Photo Credit: Paula Allen

Join us for two screenings of the award-winning documentary film CITY OF JOY and talkbacks with Eve and Christine this February in Los Angeles and Oakland, CA.

CITY OF JOY, directed by first-time director Madeleine Gavin, follows the first class of women at a revolutionary leadership center in eastern Congo called City of Joy, from which the film derives its title, and weaves their journey as burgeoning leaders with that of the center’s founders (a devout Congolese doctor Dr. Denis Mukwege (2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner), women’s rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver (Director of City of Joy and V-Day Congo) and radical feminist Eve Ensler (author of The Vagina Monologues and Founder of V-Day/One Billion Rising) – three individuals who imagined a place where women who have suffered horrific rape and abuse can heal and become powerful voices of change for their country.

A story about the profound resilience of the human spirit, CITY OF JOY witnesses Congolese women’s fierce will to reclaim hope, even when so much of what was meaningful to them has been stripped away.

LOS ANGELES – TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12
Presented by The Hammer Museum
SCREENING OF CITY OF JOY
Followed by a Talkback with Eve Ensler & Christine Schuler-Deschryver & V-Day Board Member/African American Policy Forum Co-Founder Kimberlé Crenshaw
FREE Admission: tickets are required and available at the Box Office one hour before the program. One ticket per person; first come, first served.
For info about attending this screening, please visit:
https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2019/02/city-of-joy-with-qa/

OAKLAND – WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13
Presented by One Billion Rising, Bay Area Rising & V-Day
TURNING PAIN TO POWER: AT THE GRAND LAKE THEATER
An Evening of Revolutionary Film, Talk, Drumming And Dance To End Violence Against Women with Eve Ensler, Christine Schuler-Deschryver, Aimee Allison, Afia Walking Tree & Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company
$5 Tickets. Limited FREE tickets available. Purchase tix + info at
https://turningpaintopower.eventbrite.com

In Oakland, immediately following the screening, audience members will be invited to RISE and participate in the One Billion Rising “Break the Chain” dance, as well as a Q&A with City of Joy Co-Founders Christine and Eve and She The People Founder Aimee Allison. Reflecting Bay Area Rising’s intersection of art, spirituality, and activism, the event will feature local dance, and music, including a drum procession led by Afia Walking Tree and performances by the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company.

The story of City of Joy is the story of love and community. It is the story of what happens when women who are survivors of sexual violence live together in community, heal themselves and each other, and create their destiny on their own terms. The transformation that is seen at City of Joy is profound – the most abused become the most powerful who turn poison into medicine, isolation into community, shame into self-love, silence into story. This is the story of what happens when women have time to heal and truly release and transform trauma, when women are loved and held and nurtured and treated with deepest kindness, dignity and intention.

Join us!

#TurningPainIntoPower

Take Action:
LEARN more about the City of Joy
DOWNLOAD the Screening Guide, Plan a House Party or Screening
SPREAD THE WORD on Social Media, SHARE The Trailer
DONATE to the City of Joy in DR Congo, Support Women in Congo