WASHINGTON -- Get an early preview of the in-progress documentary "Positive Force: More Than A Witness," about the District of Columbia's 26-year-old punk-rock activist collective Positive Force.
Monday night, D.C. filmmaker Robin Bell will dive into Positive Force's two-plus decades of promoting radical social change through music, art, education, direct community involvement and punk percussion protests. Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye, who has worked with Positive Force on dozens of benefit concerts, is one of the many progressive local musicians Bell has interviewed for his film. Others include Christopher Richards of Q and Not U, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Natalie Avery of Fire Party.
As seems fitting for a documentary about a group of radical artists, Bell, who was arrested at the 2002 Pershing Park IMF protests along with some 400 other protesters, has funded a lot of the film with money paid out by the D.C. government as settlement for the class-action settlement stemming from those arrests.
Bell hopes to pay for the rest of the film through a $15,000 Kickstarter fundraiser that ends on Wednesday; more than $12,000 has been raised so far -- Bell will lose all that amount if the entire $15,000 isn't raised in time. Extra incentives: donors of $500 or more will receive a private screening of the film and a vegan meal with Bell; donors of $1,000 or more will be treated to Positive Force putting on a house show in their living room (clean up, unfortunately, is not included).
The screening is on Monday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Gold Leaf Studios (443 I St. NW). D.C. musician Jerry Busher will also play a solo set.
RELATED VIDEO: Trailer from "Positive Force: More Than A Witness"