Excerpts from BREAKING THE SILENCE will be featured at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, Canada. The video screens as part of a special program, In Memorium of the Montreal Masscre.
On December 6, 1989, Marc Lepine entered the Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal, and systematically separated the women from the men. He then opened fire on female students, yelling "You're all a bunch of feminists!". He ultimately shot twenty-seven women and killed fourteen.
The Montreal Massacre is a National Day of Remembrance. The curatorial objective of this commemorative program is to present a selection of films by independent women directors from around the world whose productions pertain to issues of violence against women. The Female Eye Film Festival stands firmly against the oppression of our sisters. Perhaps through our films we can enlighten, inspire, outage and encourage others to take action against violence.
WHEN & WHERE
December 6th, 2007 @ 4-6pm
Female Eye Film Festival
Nat Taylor Cinema
North 102 Ross Building
York University
Toronto, Canada
For more information:
www.femaleeyefilmfestival.com
I am getting on the bandwagon for clean elections.
What's a clean election? It's an election in which public funding is provided to anyone who wants to run for office once they meet certain minimum requirements. The deal is that candidates who accept public funding must agree to not accept donations from private sponsors.
Clean elections create a more diverse candidate pool, encourage candidates to spend more time with regular voters instead of lobbyists and top-dollar campaign contributors, and helps free politicians from conflicts of interest.
Best of all, the concept of clean elections is non-partisan and it's already happening in some parts of the U.S. For example, Maine and Arizona have adopted clean election legislation and if you surf around the internet, you can find testimonials on how the process is working direct from folks in those states.
Here are a couple videos I found that provide a good overview:
Frances Moore Lappe on Clean Elections Bill Moyers on Clean Elections
And a couple websites for more in-depth info:
Washington State: www.washclean.org National: www.just6dollars.org National: www.publiccampaign.org
Last but not least, if you are in the Seattle area, there will be a big event
on Clean Elections at the University of Washington on Saturday, November 17th, 2007.
WHERE: Kane Hall 120 @ UW
WHEN: Nov. 17, 2007 @ 7:30pm
MORE INFO: www.washclean.org
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is hosting its final public hearing in Seattle at Town Hall on November 9th, 2007 from 4-11pm. You should be there.
The FCC is in the process of making some big decisions about their regulations on media ownership, which will have a very BIG impact on the diversity of voices you and I get to hear everyday thru the media (tv, radio, print, internet, etc.). Unfortunately, the proposed changes encourage large media corporations to further consolidate and become even larger. This would allow large corporations to increase their profits, but it has a profoundly negative impact on local communities. Consolidation reduces the diversity of voices we get to hear on the airwaves, makes it harder for minorities and small non-profit media organizations to get their stories/music/perspectives out into the world, and also makes local media outlets even less responsive to local community interests. (If your favorite local radio station is headquartered in Texas and sends its programming to Seattle by satellite feed, you are losing some local flavor and local relevance in that transmission...)
I believe very strongly that diversity of media is at the core of democracy, and so I hope this issue is on your radar too.
If you can't make the FCC hearing in Seattle, I encourage you to use this template to officially register your comments with the FCC via the internet:
http://www.stopbigmedia.com/comment.php
SARI'S MOTHER, a short film by James Longley that I worked on as an editor, has just been short-listed for an Academy Award nomination in the 2008 documentary short subject category. Of the eight films on the short list, up to five will go on to receive an Academy Award nomination. The 80th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 5:30 a.m. PT.
A few years ago, as part of the Native Lens program
(for which I am an instructor), three boys at Swinomish decided to make a documentary about two nearby oil refineries and their impact on the boys' community. For centuries, the Swinomish Tribe has been a clamming, crabbing and fishing community reliant on the natural resources of Skagit Valley. The March Point refineries sit on the water's edge and spill poullants into the water and land. The boys' video shows how pollution from the
refineries also spills into the fabric of their culture.
A little while back, this documentary caught the eye of National Georgraphic, and was awarded funding to be expanded into a longer story. The expanded version of the doc has been in production and post-production for a couple years now, as an ongoing collaboration between the boys and a small crew of professional filmmakers (including me, behind the camera). As the story enlarges and deepens, the doc has been slowly changing form and taking a new shape, and now it is finally approaching completion.
Look for the final video, tentatively titled MARCH POINT, on PBS during the 2008 season of P.O.V. I think you'll enjoy it.
