“Till” will open the 2023 Athena Film Festival (AFF). A press launch introduced that Chinonye Chukwu’s acclaimed drama, which tells the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley’s pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who was lynched whereas visiting his cousins, is about to kick off the thirteenth version of the fest. Chukwu’s debut characteristic, ‘Clemency,’ was on the 2017 Athena List and screened on the 2020 Festival. She was honored in 2021 with the launch of the Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award, which helps funds for rising expertise within the Athena Writers Lab.Tracy Droz Tragos’ “Plan C,” a documentary that spotlights a grassroots community preventing to develop entry to abortion drugs throughout the United States, will shut AFF.
Set to run March 2 to March 5 in NYC on Barnard’s campus, AFF celebrates girls leaders. The fest contains movie screenings, in-depth discussions with filmmakers and business consultants, a sequence of packages that help the pipeline of ladies creatives, and all kinds of occasions centered on celebrating and amplifying girls’s tales.
“We look forward to bringing Chinonye Chukwu’s work back to the festival with her newest feature, ‘Till,’ to open the 13th edition. From ‘Clemency’ being on the Athena List, to an award in her name, it has been a true delight watching Chinonye soar. ‘Till’ is such an impactful and important film that I think is crucial for all audiences to see, ” stated Melissa Silverstein, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of AFF and Founder of Women and Hollywood. “We are also thrilled to be closing our festival with ‘Plan C,’ a film that could not be more critical in today’s climate. Additionally, our Creative Development Program is growing and we are proud to announce $65,000 going to this year’s awardees.”
The competition’s lineup contains the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation STEM Showcase screening of “Blueback,” a movie concerning the ocean, a good looking marine creature, and a younger woman’s energy to change the world. Paula Eiselt’s “Under G-d,” a glance inside how the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs resolution sparked a nationwide Jewish response. will make its New York premiere. It can be adopted by a Conversation on Abortion, Faith, and the Law, a panel dialog bringing collectively non secular leaders in addition to authorized students and activists to discover and unpack the connections between religion and abortion, and the present authorized panorama.
Other panels embody Leadership from Below the Line, a panel to deliver collectively girls and nonbinary movie manufacturing technicians to share their experiences as creatives on set; a dialog on Youth Activism, Climate Change, and Environmental Action following “Blueback”; and Andrea Dworkin: Ongoing Evolutions of Feminist herstory (following Pratibha Parmar’s “My Name is Andrea,” a hybrid documentary drama concerning the controversial author and thinker).
The competition can be honoring Débora Souza Silva with The 2023 Athena Film Festival Breakthrough Award, which is sponsored by Netflix, and can display screen her movie “Black Mothers Love & Resist,” which focuses on the moms who’ve misplaced sons to police violence. In addition, The Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award 2023 Grantee sponsored by Christine A. Schantz can be awarded to Kristen A. Golden for “AWE.”
Passes for the Athena Film Festival are on sale now. You should buy tickets and discover out extra about programming on the fest’s web site. You also can discover extra details about programming under.
MORE INFORMATION ON ANNOUNCED FILMS AND PROGRAMS:
FEATURES
Opening Night
Till
Director: Chinonye Chukwu
Writers: Chinonye Chukwu, Keith Beauchamp, Michael Reilly
TILL is a profoundly emotional and cinematic movie concerning the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley’s relentless pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was lynched whereas visiting his cousins in Mississippi. In Mamie’s poignant journey of grief turned to motion, we see the common energy of a mom’s potential to change the world.
Closing Night
Plan C
NY Premiere
Director: Tracy Droz Tragos
A grassroots community fights to develop entry to abortion drugs throughout the United States, retaining hope alive throughout a world pandemic and the autumn of Roe v. Wade.
NY Premiere
Under G-D
Director: Paula Eiselt
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs resolution sparked a nationwide Jewish response. Inspired by the lived experiences of Jewish girls, rabbis, Jewish organizations, and interfaith leaders are launching lawsuits to problem the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
{STEM Showcase} sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
BLUEBACK
Australia
Director/Writer: Robert Connolly
Based on the bestselling novel by Tim Winton, BLUEBACK is a well timed story concerning the ocean, a good looking marine creature, and a younger woman’s energy to change the world.
