Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is, of course, well-known here in Massachusetts, especially in Dorchester, where she used to live. But Abby Ginzberg, an independent documentary filmmaker, thinks she should be better known by a national audience.
“It’s always been part of my goal to introduce people to people they’ve never heard of, but whose work and life should be inspirational,” said Ginzberg, who met Pressley while working on a previous documentary.
“Ayanna, I got to know when I was making the Barbara Lee film. As I learned more about her, I wanted to make this film about her, and so I did, and here we are.”
The new film “She Dared to Dream: Ayanna Pressley,” was screened at an event in Washington last Wednesday night (Feb. 11) as part of the DC Independent Film Festival after it made its debut at Martha’s Vineyard’s African American Film Festival last August and recently found its way to the Roxbury International Film Festival and the Commonwealth College of Art and Design.
The 28-minute documentary follows Pressley’s journey from the Boston City Council to Congress, where, as the US Representative for Massachusetts’s 7th district, she became the first woman of color elected to Congress from the state.
“One of the themes of the film is that Ayanna tries to show up every day authentically as who she is, and that means with her bald head and her stately presence, and everything about her,” Ginzberg said in an interview last week.
“I felt like a lot of the women in her district really responded to that notion of authenticity showing up as who you are.” She added: “You could feel an emotional reaction to that in the screening of the film. That’s an important thing because it’s true for every woman. The challenge to show up authentically as yourself and not feel like you have to kind of stuff yourself into a box or make yourself a triangle if you’re really a square.”
The DC screening, Ginzberg hopes, will help the film find an audience outside of Massachusetts. She has two additional screenings scheduled in California. On March 7, in LA at the TCL Chinese Theatre and again the following day in Oakland at the Grand Lake Theatre.
The country “is very provincial. We know something about the people who represent us, but we don’t know much beyond that,” said the Peabody award-winning director and EMMY Silver Circle inductee. “I’m on a tear to educate people about who these folks are. There are stories here that need to be told, and if I’m the only person in the country interested in telling them, fine, I’ll tell them.”
Those at last Wednesday’s screening saw clips of Pressley fighting to protect vulnerable communities at the local, state, and federal levels.
“The moment we’re in is challenging. Keeping up with how Ayanna is responding to these times has been helpful to me,” said Ginzberg. “She’s a forward-thinking legislator who really is concerned about not just going back to something inadequate, but also moving forward to something more holistic.”
She added, “It’s very rewarding to watch Ayanna with an audience. She listens, she cares, she’s got a staff member taking notes. This is not all a performance. The real her is somebody who wants to do what she can for her constituents and for others who are coming to her with requests, needs, etc.”
Ginzberg hopes to see the Pressley documentary become available for public streaming later this year. She has already started working on her next project, which will highlight the junior US senator from Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester.
“How many more films will be completed as part of the series depends on what sort of success we have with fundraising,” said Ginzberg. “People have not heard of these women. I don’t quite understand why not, but they have not. I just feel like it’s important that we know who’s getting elected in this country.”
