In 2008, the seed for Peace is Loud was planted after our founder Abigail E. Disney produced her first film, the award-winning documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Its first official screening was in the mountain town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina with an audience of fifty women who had survived the Bosnian genocide a decade earlier. Despite the differences between their countries, the women in the audience saw themselves in the Liberian peacemakers onscreen. Inspired by the film, they met with their mayor and demanded that women be included in the city’s reconciliation and rebuilding efforts—an unprecedented act.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell was ultimately shared with hundreds of communities around the world through strategic collaboration with activists. Audiences were inspired, engaged and mobilized — through the power of story they became changemakers.
It was this that led to the creation of Peace is Loud.
In 2013, the organization publicly launched with two primary programs — film campaigns and a speakers bureau — that would go on to expand visibility and capacity for women social justice leaders around the world, through the transformative power of storytelling on screen, and on stage.
Since our early years, we have evolved. We shifted to a more inclusive definition of women, have taken on documentaries that tackle both domestic and international injustices, and grew our Speakers Bureau to 27 incredible changemakers. Check out our Film Impact Campaigns page and Speakers Bureau page to see what we’ve been up to lately.