Director of Anita Hill Film to Visit Napa's New Tech High

  Freida Mock, the director of the critically acclaimed documentary, Anita will visit students at Napa's New Technology High School on Friday, Nov. 15.

  The film, which screens Friday and Saturday during the Napa Valley Film Festival, screened at the Sundance Film Festival and played at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

It follows the legacy of Hill's shocking 1991 Senate testimony alleging U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas made harassing sexual statements to her while she was employed at the U.S. Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

Mock has been nominated for five Academy Awards throughout her career and won an Oscar for Best Documentary (Feature) in 1995 for Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision.

Her last nomination came in 2002 for Sing! Mock said in a statement, "I'm very excited to be working with the great team at Samuel Goldwyn Films to bring Anita to moviegoers this fall."

During the week of the Napa Valley Film Festival, over 2,500 Napa Valley middle school and high school students will attend screenings of the documentaries Girl Rising; Magic Bracelet; Sewing Hope; The Last White Knight; Fabian Debora, A Life for Art; Miss Representation; and Anita.

The films will be followed by honest discussions with the director, producers, or/and subjects of these powerful films.

Visit http://2013.napavalleyfilmfest.org to see schedules of all the film screenings during the Napa Valley Film Festival.

Mock will be available for question and answers at New Tech High. In addition, four New Technology High Students have followed the Napa Film Festival as social media experts.

They will be on hand to amplify, blog and inform thoughout the event.

Members of the team will interview Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe from the Inspirational movie; Sewing Hope. Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe leads a vocational school in Gulu, Uganda, where she uses practical skills to restore dignity, independence, and hope to formerly abducted women.

Student Abigail Simpson will also attend a special luncheon:  Celebrating Women Making a Difference where she will interview Anita Hill.

The school, which opened in 1996, is a flagship school for the New Tech Network of over 130 schools across the country.

New Tech schools focus on three design elements, teaching that engages through rigorous and relevant project-based learning, technology that is empowers in a 1:1 student to computer ratio and a culture that promotes trust, respect and responsibility.

For more on the Napa Valley Film Festival, follow on Twitter at @NapaFilmFest, or visit:

http://napavalleyfilmfest.org