Chick Flicks Summer Fix - "Venus & Serena"

Join Women in Film.Dallas for the screening of the documentary film, Venus and Serena (trailer). This film takes an unfiltered look into the remarkable lives of the greatest sister-act professional tennis has ever seen. In a sport where they were not welcomed, the indomitable Williams sisters faced the opposition with grace and courage not only breaking new ground for female and African American athletes everywhere, but dominating the women’s game for over a decade. The film tells the inspiring story of how these two women, against all odds, but with the help of visionary parents, made it to the top.

Venus and Serena also explores the struggle of these two aging superstars during the 2011 tennis season as they battle life and career-threatening health problems. In Venus and Serena we gain unprecedented access into the sisters’ lives - both in the spotlight and behind closed doors – and we watch as they draw their greatest strengths from one another to overcome countless adversities.

Beat the heat and watch a story by women, but for everyone. Co-directed by Maiken Baird & Michelle Major, produced by Maiken Baird & Michelle Major, and written by Michelle Major.

 
About the Filmmakers:


Michelle Major has worked in television and film for more than 15 years. Michelle got her start on the Barbara Walters film verité documentary Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: But We Have to Live on Earth. Later, she became a member of the producing team for Peter Jennings critically acclaimed and groundbreaking documentary project The Century.  She was also one of the original producers to bring the ABC News show Lifetime Live to the Lifetime channel. Additionally, she contributed to ABCs World News Weekend, finding her niche producing features about race, religion and the urban experience.

At ABCs Good Morning America, she was part of an award winning team and was personally responsible for producing several shows dealing with national topics ranging from the 2008 Presidential election to Hurricane Katrina. She is a proud native of Harlem, NY and currently lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn.


Maiken Baird is an independent documentary filmmaker who specializes in international and political affairs. She produced Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, with Academy Award winning director and producer Alex Gibney. In 2011, Client 9 was nominated for best documentary feature by the Producers and the Directors Guild of America and was also nominated for three Emmy Awards.

Maiken began her documentary career at ABC News as a researcher for Peter Jennings News Specials. She went on to produce documentaries for New York Times Television and National Geographic on a wide range of topics including: Women of the Holy Kingdom on the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, Nuclear Nightmare: Understanding North Korea, TB: Time Bomb on Russia's tuberculosis epidemic and The Smallpox Curse on the eradication of small pox. She produced A&Es Biography of the Millennium, on the 100 most influential people of the last one thousand years and associate produced Biographies of Joseph Stalin and Eva Peron. She segment produced MTVs True Life: Fatal Dose, on heroin abuse by affluent teens in Plano, Texas.

Prior to becoming a documentary filmmaker Maiken worked at the United Nations in New York, the European Union in Brussels and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Maiken is trilingual in English, French and Danish and lives in London with her husband and three children.



*Online Ticket sales stop at midnight the night before the event!*