Press Release: “Mary Janes” premieres online April 13, 2021
“MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED”, an award-winning documentary about women leading the cannabis industry, premieres online April 13, 2021, in time for the annual 4/20 celebration.
Grammy® Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge and other “women of weed” show how legal cannabis is not only an industry, but also a movement of dedicated, visionary “Puffragettes®”.
[Portland, OR], April 7, 2021 – Gender parity and cannabis take center stage in Mary Janes: The Women of Weed. The award-winning documentary film includes a powerful interview from Grammy® Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge. The film debuts on AppleTV, GooglePlay, Vudu, and Vimeo on April 13th. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the filmmakers will host a Virtual Red Carpet Event for press and fans that afternoon. The one-hour virtual event begins at 4:00pm PT (7:00pm ET) and consists of a Q&A with Executive Producer/Director Windy Borman and cast members.
“Women are creating businesses which instil corporate social responsibility into the foundation of the cannabis industry,” says Borman. “The film serves as a curated collection of the visionary women who founded the legal cannabis industry and their ideas are embedded into the framework we see today. It is a celebration, a time capsule, and a roadmap for where we still need to go.”
Melissa Etheridge says, “There’s so much opportunity in the cannabis industry because it has not been set up within the old world male business paradigm. Women can grow it, heal with it, and now, in America, you can make a business.”
The award-winning documentary garnered “Best Documentary” and “Visionary” awards on the festival circuit, and was featured in Variety, The Associated Press (AP), The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Forbes, NBC, and ABC. Ongoing social media censorship and the coronavirus pandemic delayed its digital release until now.
“While the outside world looks differently, we are still struggling with the same issues we were before the pandemic,” says Borman. “We did not magically solve the calls for gender parity, social justice, sustainability, and cannabis legalization. If anything, the pandemic has brought these issues to the forefront.”
Originally a cannabis outsider, Borman became intrigued by the cannabis industry when she learned that women represent 37% of senior leadership in cannabis. The national average is 21%, so there was something about cannabis that attracted more female entrepreneurs. She set out to answer this question by interviewing over 40 women across the United States. By looking at the intersection of gender parity, social justice, and environmental sustainability, Borman explores how cannabis is not only an industry, but also a movement of dedicated and visionary women she calls “Puffragettes®” (as in Pot + Suffragette).
Mary Janes: The Women of Weed, Borman’s third documentary, explores the movement to end marijuana prohibition, her own relationship to the plant, and the stereotypes surrounding it. Through a series of empowering and educational interviews with a broad diversity of women leading the industry today, Windy’s own assumptions are transformed as she discovers cannabis liberation intersects with the most urgent social justice issues of our time. She learns how this green revolution has big effects on environmental sustainability, ending the War on Drugs and the Prison-Industrial Complex, and the destructive domination of Big Pharma.
The film premiered at festivals amid the movements for #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, which heightened the film’s call-to-action. “Gender equality and racial justice have been two core values of the film since the beginning. As a female director, I understood my social and cultural responsibility to break the Male Gaze and show a range of women leading the cannabis industry,” says Borman. “Movements don’t move if only a few succeed. We must change the rules so they are fair for everyone.”
The cast attending the Virtual Red Carpet Event include:
Betty Aldworth
Sara Batterby
AC Braddock
Jill Brzezicki
Julianna Carella
Danielle Espinel
Sabrina Fendrick
Mara Gordon
Kiana Hughes
Jazmin Hupp
Karin Lazarus
Wy Livingston
Jaime Lewis
Laila Makled
Jacqueline McGrane
Jeanine Moss
Dr. Amanda Reiman
Lindsay Robinson
Andrea Sallis
Mitzi Vaughn
Dr. Daniela Vergara
Jane West
The Red Carpet Correspondents include:
Keiko Beatie
Lelehnia DuBois
Frances Gonzales
Leah Maurer
Samantha Montanaro
Lisa Snyder
Tiffany Watkins
Women are changing the face of today’s fastest growing industry – cannabis. Join us as we discover how they’re also changing the world.
Qualified press can reply to <press@maryjanesfilm.com> to request a film screener.
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Press Links:
Website: https://maryjanesfilm.com/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/MaryJanesFilm
Twitter and Instagram: @MaryJanesFilm
Official Trailer: YouTube
About MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED
Women are changing the face of today’s fastest growing industry – cannabis. Join filmmaker Windy Borman as she explores the movement to end marijuana prohibition, her own relationship to the plant, and the stereotypes surrounding it. By interviewing women leading the industry, Windy discovers cannabis liberation intersects with the most urgent social justice issues of our time.
About Producer / Writer / Director Windy Borman
Windy Borman, MS, is a multi-award-winning film Director and Producer, as well as the founder of DVA Productions. Her recent projects include: directing and producing the 10-time award-winning film, “The Eyes of Thailand”, narrated by Ashley Judd; and producing “The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia”, which premiered at Sundance and on HBO. From 2003-2005, Ms. Borman dedicated two years of her life to Teach For America, teaching middle school Drama and Dance in the South Bronx. She founded DVA Productions in 2006.
About Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge stormed onto the American rock scene in 1988 with the release of her critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, which led to an appearance on the 1989 Grammy Awards show. For several years, her popularity grew around such memorable originals as “Bring Me Some Water,” “No Souvenirs” and “Ain’t It Heavy,” for which she won a Grammy® in 1992. Etheridge hit her commercial and artistic stride with her fourth album, Yes I Am (1993). The collection featured the massive hits, “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window,” a searing song of longing that brought Etheridge her second Grammy® Award for Best Female Rock Performance. In 1995, Etheridge issued her highest charting album, Your Little Secret, which was distinguished by the hit single, “I Want to Come Over.” Her astounding success that year led to Etheridge receiving the Songwriter of the Year honor at the ASCAP Pop Awards in 1996. In February 2007, Melissa Etheridge celebrated a career milestone with a victory in the “Best Song” category at the Academy® Awards for “I Need to Wake Up,” written for the Al Gore documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. She released her 15th studio recording The Medicine Show in April 2019 followed by a national tour. You can currently see her perform live on her steaming platform, EtheridgeTV, every Tuesday through Saturday at 3pm PST/6pm EST from the comfort of her home. Her quarantine performances have been covered by everyone from MSNBC to ABC News to Rolling Stone.
About Giant Pictures
Giant Pictures is a boutique digital distributor based in NYC and Los Angeles, which is dedicated to elevating the digital experience. We work directly with filmmakers and rights owners to distribute movies and TV shows to VOD and streaming platforms in North America and globally. A division of Giant Interactive, the award-winning digital media – technology services company, we reach 45+ distribution platforms such as Apple (Preferred vendor), Netflix, Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Tubi and Peacock (NBCU). Our content partners include Abramorama Selects, Participant, Tribeca Enterprises, Utopia Distribution, and XYZ Films. Recent movie and documentary releases: ‘Speed of Life’ (Dir. Liz Manashil, 2020), ‘Jim Allison: Breakthrough (Dir. Bill Haney, SXSW 2019), ‘Love, Antosha’ (Dir. Garret Price, Sundance 2019). Visit us at: www.giant.pictures