Elizabeth Holmes and Lisa Schauer have known each other for decades, but for a long time their relationship was wary. Moving in the same professional land-use planning and real estate development circles, each assumed those male-dominated fields didn’t have room for both of them. That led to long silences between would-be friends, they said.
“We were victims of a scarcity mindset,” Schauer said. “That mindset is still incredibly prevalent. It’s not just, ‘Those men are keeping us down.’ Women need to come together as a tribe. Instead of fighting over one chair at the table, what we should have done was say, ‘Let’s pull up two chairs.'”
Holmes and Schauer eventually started collaborating on that very mission: developing and celebrating women in leadership positions. They launched a nonpartisan political action committee called H-RoC to endorse and shine lights on local women candidates. (H-RoC is an acronym, sort of, for “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World,” a poem by William Ross Wallace hailing the strength of women in society.) For the past decade, Schauer and Holmes said, H-Roc has been a laboratory for engaging women across the political spectrum in positive, civil dialogue.
Along the way, Holmes and Schauer also came together over their admiration for Nan Henriksen, the former Camas mayor, county freeholder and First Citizen for 2015. But Henriksen’s story is not as well known as it should be, they realized, nor are many worthy stories of other leading Clark County women.
If you go
What: Lunafest, featuring eight short films by and about women. Plus a special screening of “The Musicianer” (pilot) by Vancouver filmmaker Beth Harrington.
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
Where: Kiggins Theatre, 1011 Main St., Vancouver.
Tickets: $20; $10 for students. $75 VIP admission includes private reception at 5:30 p.m., drink ticket, snacks, gift bag.
On the web:www.lunafest.org, www.kigginstheatre.com
“Where are the stories about the women who catalyzed our community?” Holmes said. She means real, gritty stories of hard work, doubts and difficulties along the way, she added, not just the glorious milestones and achievements. “Life isn’t just milestones,” she said.
Those real stories still need telling, she concluded. “If you want to change the story, you’ve got to change the storyteller.”
Trust Tree
Holmes and Schauer said they naively settled on making a film about Henriksen, and asked Holmes’ friend, Vancouver documentarian Beth Harrington, for advice. Reality check, Harrington told them: the first thing they needed was a budget. They didn’t have one.
But they had already launched their own fledgling brand for the film project, called Trust Tree, so now Trust Tree started taking baby business steps. Step one was connecting with a soy candle supplier and selling candles online. They sold out quickly, and Schauer and Holmes said they are pursuing more lifestyle products to sell, and investors for backing.
Meanwhile, a different film project unexpectedly appeared. Former H-Roc board member Stacey Graham, executive director of the Humane Society for Southwest Washington, found herself attending a women’s film festival called Lunafest in Palm Springs, Calif. The venue was sold out and the audience was energized. Graham learned that Lunafest, a traveling lineup of short films underwritten by the Luna brand of Clif Bar & Company, has been growing and making the rounds of American cities since 2000.
Graham loved the films and the whole experience, and immediately recommended that Trust Tree bring Lunafest to Vancouver.
“I literally stood on the street and sent an email saying, ‘This is perfect for Trust Tree, you’ve got to do this,” she said. “The films were all very distinct and compelling. Some of the issues were challenging but you came out feeling good, feeling like you’d seen some amazing talent. It sells out every year.”
Eight plus ‘Musicianer’
Lunafest debuts in Vancouver with a screening 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Kiggins Theatre. Most of the films are between six and 10 minutes long. This year’s Lunafest doesn’t appear to be headed for Portland, Schauer said, so she’s hoping interested Portland filmgoers will venture over here and sell out the Kiggins. The screening will benefit Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest.
While Schauer and Holmes have not actually seen this year’s Lunafest lineup of eight short films, Graham has. Her favorites were “Flip the Record,” about the real DJ talent that emerges from one young woman after the boys have left the studio; “Are We Good Parents?” about a mom and dad’s ruminations after receiving some surprising news from their daughter; and, especially, a surreal fantasy called “The Final Show.”
That’s about “a woman at the end of her life who has the ability to decide whom she’s going to spend eternity with,” Graham said, choosing between her current husband, her former husband and an old flame from high school. “She makes a choice and it’s really surprising,” Graham said. What’s also surprising is the woman is portrayed by Marion Ross, famous for playing Ritchie Cunningham’s always-happy mom on the old TV sitcom “Happy Days.”
There’s one Vancouver bonus, too: this Lunafest lineup will include a special screening of the pilot episode of “The Musicianer,” Harrington’s web series-in-development, which tells the surreal, spooky tale of a time-traveling street busker. The pilot of “The Musicianer” debuted at the Kiggins in January, but if you missed that, this is your chance. Harrington, who is looking for backers, said the pilot has been accepted for several upcoming TV and web-media festivals, from Europe to Vancouver, B.C.
Holmes and Schauer said they still want to make a documentary about Nan Henriksen.