Afghan Dreamers
Director: David Greenwald
Members of the all-girl robotics crew from Afghanistan battle to reach worldwide competitions whereas combating their male-dominated tradition and the specter of Taliban rule.
PANELS
Conversation on Abortion, Faith, and the Law
Following UNDER G-D
Abortion is without doubt one of the largest problems with our time. The argument for or in opposition to abortion is usually deeply related to religion. In the United States, conservative Christianity has dominated the abortion dialog and is basically answerable for the latest wave of abortion bans occurring throughout the nation on the state stage. This panel dialog will deliver collectively non secular leaders from a number of faiths in addition to authorized students and historians to discover and unpack the connections between religion and abortion, and what the present authorized panorama seems like for all these concerned.
Youth Activism, Climate Change, and Environmental Action
Following BLUEBACK
According to the United Nations, the world is house to 1.8 billion younger individuals between the ages of 10 to 24 — the biggest era of youth in historical past. Young individuals are not solely victims of local weather change; more and more, they’re additionally worthwhile contributors to local weather motion and conservation actions. These younger individuals are entrepreneurs, innovators, and motion builders. This post-screening dialog will deliver collectively youth activists, educators, scientists, and creatives to talk about how younger individuals all over the world are advancing local weather motion and the way we are able to inform these tales in a compelling manner that conjures up others.
Andrea Dworkin: Ongoing Evolutions of Feminist herstory
Following MY NAME IS ANDREA
Andrea Dworkin’s prominence in feminist herstory has had lasting impacts on conversations about girls’s rights, pleasure, sexuality, gendered violence, and inequality. As new feminist waves develop our understanding of what the world might be, be a part of us for a dialog a few thinker whose work has impacted ever-evolving feminist imaginations.
Policing Women’s Bodies
Following CATEGORY: WOMAN
This post-screening dialog will discover the damaging sample of human rights abuses that happen in opposition to girls athletes who obtain success on the world stage. Why are these investigations occurring? Why are they nearly completely concentrating on girls of shade athletes who’re competing on the highest worldwide ranges? Bringing collectively athletes, journalists, and attorneys, this dialog will talk about the racist and sexist nature of those controversies and what it means for future generations of ladies athletes.
Uncovering Stories Lost to History
Following THE LOST KING
Who decides who will get to make historical past, and the way are these tales captured, cataloged, and handed down via generations? What about these tales misplaced to historical past — the gaps everyone knows exist — and the bias that overwrites the tales of these not deemed “history worthy”? This panel will deliver collectively historians, journalists, authors, and artists to talk about how we are able to do higher to protect these usually neglected or forgotten figures.
Leadership from Below the Line
This panel will deliver collectively girls and nonbinary movie manufacturing technicians to share their experiences on set as creatives with technically demanding crew positions. We know when girls make films collectively, it’s magic, so be a part of us to hear insights from girls working “below the line.” We’ll be taught extra about what life is like on set and the way we are able to help further girls thinking about pursuing careers in movie manufacturing.
AWARDS / CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
The 2023 Athena Film Festival Breakthrough Award sponsored by Netflix
The Athena Film Festival Breakthrough Award is given to a feature-length movie — narrative or documentary — directed by a primary or second-time girl filmmaker that didn’t have US distribution as of February 1, 2023. The profitable movie screens on the Athena Film Festival, and the director receives a $25,000 grant.
BLACK MOTHERS LOVE & RESIST by Débora Souza Silva
Wanda Johnson and Angela Williams, moms of younger Black males victimized by police brutality, come collectively and construct a community of community-led help, mutual help, and therapeutic on this documentary spanning Oakland’s Fruitvale to the American South. Long earlier than George Floyd’s homicide and the BLM protests in 2020, Oscar Grant’s 2009 fateful encounter with regulation enforcement on a BART platform seeded public consciousness and cultural consciousness of systemic racism and its discontents. Paying ahead classes realized and advocating in opposition to anti-Black violence in reminiscence of her son, Oscar, Wanda Johnson holds house for Angela Williams, whose teen son, Ulysses, survived a police encounter in Troy, Alabama, dwelling to inform his story. Radical empathy fuels this well timed exposé.
The Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award 2023 Grantee sponsored by Christine A. Schantz
The Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award is a $10,000 grant given to a feature-length author who has beforehand participated in an Athena Film Festival Writers Lab.
AWE by Kristen A. Golden
No horizon is just too far for polar explorer Ann Bancroft, already the primary girl to trek to the North Pole. Based on a real story, AWE drops us into Ann’s 1992 quest to lead the primary all-women’s expedition throughout Antarctica. Pulling their sleds 1,700 miles via brutal subzero temperatures and whiteout situations, Ann and her crew should race in opposition to time and their critics to full the trek earlier than the coastal waters freeze, leaving them stranded on the barren continent.
Alfred P. Sloan Fellowships for The Writers Labs
Athena is extending fellowships to contributors within the Athena Film Festival Writers Lab engaged on tasks that includes girls in STEM (each screenplay and tv). The fellowship contains funding to attend in-person labs in addition to mentorship and steering to advance their tasks.
Screenplay
Mileva by Nicola Lanthier-Rogers, Emilija Gasic
Told in three separate timelines spanning from her childhood via her grownup years, Mileva follows the lifetime of Mileva Marić, later Mileva Einstein, the good physicist and mathematician. As a younger woman, Mileva fights for the very best training, incomes a spot at an all-boys highschool and, finally, the Swiss Polytechnic. But regardless of nice expertise, intelligence, and drive, via her grownup life Mileva lacks alternative due to patriarchal limitations and expectations. Mileva is the story of an unbelievable girl whose cosmic collision with Albert Einstein leads to a star-crossed romance, a brutal divorce, and the idea of relativity itself. Based on true occasions.
A BRIDGE BETWEEN US by Gina Hackett
Devoted spouse Emily reluctantly steps into her husband’s position as chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge when he’s paralyzed throughout its Victorian-era building, encountering jealousy and discrimination as she turns into the world’s first feminine engineer. Based on a real story, A BRIDGE BETWEEN US tracks the constructing of a bridge and the collapse of a wedding.
Television
THE HOME FRONT by Rosalind Grush
Imperial College, London, 1915: When the Germans use a lethal poison fuel for the primary time in historical past on the battlefield in World War I, a feminine chemist organizes a secret crew of all-women scientists to develop a weapon robust sufficient to beat again the Germans. Inspired by true occasions.
PUBLIC HEALTH by Myra Aquino
A disgraced surgeon is pressured to tackle a short lived job on the decrepit Public Health Department of West Palm Beach, Florida, and should determine how to get her outdated job again.
PUSH IT! by Mirella Christou
PUSH IT! is the story of an under-the-radar girls’s rights activist who fights an uphill battle with heavy private prices to finance and orchestrate the creation of the revolutionary contraception capsule. Based on true occasions.
MORE INFORMATION ON PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED FILMS:
Narratives
Angry Annie (Annie Colère)
France
Director: Blandine Lenoir
Writers: Blandine Lenoir and Axelle Robert
Producers: Aurora Films, Local Films
A countryside village in France, 1974. When she by chance turns into pregnant, Annie, a working mom of two youngsters, meets with the Movement for the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception (MLAC), medical doctors and ladies who carry out unlawful abortions within the public eye, training a free, protected, and respectful methodology. Gradually Annie will be a part of their battle, which can deliver a brand new that means to her life.
Daughter of Rage (La Hija de Todas las Rabias)
New York Premiere
Nicaragua
Director/Writer: Laura Baumeister de Montis
Producers: Martha Orozco, Laura Baumeister de Montis, Rossana Baumeister, and Bruna Haddad
11-year-old Maria’s house is the largest rubbish dump in Nicaragua, the place she lives with her mother. When circumstances change and Maria feels that she has been left alone with nobody to care for her, she is pressured to discover her personal manner.