For more info:
www.longhousemedia.org
Mark your calendar for May 10th, 2008. Due to the success of the day-long workshop I presented earlier this year at MOHAI, I have been invited back to teach another videography class for folks interested in documenting community histories. The class has also been expanded to allow for more hands-on experience shooting interviews and getting comfortable with videography equipment.
For more info, contact Helen Divjak at MOHAI: www.seattlehistory.org
A screening of Katy DeRosier's 3-part dance film series - PINHOLE LULLABY, CASCADE ARIA, and KUDUS SONG (which I shot and edited) - followed by a live performance from Tsunami, one of Seattle's best Taiko drumming groups.
Had the pleasure of working with Steve Hyde recently, collaborating with him on the editing phase of his short documentary tentatively titled SHIKA SHIKA. Steve is a PhD student in Urban Geography and a filmmaker, which is a really interesting combination. These combined interests led him into the remote mountains of Peru, where he shot SHIKA SHIKA. The luscious 16mm footage he returned with offers a rare glimpse into the ancient Andean tradition of extracting glacial ice for trade and subsistence. SHIKA SHIKA is a tale told in the voice of Maji, an 82 year old grandmother who has walked the same ancient mountain trail with three generations of family. The word 'shika' is describes her family's livelihood; it is an onomatopoeia - a word imitating the sound it represents. Steve is now doing finishing touches, so look for this film in the near future. It will be beautiful.
I've been doing some teaching with youth in the Lummi Tribal community, up near Bellingham, WA through Longhouse Media's Native Lens program. Over the course of several months, the youth produced two short videos reflecting on issues of culture and community. One video explores the tradition of canoe pulling through interviews with various members of the community who are active participants in this local tradition. The second video weaves together images from a youth perspective of life on the rez to the beat of a hip hop song written and performed by one of the youth filmmakers. For most of these youth, the Native Lens program was their first exposure to hands-on
videomaking. Their final videos are a vivid reflection of how hard they worked and how much they learned!
Saturday, June 9th, 4:30 pm at the Egyptian Theatre in Seattle. 36 hours, 4 films and 800 seats in the audience. A fly filmmaking challenge for teenagers around the country, presented by Longhouse Media, Futurewave, and the Seattle International Film Festival. Fifty youth will descend upon Seattle for three days of intensive start-to-finish filmmaking. Acclaimed filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND) provides an original script and the youth shoot, direct, and edit in a blazingly fast whirlwind. I'll be one of the 'professional filmmaker mentors' helping out behind the scenes.
For tickets to our triumphant screening (assuming we survive the challenge), please visit www.seattlefilm.org
I have been invited to teach a videography workshop at MOHAI, Seattle's Museum of History and Industry, on May 12, 2007. MOHAI offers a variety of workshops for the community focusing on documenting and archiving community stories for posterity. I've designed an introductory video workshop in this spirit, tailoring my curriculum specifically for the community historian with no prior video experience. We'll talk about the most effective approaches for capturing history through the lens of a video camera. For more info: www.seattlehistory.org
Sari's Mother, the lost chapter of IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (which I worked on as an editor), is now a stand-alone short film. The film was recently honored with the Golden Gate Award for Best Short Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival. SARI'S MOTHER has also been selected for the following festivals:
Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, 2007
Toronto International Film Festival, 2006
San Francisco International Film Festival. 2007
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, 2007
Istanbul International Film Festival, 2007
Mexico City Film Festival, 2007
True / False Film Festival, 2007
If you missed it in theatres, here's your next chance to catch a glimpse of IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS. Coming to a television near you. Tune in to Cinemax on March 20 at 7pm (ET/PT).
It will be released on DVD soon thereafter... Netflix has already pre-ordered a bunch of copies, so get it in your queue.
Or go straight to the source: Arab Film Distribution
The Adobe corporation is keen to expose young children to their video editing software, which has meant a huge philanthropic investment in the field of youth media. Seattle was chosen as one of a handful of sites around the world where they are kicking off their new program, called Adobe Youth Voices. This spring, I'll be working on behalf of AYV as a 'professional filmmaker mentor' at Aki Kurose Middle School.
For more info, visit Adobe Youth Voices.
Well, what can we say...
IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS lost to Al Gore and AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.
But walking the Red Carpet sure was fun.
