MANSFIELD — The “Warrior Women” documentary directed and produced by Mansfield native Elizabeth Castle has been nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in storytelling.
“Warrior Women” was one of 60 nominees and one of only 20 documentary films announced by the Peabody Awards on May 6. The programs were selected by unanimous vote from more than 1,200 entries across categories including children’s programming, documentaries, entertainment, news, radio/podcast, public service and web.
For Castle, the nomination means more than an Oscar.
“It really is the only validation that truly matters in terms of industry recognition,” Castle said. “It’s very cool that the most critical thinkers about film, history, and social justice unanimously agreed on ‘Warrior Women.’ There probably won’t be a ceremony to attend, but I got to dance around my house in pure rush of happy for a day and that’s a big deal in these times.”
The Peabody Awards reflect “the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcasting and digital media during 2019.” According to executive director, Dr. Jeffrey P. Jones, since 1941 the Peabody Awards have spotlighted programs that demonstrate how media can defend the public interest, encourage empathy with others, and teach us to expand our understanding of the world around us.
“Such media achieves the highest standards and exists across genre and media platforms, across regions and borders,” Jones said. “We are distinct from other industry awards, recognizing small, local programming alongside programs with larger production budgets. We award the best of the best.”
Since 2016, the Peabody Awards include 60 nominees, of which 30 are recognized as winners. To receive a nomination and to win a Peabody, a program must be unanimously approved by jurors.
“Warrior Women” features Madonna Thunder Hawk and her daughter, Marcy Gilbert, and their fight for indigenous rights during the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. The narrative uses the relationship between Thunder Hawk and Gilbert to highlight women’s activism, its impact and the “innate power” of women in indigenous societies.
The film’s main characters initially had a reserved reaction when they heard about the Peabody nomination, after a wild ride in the filmmaking process.
“At first Madonna and Marcy were cautious until they realized that pretty much every great film they have seen was a Peabody award winner or nominee – and now we are one of those films! They are thrilled,” Castle said.
The film was shown on PBS in March 2019 and has been featured at more than 30 film festivals. It’s based on the research for Castle’s upcoming book, “Women were the Backbone, Men were the Jawbone: Native Women’s Activism in the Red Power Movement.”
“We have been funded by all the top investors – like Sundance and ITVS – but we made decisions about how we were going to tell the story that went against many of the ‘master narrative’ storytelling styles,” Castle said. “So we seemed to be overlooked for a lot of opportunities to get the film out there and seen and it has been frustrating. But we have never been a crew to let that stop us.”
Castle grew up in Mansfield and graduated from Mansfield Senior High School in 1991. She studied race, gender and electronic media at George Washington University in Washington D.C. before going on to earn her Ph.D. in history at the University of Cambridge in England.
The first local screening of “Warrior Women” premiered more than a year ago with an 8-minute segment shown during a women’s conference at The Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus. Castle was invited back to show the entire film and continue the conversation about women’s empowerment in May 2019 at the Marketplace Café on campus. Then in September, OSU-Mansfield hosted a second screening of the entire film with a Warrior Women Hometown Gala at the Founder’s Theatre.
Future opportunities to see the film are in limbo due to the COVID-19 crisis and trying to find ways to gather people in a safe way. Currently, Castle is working on a curating a Virtual Liberation Film Series for June that will include four films that all have stories of 1970s activists who fought for “the kind of society we all desperately need right now, one that values humanity over greed.”
“These films will be screened online and followed by Q&A sessions with some of these elder activists like Madonna Thunder Hawk, Dolores Huerta, Cha Cha Jimenez and others,” Castle said. “They will be free but we will ask for donations to support the movements doing social justice work protecting communities from COVID-19.”
On March 26, Peabody announced that its annual ceremony, the Peabody Awards, would be postponed from the previously announced date of June 18, 2020 in Los Angeles, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A revised release schedule of winners and a new ceremony date will be announced soon.
In the meantime, Castle said her work is just beginning in how she is using the “Warrior Women” film and other new media to educate people about the importance of “following the matriarchs, recognizing women’s power, learning unknown hidden history that is critical to being a functional society, and ultimately taking the lead from women of color.”
“Because of the Peabody nomination, we will be able to get more distribution for the film and hopefully in late summer or early fall we can gather locally for another screening and also show the new media we have been creating with the Warrior Women Project,” Castle said. “Keep an eye on us.”
To learn more about Castle’s film, visit warriorwomenfilm.com.
