Recent Accomplishments (Singing Our Praises)
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2023
Pop-Up Movie Night at Litchfield Hills Creative Festival: We screened His Truth Is Marching On for the City of Torrington on a giant inflatable movie screen in the middle of downtown, and it was amazing! Many people, many really great reactions, and such a good chance to give the community the art that we made with the comminity.
City Views Goes back on the air LIVE! The cast is a little different than it was pre-covid, but the magic is still there. Coryse Villarouel, Karen Thomas, Kareem Holebrook, and Joe Severo tag team as cohosts along with Jacque Williams. City Views is broadcast Tuesdays at 6:00 pm in NW Connecticut on Altice channel 5.
Bantam Cinema screening: We sold out a Black History Month screening event. The event helped raise money for the Bantam Cinema and Aryts center, a nonprofit arts organization.
2023 Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of History OIrganizations for the John Brown Project. The award recognizes the quality of work we chose to focus on.
Torrington High School screening: 3 shows to about 500 kids; this was special to us because we were able to screen the movie for the music students who were first to join our community arts project back in March 2021.
John Brown Day performance, Lake Placid, NY: We were invited to bring some of the John Brown Project musicians to the John Brown Farm State Park to perform and participate in the graveside wreath-laying ceremony. This helped us spread the Torrington footprint to another John Brown anchor town.
International Tiny Abolitionist Film Festival: Launching the first ever film fest as an international partnership with Switzerland-based Art in History and Politics. The Film Festival gathered over 120 pounds of nonperishable food donations for the local food bank. -
2022
Produced and completed the John Brown Project, yielding a song, music video, and musical-documentary film.
The art premiered at an exclusive screening event to a thunderous ovation, drawing more than 100 people.
The premiere event raised awareness for Culture 4 A Cause as serious arts collaborators and advocates in NWCT. It also invested almost $7,000 into the arts and culture infrastructure of NWCT.
Through The John Brown Project, we invested over $6,000 into the NWCT arts community and drew state, regional, and national attention to Torrington and the project.
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2021
Still in the thick of covid, we re-assessed our programs and brought more of them online.
> We hosted online dance parties, drawing people from four states.
> We hosted two ‘Virtual ArtSpace” events which celebrated local artists as a way to raise money and awareness for the social safety nets that were being strained under pandemic restrictions.
> Worked with Our Culture is Beautiful and multiple other stakeholders to broadcast the juneteenth unveiling celebration of Torrington’s Civil Rights mural statewide on Community access TV.
> We gave $6,000 to our beneficiary charities, including the Friendly Hands Foodbank, The United Way of NWCT, and the Susan B Anthony Project.
> Conceived and launched The John Brown Project, a community art initiative celebrating Torrington-born abolitionist John Brown’s passion for equality.
> Raised over $1,000 in crowdfunding and invested it right back into the NWCT arts community.
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2020
When the channel 5 TV studio closed due to the covid pandemic, City Views regrouped to launch the show on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
We recorded multiple segments per week, interviewing local elected officials, community leaders, and artists from the NWCT region to bring Torringtonians a balanced helping of news, arts, and culture information in a time od deep uncertainty.
That’s community service 101.
Tiny Abolitionist Film Festival!
Partnering with a Swiss Nonprofit that also had a documentary film and the music of abolition, we launched a wildly successful event called the International Tiny Abolitionist Film Festival.
The event attracted a national scholar on Abolition to speak via video, it sold out the Warner Club on a Tuesday night, and it collected over 120 pounds of nonperishable food items for the local food bank.
The Tiny Abolitionist Film Festival also injected about $1,000 into the NWCT arts and culture economy.
2022: The John Brown Project Premiere Event
“Wow, what a great and enjoyable event and a brilliant project you have!”
—Lynne
A two-year journey from idea to documentary film, launched in late October to a packed house and rave reviews. The project represented a collaboration of artists, arts organizations, arts businesses, the city of Torrington, and multiple ancillary support businesses and organizations. It brought people together with a positive message about the city of Torrington, that we can all feel good about.
“Holy F@%& this is fabulous! Give it a watch! Torrington proud! Thank you to Daniel Morrison and Jacque J J Williams for making this!!”
—Rachel
2021: New Initiatives Take Shape
As the long-term consequences of the covid pandemic became clear, we pivoted from our usual operations to find ways to accomplish our mission with social distancing and touchless community events.
We were proud to be the Torrington broadcast team to cover the unveiling celebration of the MLK Civil Rights Mural on Juneteenth 2021. Torrington was one of a dozen cities to participate in the statewide broadcast, and the City Views team played a vital role.
Celebrating equality through art
We also launched a community art project celebrating John Brown’s passion for equality. Dozens of CT artists joined us in remaking the Civil War song, John Brown’s Body, into a sonic exploration of American music from 1619 to hip hop.
We developed the song into a music video and a musical documentary film chronicling the melting pot that is American music.
2020: City Views launches on a host of new platforms to serve the community some “comfort programming”
Bringing a sense of normalcy to abnormal and frightening times, City Views went into the community to talk to local leaders about what was happening around them.
We interviewed state Representatives and Senators, the Mayor, the Governor, the Chief of Police, volunteer firefighters, a former UConn basketball star, local and regional artists, and some young journalists from Torrington High School—among others.
