Guests at the Marine Park Alliance (MPA) presentation of Women’s History Month: Women in Film were treated to a jam-packed Academy Award style celebration of the true women behind films during this past Oscar awards weekend.
“Every year, Women’s History Month has a theme involved with it,” MPA volunteer Kristy Di Cario said of the “Hooray for Hollywood!” themed celebration held at the Carmine Carro Community Center on Saturday, March 11th. “It is a celebration of ‘The Women Who Share Our Stories…Through Film.’”
The annual celebration is dedicated to the memory of RoseMarie Carro. Round tables topped with red tablecloths, individual settings, sparkling cider and a generous variety of snacks adorned the room, setting the stage and the mood for Di Cario’s presentation covering almost every aspect of the role of women in and behind many of our favorite films throughout the decades.
Di Cario, who has a degree in film, spent about 50 hours carefully researching the topic to highlight as many of the known, and not so well-known, women who made film history. These women either had a biopic made about them, played leadership roles in the industry or became famous by acting in or directing successful and popular films.
Di Cario tied it together with the origins of National Women’s History Month and the history of the Academy Awards, with its iconic Oscar, in a lively slideshow presentation that included pictures and clips of many of the women’s most famous scenes from the silent films of the past up to the present day, interspersed with trivia and candy prizes.
Councilwoman Mercedes Narcisse made a guest appearance to help round out the program and spoke about the pay gap that continues to persist to this day between men’s and women’s paychecks.
“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women earn 83 cents for every dollar men earn,” Narcisse said. “Hollywood is still doing the same thing, so that’s not acceptable.” She said that actresses in Hollywood earn $1 million less per film than their male counterparts when they are working on the same projects.
She stressed the importance of equal pay in a society where young men and women are being raised by single moms. “It is imperative for us to keep fighting for equal pay because our society depends on it,” she said.
MPA Board Chair Maria Carro-D’Alessandro capped off the event by presenting Narcisse with an MPA t-shirt and presenting the RoseMarie Carro Woman of the Year award and bouquet of flowers to MPA volunteer Yamin Krumm.
“Each year, I give this award in honor of my mom,” Carro-D’Alessandro said. “She did a lot of volunteer work here, at the church in the area and has always been my dad’s backbone, and she was always behind the scenes; I just felt that she needed to be brought forward,” she added.
Carro-D’Alessandro praised Krumm and thanked her for her involvement with the Boy and Girl Scouts, as well as her volunteer work with the MPA in their cleanups, programming and so much more. She added that Krumm was a full-time working mother of two who also volunteer with the MPA. “She’s an amazing woman,” she said.