Fogaréu
Brazil, France
Director: Flávia Neves
Writers: Melanie Dimantas and Flávia Neves
Producers: Mayra Faour Auad, Vania Catani, and Thomas Sparfel
Following the demise of her foster mom, Fernanda goes again to her rich uncle’s home to implode certainties and let the painful fact about her origins floor.
My Emptiness and I (Mi vacío y yo)
Spain
Director: Adrián Silvestre
Writers: Raphaëlle Pérez, Adrián Silvestre, and Carlos Marques-Marcet
Producers: Testamento and Alba Sotorra
Raphi, from France, fantasizes about romances with princes and about beginning a standard household. But in actuality, issues aren’t like that. She works in a name middle in Barcelona, struggles with at instances embarrassing dates, and is identified by her therapist as having gender dysphoria. We observe this trans girl as she makes her transition, in addition to in her on a regular basis life.
Missing
United States
Directors/Writers: Nick Johnson and Will Merrick
Producers: Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian, and Natalie Qasabian
After her mom goes lacking, a younger girl tries to discover her from house, utilizing instruments accessible to her on-line.
Moving On
Sneak Preview
United States
Director/Writer: Paul Weitz
Producers: Paul Weitz, Stephanie Meurer, Andrew Miano, Chris Parker, and Dylan Sellers
Directed by Academy Award-nominated author Paul Weitz, MOVING ON stars Academy Award winner Jane Fonda (Claire) and Academy Award nominee Lily Tomlin (Evelyn) as estranged pals who reunite to search revenge on Howard (Malcolm McDowell), the petulant widower of their lately deceased greatest pal. Along the way in which, Claire reunites with Ralph (Richard Roundtree), her nice love, as every girl learns to make peace with the previous and one another.
Rachel Hendrix Sneak Preview
United States
Director/Writer: Victor Nuñez
Producer: Heidi Levitt
A portrait of a widow, mom, professor, and creator, Rachel Hendrix, discovering her manner in life after shedding her beloved husband. It is a narrative of grief that everyone knows but not often get the prospect to see with such nuance and intimacy.
The Lost King
New York Premiere
United Kingdom
Director: Stephen Frears
Writers: Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope
Producers: Steve Coogan, Christine Langan, and Dan Winch
Stephen Frears’ newest tells the true story of an newbie historian (Sally Hawkins) battling skepticism and forms in a quest to find the ultimate resting place of King Richard III.
Vera Dreams of the Sea
Kosovo
Director: Kaltrina Krasniqi
Writer: Doruntina Basha
Producer: Shkumbin Istrefi
Vera is a middle-aged signal language interpreter who leads a well-structured life: a spouse to a famend choose, a supportive mom, and a caring grandmother. Her serenity is disrupted by her husband’s sudden suicide, adopted by an unwelcome, menacing parade of family who declare to have possession over their village household home. Fear and distrust will power Vera to take the household’s destiny into her personal fingers.
Women Talking
United States of America
Director and Writer: Sarah Polley
Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Frances McDormand
The girls of an remoted non secular colony reveal a stunning secret concerning the colony’s males. For years, the boys have often drugged the ladies after which raped them. The fact comes out and the ladies speak about their new scenario.
Documentaries
Body Parts
United States
Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
Producer: Helen Hood Scheer
BODY PARTS traces the evolution of “sex” on display screen from a lady’s perspective, uncovering the uncomfortable realities behind among the most iconic scenes in cinema historical past and celebrating the daring creators main the way in which for change.
Black Mothers Love & Resist
United States
Director/Writer: Débora Souza Silva
Producers: Débora Souza Silva, David Felix Sutcliffe, Adina Luo, and Loi Ameera Almeron
Wanda Johnson and Angela Williams, moms of younger Black males victimized by police brutality, come collectively and construct a community of community-led help, mutual help, and therapeutic.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On
Canada
Director: Madison Thomas
Writers: Andrea Warner and Madison Thomas
Producer: Stephen Paniccia
This in-depth have a look at the lifetime of the activist and musician gives archival materials by no means seen earlier than, in addition to present-day footage of Sainte-Marie performing and interviews with the singer and her bandmates and colleagues.
