Academy Award-winning producer and Parkersburg native, Pamela Tanner Boll, is showing her latest film in her hometown this weekend.

Boll is showing the documentary she directed and produced titled "Who Does She Think She Is?"

She's been showing it in other regional theaters and recently came back from the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival where the film received honorable mention for Best Feature Documentary.

The film looks at the lives of five women who are professional artists and mothers in a society where women often have to choose one or the other. She says it also looks at the importance of art and how it's also undervalued in our society.

"The film is really about how do you love what you love and love who you love. For women that remains a bit of a struggle still. Traditionally we have been the caregivers, the caretakers, and we are now being asked to continue doing that and at the same time we want to do something with our own talents and our own gifts and we also need to be making money," said Boll.

“Who Does She Think She Is” will be shown this Saturday, July 19 at 3:00 p.m. to benefit the Parkersburg Art Center.

The film will be shown at the Actors Guild Playhouse on Market Street, followed immediately by a reception at the Art Center to honor Boll.

Tickets are only on sale at the Art Center and are $15 for the film only
and $30 for the film and the reception. All proceeds benefit the Art Center.

One of the five women featured in the film, Angela Williams, is a Broadway actress and singer who will be performing at the reception.

The film is set for theatrical release in New York City in October. It will be released in the five major markets and a lot of community screenings. It's also set to be released on DVD late this fall and you can order it by going to the web site attached to this article.

Boll says she chose to feature women's lives because for thousands of years, women's stories were never told.

She was influenced by her mother Pat Pappas who was the mayor of Parkersburg from 1982 to 1986 and always encouraged her to express herself. Her mother entered her in an art show exhibition at the Parkersburg Art Center when Boll was six years old and it won first prize. She was also inspired by her grandmother who was a painter and her great-aunt who was a newspaper reporter and photographer in the area.

She has gone on to win many awards, work on Wall Street, teach at Harvard University, and continue painting, drawing, and writing.

She is a mother and artist herself who now lives outside Boston.

Boll was the co-executive producer of the documentary, “Born Into Brothels.” It's about the lives of children in Calcutta's red light district and the power of art. It won the the 77th annual Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was directed, produced, and filmed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski and Geralyn White Dreyfus was the executive producer.