakers, the utopians who sustained the longest-lived American experiment of equality. Collectively her films have received over 60 awards. She holds a Master’s Degree in Documentary Filmmaking from Stanford University.
Wendy Ettinger has been producing documentaries and narrative films for over 20 years. In 2005, with Julie Parker Benello and Judith Helfand, she co-founded Chicken & Egg Pictures in order to fund and mentor women documentary directors whose artful and innovative storytelling catalyzes social change. Over the past ten years, Chicken & Egg Pictures has awarded over $4 million in grants and 5,200 hours of creative mentorship to more than 200 films and filmmakers. These filmmakers and films have garnered a multitude of awards, including Academy and Emmy Awards – but as importantly have created change at home and globally for the issues they address.