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PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release
MEDIA CONTACT: Nancy Tarr
nancy@tarrmusic.com
301.351.4232

LENS & PENS: ART IN AN UNEXPECTED PLACE AMONG LUCKY 20
AT ROSEBUD FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL

Writer/Producer Deborah Schull adds awards as film festival circuit continues

WASHINGTON, DC–November 11, 2010 – Award-winning first-time filmmaker Deborah Schull’s  Lens & Pens: Art in an Unexpected Place is one of 20 films nominated to showcase in the Rosebud Film and Video Festival. The film will be shown at 5:25 p.m., Saturday, November 13th at the Dome Theatre at Artisphere (Arlington County’s new cultural center). All 20 nominated films will be screened at this special one-day event.  On November 14th, five of the nominated films will be selected to receive $1,000 at Rosebud’s gala Awards Ceremony at the Clarendon Ballroom.

This award-winning documentary tells the inspiring story of a transformational arts workshop for the “criminally insane.” Using poetry, painting, and photography, this workshop is held at Washington, DC’s, public psychiatric facility, the historic St. Elizabeths Hospital, located east of the Anacostia River in Southeast DC. Lens & Pens: Art in an Unexpected Place offers a rare look inside the John Howard Pavilion, the hospital’s maximum-security wing. Deborah Schull, the writer/producer of Lens & Pens: Art in an Unexpected Place, has already received over 12 awards for her work on this compelling half-hour film.

Artisphere is located at 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA – just two blocks from the Roslyn Metro Station. Tickets for the Rosebud festival are available at the door or by calling Arlington Independent Media at 703-524-2388.

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About Deborah Schull

Deborah J. Schull is an award-winning writer/producer, instructional designer, marketing professional, and appellate/copyright attorney. Schull was associate producer for the award-winning PBS series Think Tank and is a Board member of the Television, Internet, and Video Association of DC (TIVA-DC). She has written for a variety of federal agencies as well as media and advertising companies and nonprofits. As an instructional designer, she specializes in interactive web-based training courses, webinars, and training videos. She was public relations director for Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts and the Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department. As an attorney, her work focuses on the intersection of the arts, intellectual property, and technology. She won First Prize from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for an essay on rap music, digital sampling, copyright, and the first amendment. Her current freelance work includes travel articles, blogs, treatments for immersive film experiences, museum audio tours, and a music-based travel series for television.

About Lens & Pens: Art in an Unexpected Place

The documentary tells the inspiring story of a poetry, painting, and photography workshop and its profound impact on criminally insane patients held under maximum security at Washington, DC’s, St. Elizabeths Hospital. While some will spend their entire life at “St. E’s,” others have left the hospital for the greater community and will continue to develop themselves and their art—if they can just “keep the pieces in place.” Featuring Ronnie, Pam, and Kevin, three patient-participants whose lives are transformed by the workshop; its founder, social worker Ed Washington; and its three dedicated volunteer-teachers. www.lensandpens.net

About the Rosebud Film and Video Festival

The ROSEBUD Film and Video Festival was founded in 1990 to promote the rich and diverse independent film and video community in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. The festival, which honors the innovative, experimental, unusual, and deeply personal in creative film- and video-making, is a project of Arlington Independent Media (AIM). AIM is a nonprofit membership organization providing the community with television production training workshops, professional production facilities, and a cable channel in Arlington County, Virginia.  www.rosebudfestival.org