Category: Woman
Canada
Director/Writer: Phyllis Ellis
Producers: Phyllis Ellis and Howard Fraiberg
When 18-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya burst onto the world stage in 2009, her championship was not celebrated however marred by doubt, and her private medical information have been leaked to the worldwide media. The public scrutiny of her physique, pushed by racism and sexism, obscured probably the most basic side of who she is: a fantastic champion.
Esther Newton Made Me Gay
United States
Director: Jean Carlomusto
Producers: Jean Carlomusto and Shanti Avirgan
Agility, persistence, and passionate inquiry have pushed Esther Newton’s survival as a butch lesbian, octogenarian athlete, and groundbreaking scholar whose life’s work has influenced generations of LGBTQ activists and students.
The Fire That Took Her
United States
Director: Patricia Gillespie
Producers: Julie Goldman, Kristi Jacobson, Carolyn Hepburn, Christopher Clements, and Tracy Elizabeth Jarrett
Mother-of-two Judy Malinowski, then 31, was doused in gasoline and set on fireplace by her crazed ex-boyfriend — and have become one of many first ever to testify from past the grave, on the trial for her personal homicide. A narrative that lives on the intersection of true crime and #MeToo, THE FIRE THAT TOOK HER goes deep inside a landmark case to ask a well timed query: How a lot should girls endure so as to be believed?
Jeannette
United States
Director: Maris Curran
Producer: Jon Coplon
JEANNETTE tells the story of Jeannette Feliciano, a aggressive bodybuilder and queer single mom, who struggles to cope with trauma after surviving the mass capturing at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. Filmed in hanging and intimate vérité, this documentary embraces the energy, hope, and humor of an unbelievable girl’s journey of therapeutic.
Judy Blume Forever
Centerpiece
United States
Directors/Producers: Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok
Producers: Sara Bernstein, Marcella Steingar, and Justin Wilkes
Generations of readers have discovered themselves in a Judy Blume ebook. Her title alone unleashes a flood of recollections for anybody who’s gripped one among her many paperbacks. For a long time, Blume’s radical honesty has comforted and captivated readers — and landed her on the middle of controversy for her frankness about puberty and intercourse. Now the beloved American creator candidly shares her personal coming-of-age story.
Mama Bears
United States
Director: Daresha Kyi
Producer: Laura Tatham
This fascinating movie follows professing Christian mother and father and LGBQT people who battle with a religion that always condemns their kids and themselves.
My Name Is Andrea
United States
Director: Pratibha Parmar
Producer: Shaheen Haq
MY NAME IS ANDREA is a hybrid documentary drama based mostly on the lifetime of author Andrea Dworkin, who a long time earlier than #MeToo known as out sexism with revolutionary aptitude. With this movie, the viewer is invited to rethink the legacy of some of the misunderstood figures of the twentieth century. Shaped by the values of justice and equality realized from the civil rights motion as a younger woman, Dworkin noticed the ways in which male chauvinism and discrimination affect each girl’s every day expertise and dared to demand that ladies be seen as equals.
Queen of the Deuce
Canada, Greece
Director: Valerie Kontakos
Writers: Christos Asteriou, Valerie Kontakos, and Despina Pavlaki
Producers: Ed Barreveld, Valerie Kontakos, and Despina Pavlaki
From the Nineteen Sixties to the ’80s, Greek-born Chelly Wilson constructed a porn cinema empire and a fame as a savvy operator within the Times Square neighborhood often known as the Deuce.
SHORTS
CANS Can’t Stand
United States
Directors: Matt Nadel and Megan Plotka
Producer: Matt Nadel
CANS CAN’T STAND follows a bunch of Black trans girls in New Orleans who’re preventing to repeal Louisiana’s unjust Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS) regulation.
El Carrito
United States
Director/Writer: Zahida Pirani
Producers: Zahida Pirani, Mauricio Piratova, and Ran Yan
After a harrowing occasion, an untrusting avenue vendor discovers the embrace of her neighborhood.
The Feeling of Being Close to You (能靠近你的感觉)
Singapore/United States
Director/Writer/Producer: Ash Goh Hua
THE FEELING OF BEING CLOSE TO YOU paperwork a mom and daughter’s try at therapeutic the intergenerational trauma and abuse inside their lives.
