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2010 was a productive year for In Our Son’s Name. We moved closer to completing production and potential distributors began to take interest in presenting the film in September 2011 during the observance of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. In September Phyllis was interviewed by Edit Schlaffer, Director of Women Without Borders, onstage at the Women & Power Conference sponsored by the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Hundreds of people from a variety of backgrounds came together at the two-day gathering to examine emerging models of leadership being ushered in by women around the globe. See a video clip of Phyllis and Edit’s dialog at: http://www.eomega.org/omega/wi-power/ After hearing Phyllis speak at Women & Power, she and Aïcha el-Wafi were invited to the TEDWomen Conference, held in Washington, DC, in December. The two mothers told their story of reconciliation to one thousand attendees plus a virtual audience in cities across the US and in 90 countries across the world. Among the other speakers were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Playwright Eve Ensler, Journalist Arianna Huffington, Sierra Leone’s First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma, and one of my favorite performer-activists, Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Find out more at http://conferences.ted.com/TEDWomen/ Orlando completed his third semester teaching Sociology of Religion to inmates at Green Haven, a New York State maximum-security prison. His goal for the students is to develop critical thinking skills that they can apply to their prison experience as well as their lives on the outside when they’re released. He describes Green Haven as a depressing place of long, sterile corridors, but his classes are lively – the students eager to learn, full of questions and opinions. December also introduced another 9/11 family member to the documentary, Talat Hamdani, a Muslim woman whose son, Salman, a New York City Police Cadet and EMT, was killed as he assisted victims of the attack. We filmed as the three parents met in Talat’s home to look at photographs of their sons and talk about how differently the authorities treated their loss. For months Salman was considered a suspicious person because he was Muslim with a police ID at Ground Zero. We met Talat in September when we filmed her, Orlando and Phyllis speaking out against Islamophobia at a Westchester County synagogue. We’re pleased that Talat has become a voice in our documentary. You can read more about her story in this BBC article/video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2010/12/101208_outlook_muslim_911.shtml
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