A Special Screening of She Rises Up

In early November, Stanford University Libraries hosted a special in-person screening of the documentary She Rises Up as a part of our continuing conversation with independent filmmakers, Maureen Castle Tusty and James Tusty. The film directed and produced by the Tustys chronicles the remarkable journeys of three radically different women from Sri Lanka, Peru, and Senegal as they build local businesses that seek to reduce poverty in their communities and create job opportunities for women, who are unemployed or underemployed in many regions of the world, often because of restrictive laws. The struggles and triumphs of these women provide a broader exploration about the implications of women’s participation in the global economy and ways in which women working can bring about generational change.

The Tustys founded Sky Films Inc. in 2008 to produce documentary films that inform, uplift and inspire. Their first feature film, The Singing Revolution, was declared a coveted “Critic’s Choice” by The New York Times and told the little-known story of how the country of Estonia played a critical role in the collapse of the Soviet Union by using singing as a weapon of resistance. The Singing Revolution resonates strongly with the Libraries’ Estonian and Baltic Studies Collection, which focuses on the history, culture and literature of the Baltic States.

She Rises Up, the Tustys’ sixth documentary film, took four and a half years to produce, in part because of travel restrictions imposed after the onset of COVID-19, which also dramatically impacted the businesses profiled in the documentary. The Tustys persevered to share the unique stories of these women and their business journeys, starting with a daughter who adapted her family’s textile business in Sir Lanka to retain their workforce of local women, moving to the budding entrepreneur in Peru who grew her small shop to a mini market, and ending with a women who returned to her birth country of Senegal to establish companies producing homegrown products for a global market. “These stories transcend continents,” Maureen Castle Tusty said, “and allow people to stay in their communities and experience dignity from having work.”

Following the screening, University Librarian Michael A. Keller moderated a lively panel discussion with Thomas Hansen, the Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology and founder of the Center for South Asia at Stanford; Tiffany Steeves, director of communications at Stanford Seed, a program at the Graduate School of Business that partners with entrepreneurs from across Africa and South Asia to help them build thriving enterprises that transform lives; and Magatte Wade, co-founder of Prospera Africa, bestselling author of The Heart of a Cheetah, and one of the three entrepreneurs portrayed in She Rises Up.

The panel discussed the common characteristics of the entrepreneurial spirits and management styles of the three successful women depicted in She Rises Up. Wade spoke most directly to the economic issues raised in the documentary: “These are not merely the problems of the poor or the problems of Africa. Everywhere there is a surge for self-sufficiency and a clear choice to remain in one’s country, but poverty wastes human talent, and people will vote with their feet if there is no other way. This film is not only about entrepreneurship; it lets viewers see the bottom of the iceberg.”

The event concluded with a reception, and Wade’s final remarks, “Poverty is solved by prosperity. Prosperity is made possible by entrepreneurs. Policy matters!” echoing into the evening.