Brave Miss World
Director: Cecilia Peck
Producers: Cecilia Peck, Inbal Lessner, Motty Reif
Additional Producers: Lati Grobman, Regina Kulik Scully, Geralyn Dreyfous, Irving Bauman, Orna Raiz, & Howard Rosenman, Christa Campbell
Cinematographer: Tamara Goldsworthy, Uri Ackerman
Editor: Inbal Lessner
Synopsis: At 18, beauty queen Linor Abargil was violently raped in Milan, Italy, and won the Miss World crown only 6 weeks later. The film follows her fight for justice and her journey to speak out about rape. When her serial rapist becomes eligible for parole, she has to track down his previous victims in order to help keep him behind bars.
Sunday September 29th at 5:15 p.m.
Reception to follow.
**SOLD OUT**
Web Site: www.BraveMissWorld.com
Brave Miss World tells the story of Israeli beauty queen Linor Abargil, who was abducted and raped two months before being crowned Miss World in 1998. The film traces her fight for justice, in her own case and on behalf of other women. As a global victims’ advocate, Linor encourages people to stand against sexual violence by putting an end to their silence. She travels to meet teens in South Africa, where girls are statistically more likely to be raped than educated. She visits Princeton and UC Santa Barbara, where women describe a campus culture that fails to take assaults seriously. From rape crisis centers to Hollywood’s living rooms, Linor is met with emotional support. Yet when she attends a celebrity rape trial that hits too close to home, she suffers a breakdown. In searching for something to ease her pain, Linor’s life takes a dramatic turn. For victims of sexual assault, the journey toward wholeness never ends; still, Linor Abargil, the Brave MIss World, continues her unflinching efforts to fight for justice and to keep the nightmares at bay.
Biographies:
Director/Producer Cecilia Peck -
has always been drawn to stories of individuals who stand up for their beliefs. She directed and produced “Shut Up & Sing,” about the Dixie Chicks, shortlisted for the 2007 Academy Awards, Best Documentary at the Aspen, Sydney, Woodstock Film Festivals, Special Jury Prize at the Toronto and Chicago Film Festivals. Cecilia produced “A Conversation with Gregory Peck,” an intimate portrait of her father, which premiered as a Special Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, for TCM. She directed and produced “Justice For All,” an examination of capital punishment through the eyes of one death row prisoner. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
Producer/Editor Inbal Lessner -
recently did additional editing on Davis Guggenheim's Teach, a 2-hour documentary special for CBS. In 2007, she edited and co-produced the internationally acclaimed 'I Have Never Forgotten You' about Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, a Special Selection of the 2007 Berlinale, Vienalle, Jerusalem, and Tribeca Film Festivals.
Inbal began making films when she was in high school and later produced training films for the Israeli Defense Forces. At NYU, she was the recipient of the prestigious, merit-based, WTC Johnson Fellowship, a full tuition fellowship awarded to one undergraduate filmmaker a year. Inbal has edited hundreds of hours of non-scripted network & cable television shows, ranging from Sundance Channel's award-winning docu-series Transgeneration and Showtime's "American Candidate" directed by R.J. Cutler, to ABC's reality hit show The Bachelorette. She also directed Night Bites, a docudrama for the Women’s Entertainment Network, was second-unit producer on the HBO/ARTE documentary Watermarks about the women swimmers of the pre-WWII Hakoach Vienna Jewish athletic club, and was an editing consultant on the PBS Emmy-winner Be Good, Smile Pretty. Other credits include editing A Whisper to a Roar (feature doc about Democracy activists in 5 countries,) If I Die Tonight (feature doc about police brutality), Shock Act, about a death row experiment (Best Narrative Short winner at Tribeca and Chicago film festivals), and the independent feature The Elephant King starring Ellen Burstyn.
Executive Producer Lati Grobman -
Executive Producers Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman founded Campbell-Grobman Films in 2011. They have proven to be an aggressive force in the filmmaking community, producing seven films for multiple companies across Hollywood in the past two years, including such high profile projects as Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), Straight A’s (2013),Reality Show (2013), Brave Miss World(2013), A Case of You (2013), and The Iceman (2012), starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder. Driven by their passion for film, Christa and Lati enjoy working within a wide spectrum of genres, ranging from horror to romantic comedy, action, and documentary. Their films have been showcased in several renowned film festivals across the world, including Toronto, Venice, Montreal, and WorldFest-Houston, where their documentary film The Resort (2012) took home the Special Jury Award.
The duo are currently in production for Eliza Graves, which brings together a star-studded ensemble featuring Kate Beckinsale (Underworld, Total Recall), Jim Sturgess (21, Cloud Atlas), Michael Caine (Children of Men, The Dark Knight), Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List, Iron Man III), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and David Thewlis (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Kingdom of Heaven). They also have two other projects currently in the works; the comedySquirrels to the Nuts starring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, and Brie Larson, as well as the newly acquired action script, Criminal,penned by Douglas Cook and David Weisberg (The Rock). Utilizing their combined experiences both behind and in front of the camera, this team ultimately aspires to create movies that can change the world for the better.