Glazing
New York Premiere
United States
Director/Writer/Producer: Lilli Carré
The animated feminine nude shifts in smear frames via the historical past of portray, parroting well-known depictions of ladies. She checks the postures by inhabiting them and promptly discarding them, rejecting the fantasy that every represents.
Honey (Madhu)
India
Directors: Tanmay Chowdhary and Tanvi Chowdhary
Writer: Tanvi Chowdhary
Producer: Sue-Ellen Chitunya
Satakshi and Madhu, who went to faculty collectively, reunite after years of being aside on an evening of festivities in the course of the Durga Puja competition in Kolkata. As the evening progresses, we discover out that they’ve emotions for one another however should not in a position to categorical them.
Lilith & Eve
United Kingdom
Director: Sam de Ceccatty
Writers: Manon Ardisson and Sam de Ceccatty
Producer: Manon Ardisson
That awkward second when the primary girl on earth meets … the primary first girl on earth.
Long Line of Ladies
United States
Directors: Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome
Producers: Garrett Schiff, Rayka Zehtabchi, Sam Davis, and Pimm Tripp-Allen
A lady and her neighborhood put together for her Ihuk, the once-dormant coming-of-age ceremony of the Karuk tribe of Northern California.
Look Like You
United States
Director/Writer: Snigdha Kapoor
Producers: Pulkit Datta and Lauren Sowa
Tara, a South Asian queer girl, goes to see her 8-year-old organic son after a few years however is unprepared for the tensions that resurface with his white adoptive mother and father.
Love, Barbara
United States
Director: Brydie O’Connor
Writers: Brydie O’Connor and Matt Hixon
Producers: Brydie O’Connor and Myriam Schroeter
A brief documentary concerning the iconic legacy of pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, as seen via the lens and love of her associate of over 30 years, Florrie Burke.
The Panola Project
United States
Directors/Writers: Rachael DeCruz and Jeremy S. Levine
Producers: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S. Levine, and Melissa Fajardo
THE PANOLA PROJECT follows Dorothy, a convenience-store proprietor, as she goes door to door in her often-overlooked rural Black neighborhood so as to persuade her neighbors to get their COVID-19 vaccines.
the ritual to magnificence
United States
Directors: Shenny De Los Angeles and Maria Marrone
Writer/Producer: Shenny De Los Angeles
Three generations of Dominican girls discover their relationship to enjoyable their hair. By conjuring the magic of water and the ability of her ancestors, a daughter makes use of spoken phrase poetry as an incantation to break the generational curse that has blocked the ladies in her household from finding the place pleasure lives contained in the physique.
The Road Back to Cowessess
NY Premiere
United States of America
Director/Producer: Sean Parenteau
Writer: Kevin Nikkel
The Cowessess Residential School of Saskatchewan operated from 1898 to 1997, began by the Canadian Government and later operated by the Catholic Church. It was lastly closed in 1997. For a long time former college students of residential colleges throughout the nation have complained about abuse and mistreatment whereas attending faculty. In the summer time of 2021 floor penetrating radar found 751 unmarked graves on the grounds of the Cowessess Residential School. Six survivors of the varsity return to pay their respects, to mirror on the affect of the previous, and demand reconciliation.
Still Waters
United States
Director/Writer: Aurora Brachman
Producer: Mariales Diaz
A daughter asks her mom a query concerning the abuse in her mom’s childhood. Her reply begs them to wade via its rippling results all through their lives.
Talk Black
United States
Director/Writer: Destiny Macon
Producers: Destiny Macon, Jonathan Baty, Brad Jayne, Kisha Imani Cameron, and Smitha Lee
A timid engineer develops a wild and expressive cut up character to assist her converse up to the boy’s membership at work.
To Wade or Row
United States
Director/Writer: Rebecca van der Meulen
Producers: Leanne Macaione and Dina Barossi
When Jane visits a small city motel, she places her belief in its covert clinic. A sheriff’s arrival locations her future in jeopardy.
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