Searchlight Shorts has licensed the Park Pictures documentary short film The Heart Still Hums for its online platform. The short provides a raw and honest glimpse into the struggles of modern-day mothers in need and the charity organizations eager to help. Mothers and mother-figures of all stripes struggle through motherhood and its many hardships, but facing additional challenges like being unhoused, not having financial support or stability, and the real possibility of needing to seek adoptive services for your child is a heartbreaking reality many face today. The film highlights two organizations in particular, Black Mothers United/HerHealthFirst and Chickes in Crisis, Inc, and is sure to strike a chord with both mothers and children of mothers who have struggled with such trials as viewers approach Mother’s Day, May 9.
Co-directed by both Grammy-nominated director Savanah Leaf and Indie Spirit Award-nominated actor and filmmaker Taylor Russell (Bones and All, Waves), The Heart Still Hums follows five women based in Sacramento, Calif., through varying stages of young motherhood. The young mothers navigate the turbulence of accessing hard-won resources through nonprofits or, in the hardest circumstances, seeking adoptive families for their children.
Black Mothers United/HerHealthFirst improves health equity in Sacramento County by providing support to women, envisioning a community in which all women have full and equal access to opportunities leading to the highest level of health possible. Chicks In Crisis’ mission is to provide love, home and family for every child, supporting mothers and fathers with prenatal care, facilitating open adoption placements, offering educational parenting classes and other services, in order to reduce infant abandonment, foster care, abuse and more.
Leaf shared, “When I was 15 years old, I met Inez, the founder of Chicks in Crisis, and a group of young mothers in her program. Over the next few months, I got to know one mother in particular, building mutual respect and a relationship of understanding. As summer brought the birth of her new child, I was asked to cut the umbilical cord of my now sister. This documentary is personal to me, a story that brought my family together through selflessness and the power of love, the ability to recognize our imperfections and strive to better the future of our children. Our communities need this story today more than ever.”
Russell added, “Watching the women in my life give everything they have for their children is undoubtedly the most inspirational act I can think of and has bled into everything that interests me now. The incredible women captured in The Heart Still Hums opened their hearts for us and I can’t wait for you all to see it.”
The film has garnered sweeping critical praise and film festival accolades, including the 2020 Palm Springs ShortFest Best Documentary Short Award and BlackStar Film Festival Best Short Documentary Award. The Heart Still Hums most recently screened at Aspen Shortsfest on April 9, 2021. Leaf is represented by 2AM and Granderson des Rochers, and Russell is represented by UTA on the film/TV/entertainment front. Leaf is handled by Park Pictures for commercials and branded content.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults โ two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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