Our film ‘BT Lives in the Stitch’ received the most votes during the two-week festival

We are pleased to announce that Small Forces won the Most Popular Film Award for BT Lives in the Stitch in the 8th Annual PBS Online Film Festival. Among the festival’s 25 short-form independent films, we were honored to have two pieces that were nominated in partnership with Illinois Public Media. Thank you for sharing and voting for both of our stories during the two-week festival.

BT Lives in the Stitch takes viewers to North Lawndale College Prep, a high school located on the south side of Chicago, in a neighborhood notable more for urban blight than quality education. Then, teacher Dorothea Tobin introduced the BT Lives in the Stitch program, creating community and safe haven amongst an unlikely group of teens. Heroine of Hope (the second film nominated) addresses the opioid crisis in America, telling the story of Scarlet Hudson, a woman who left her career to help women in her community caught in the abusive cycle of addiction and sex trafficking. Both films follow the Small Forces mission to showcase people and organizations making a difference in their communities. 

This summer, viewers watched, shared and voted for their favorite film to win the “Most Popular” award. Overall, the 2019 festival garnered more than 2 million streams. The films are still available via PBS and station digital platforms, including PBS.org, and are also available to stream on YouTube and Facebook. 

Our Small Forces team was impressed with the outreach we received from PBS viewers, many of whom offered to send donations to Ms. Tobin and her knitting group. The impact of this festival will ripple for long after the last vote was cast. 

For more on the festival, visit http://www.pbs.org/filmfestival.