Clarity Educational Productions, Inc. (dba Clarity Films) is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax exempt organization formed in 1979 to produce and distribute films of historical and social value.
Our mission is to encourage a re-examination of our past to better inform social progress in our future and to stimulate thought provoking discussion around issues of major social concern in today's society.
Our funding is provided by grants from private foundations and government agencies, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, State Humanities Organizations, The Ford Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and numerous smaller foundations.
Connie Field (producer / director) has worked on numerous dramatic and documentary films as well as independently producing her own work. Her feature documentary, “Freedom on My Mind” (1994) is a history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. It was nominated for an Academy Award; won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival; Best of Northern California, National Educational Film Festival; Erik Barnouw Award, Organization of American Historians; John O’Connor Award, American Historical Association; Distinguished Documentary Award, International Documentary Association; National Educational Association Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Learning through Broadcasting; and was named “One of the Ten Best Films” of 1994 by a variety of film critics, including the San Francisco Examiner and The Oakland Tribune. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. She was a member of Boston Newsreel Films where she worked on productions and distribution. She was a co-director on “Forever Activists” (1990 Academy Award Nominee, produced & directed by Judy Montell), and she produced, directed and edited the feature documentary “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” (1981). “Rosie” earned fifteen international awards for Best Documentary (including Gold Hugo, Chicago; John Grierson, Blue Ribbon, American International Festival; Golden Marazzo, Festival dei Popoli; Gold Award, Houston; Cine Golden Eagle; Golden Athena, Athens Festival; British Academy Award Nominee), was named “One of the Ten Best Films of the Year” by a number of publications, including the Village Voice and Film Comment, was voted “Best Independent Feature of the Year” in American Film Magazine, was translated into ten different languages; and is listed in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. “Apartheid and the Club of the West” (2006), story four of “Have You Heard From Johannesburg”, a doc series on the international effort to end apartheid in South Africa, won the award for Best Feature Documentary from the Canadian Film Board and the Pan-African Film Festival. She is currently in post production on other episodes of “Have You Heard From Johannesburg” and has just completed a new documentary, ¡Salud! (2007) on Cuba’s role in the struggle for global health equity (Audience Award, Pan African Film Festival). She is a recipient of the John Grierson Award as most outstanding social documentarian, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Gregory Scharpen (editor) has been working with Clarity Films for nine years, where he was trained as a film editor. His background as an award-winning theatrical sound designer in the San Francisco Bay Area has been a major asset. He is currently the resident designer for Central Works Theatre Ensemble, and has designed for Theatre Rhino, Shotgun Players, TheatreFIRST, Upon These Boards, and others. He has composed experimental music scores for butoh company Barely Human Dance Theatre, and under the name Thomas Carnacki released the CD "Far Voyage from a Placid Island," which has received radio play across the continent. He has appeared on CDs of and/or performed live internationally with such groups as the "dadaist noise" project , the seminal British experimental group Nurse With Wound, the exclamatory metal percussionist Moe! Staiano's Moe!kestra!, Toronto's Surrealist-inspired Recordists, and Oakland-based avant-rock group Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's Matthias Bossi and Carla Kihlstedt. Since 1995, he has hosted KALX 90.7fm's weekly film program, "Film Close-Ups", as well as producing the theatre/visual arts show "Arts in review", the classical music hour "Discourse on the 8th and 9th", a monthly musician spotlight on "Women Hold Up Half The Sky", and "Information Overload", devoted to experimental music.