“ You’re going to be a Mensch, Okay?” A
s the Artistic Director of San Diego International Film Festival, Tonya Mantooth does more than just curate the films featured, she starts community-wide conversations. “Because we all had the downtime if you will, it gave everybody a chance to reflect... I had that time to start to say ‘Where do I want this to go?’ ‘How can we really evolve to making a bigger difference, having a bigger voice and building a bigger presence?’. . . Coming out of Covid there is momentum to do it differently to be able to carve a new path for ourselves,” Tonya said. “And yes I think that is reflected in many of the initiatives; one working with California Women’s Museum and that partnership, [two] the human trafficking and putting those partnerships in place,” she added. Earlier this year Felicia Shaw, the executive director of the Women’s Museum of California, and Tonya started talking about joining forces.
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| SDJEWISHJOURNAL.COM October 2022
They’ve had their own stand alone women’s film festival for a couple years and prioritizing women filmmakers and hosting women’s panels was already a feature of the larger San Diego Film Festival, so their discussions turned to how to fold in the women’s festival into the wider one. “We really thought together we would have a louder voice and really amplify the story of why it’s important to highlight and celebrate female filmmakers and to really acknowledge the fact that while it’s been an incredible time now for filmmakers really getting their exposure in a way they haven’t in the past, there is still a long way to go. And we felt like together we could really champion that message. There are 10 films that we’ve designated as part of the female film series and those will play over the three days during the festival,” Tonya said. Another topic that the Film Fest is making an impact with is sex and human trafficking.
...they really told the story of a family in all of its beautifulness and kind of broken pieces. It’s very real. It’s very rare.
“One of the things we really wanted to highlight this year is the issue of sex and human trafficking and I’ve always programmed films on this topic — which is a really tough topic to take on. This year, I’ve now partnered with an organization called AuthenticID, which is the number one cybertraking company which tracks sexual predators, and a nonprofit called All 4 Humanity, which is about irradicating human and sex trafficking. And so together we feel like we have a louder voice, we have