Storming Caesars Palace
A film by Hazel Gurland-Pooler
STORMING CAESARS PALACE chronicles the life of Ruby Duncan, an activist who fights the welfare system and becomes a White House advisor. A real-life superhero, she takes on both the Nevada political establishment and organized crime in a valiant and resolute act of civil disobedience.
United States | 2022 | 86 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W221297 |
SYNOPSIS
STORMING CAESARS PALACE chronicles the extraordinary life of Ruby Duncan, an activist who fights the welfare system and becomes a White House advisor. Ruby, along with Mary Wesley, Alversa Beals, and low-income mothers across the country form the National Welfare Rights Organization to fight for an adequate income, dignity, and justice. Together, they introduce a Guaranteed Income campaign in 1969 which, with feminist Gloria Steinem at their side, becomes part of the Democratic platform in 1972.
A real-life superhero, Ruby takes on both the Nevada political establishment and organized crime in a valiant and resolute act of civil disobedience. Based on a groundbreaking book and using lost archival material, STORMING CAESARS PALACE celebrates the visionary leadership of Ruby Duncan, whose courage, tenacity, and dreams could not be quashed against all odds. While the film focuses on a historical story, its message is current and relevant as it asks viewers to consider that a guaranteed universal income is a human rights issue.
STORMING CAESARS PALACE which received substantial funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, ITVS, and Black Public Media is available to book for screenings.
PRESS
The powerful film centers the women at the forefront of an important feminist anti-poverty movement.
This film uplifts the story of Las Vegas activist Ruby Duncan and a band of ordinary mothers who launched one of the most extraordinary, yet forgotten, feminist, anti-poverty movements in U.S. history providing a blueprint today for an equitable future.
"Chronicles the extraordinary story of Ruby Duncan who went from a boisterous protestor to a strategic organizer to a White House advisor."
"A fascinating, under appreciated piece of history."
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Shine Award, Black Star Film Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Hazel Gurland-Pooler
Hazel was born in Bogotá, Colombia and raised in New York City. After graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she worked in long-form television production for ABC News, A&E, PBS/Frontline, HBO, and HISTORY. Hazel Co-Produced two hours of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was honored with an Emmy, a Peabody, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia baton, and the NAACP Image award.
Hazel then Produced Roots: A History Revealed, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary Television and screened at the Bushwick Film Festival in 2016. In 2017, Hazel produced a five-part, digital-first, short-form docuseries about the daily lives of low-income New Yorkers called, My Everyday Hustle for PBS/WNET’s, multi-platform public media initiative, Chasing the Dream: Poverty & Opportunity in America.
Continuing to collaborate with Dr. Gates over the years, Hazel has directed and produced six hours of the celebrity genealogy series Finding Your Roots, with another four episodes scheduled for broadcast beginning in January 2019. Storming Caesars Palace (w.t.), which has received support from ITVS’ Diversity Development Fund and Firelight Media, is her first feature. (1/23)
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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