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FESTIVAL NEWS
Something’s Moving’s New Website Features A New Trailer and Updates On New Developments
Something’s Moving, from the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival, has a new website where you can check out the new trailer, and keep updated with the progress of the documentary! Director Randy Vasquez continues to make developments with his story about the legacies of the American Indian boarding schools. His effort is now centered on Walter Littlemoon’s story about coming to terms with his boarding school experience. Randy is planning on taking one more trip to Wounded Knee for follow up interviews with Walter and others on the reservation. He is continuing to work on editing and other post-production necessities.
Published on February 25, 2009
February 19: DROP Event Screening the Feature-Length Version of Water Warriors and Panel in New York, NY at 7:00 p.m.
Great Lakes Tour together with YouthNoise is screening The Water Front, the feature-length version of Water Warriors from the Good Food Collection, on February 19, 2009. Media That Matters festival and outreach manager, Leah Sapin, will be a panel member after the screening discussing DIY screenings and using the film to promote activism, along with filmmaker Liz Miller and YouthNoise Outreach Organizer, Lauren Hauser. Event starts at 7:00 p.m. at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street, NY, NY 10014 7:00 pm : The Water Front Documentary Screening. The award winning documentary, The Water Front is the story of one community fighting against the seemingly inevitable path to water privatization. In coordination with Food and Water Watch, the film is on tour around the Great Lakes through March 2009. 8:00: Panelists! Liz Miller: Award winning filmmaker Liz Miller is based on Montreal and teaches filmmaking at Concordia University. Miller will answer questions about the film and how she has connected the film to an international movement around water security. Lauren Hauser - is a Youth Noise activist and DROP campaign organizer. As the Outreach Organizer for Youth Noise, a social networking site for activists under the age of 27, Lauren will discuss how she is using the Internet to get youth involved. Leah Sapin - is Festival & Outreach Coordinator for the most successful on-line short film festival, Media That Matters. Leah will share inside strategies on connecting on-ground to on-line organizing efforts. 9:00-10:30 pm: Re-Mix Competition Release Party to follow Sponsors and Partners: Food & Water Watch Youthnoise & the DROP Campaign Media that Matters on-line festival *COST: sliding scale $5-15 STUDENTS: contact Rachael at rrichardson@fwwatch.org to get in for free!Published on February 19, 2009
March 1-7: Filmmakers of A Nomad’s Life Present Tibet In Harlem at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, NY
Lynn True and Nelson Walker of the Khan Film Project, also the filmmakers of the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival’s A Nomad’s Life, join forces with Maysles Cinema, Machik and the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University to present Tibet in Harlem. Tibet in Harlem celebrates the history, culture, and religion of Tibet through a week long series of film screenings accompanied by special events, panel discussions, performances, and receptions. There will be an accompanying exhibit featuring works by local Tibetan artists.
Tibet in Harlem takes place at the Maysles Cinema at 343 Lenox Avenue between 127 & 128th streets in New York, NY from March 1 – 7, 2009. The screenings are open to the public at a suggested donation of $7. Box office opens 1 hour prior to screening, and seating is very limited. For more information please contact (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Published on February 19, 2009
February 12: African Underground to Screen at 17th Annual Pan African Festival in LA, CA
The 17th Annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival presents African Underground: Democracy in Dakar – the feature length version of the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival documentary film African Underground: Hip-Hop in Senegal, directed by Magee McIlvaine, Ben Herson, and Chris Moore, and produced by Nomadic Wax and Sol Productions.
African Underground: Democracy in Dakar will be screening at Ja’net’s Theater at the Culver Plaza Theaters, 9919 Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA at 1:00 p.m.
Published on February 12, 2009
February 12-13: Arts Engine panelist at Making Your Media Matter 2009
The Center for Social Media will be hosting its 5th Annual Making Your Media Matter conference on February 12-13, 2009. This year's conference will address the ways in which media makers can connect their ethical and aesthetic values to their financial needs. Arts Engine staff will be joining other communications leaders, filmmakers, funders, and students on a panel discussion focusing on Outreach Connection, focusing on the trends in social issues media. Highlights of the conference also include keynotes from legendary filmmakers George Stoney and Gordon Quinn, a networking luncheon, and panel on incorporating outreach and communication into social-media. American University's Katzen Arts Center 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20016 February 12-13, 2009 Click here to register. Registration is $100, with a $50 price for students. Please note that a student ID will be required upon check-in. SCHEDULE THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12th 5:30 Introduction by School of Communication's Dean Larry Kirkman 5:50 Mini-keynote: George Stoney on ethics in social-issue film 6:15 Keynote: Gordon Quinn and the ethics of Cinema Verite 7:30 Reception FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13TH 9:00 Registration, coffee/bagels, and demos 10:00 Welcome and Logistics 10:15 Panel: Money and Mission - An in-depth look at the issue of funding social issue media, and how to meet the demands of funders while also fulfilling the ethical needs of your mission. - Danny Alpert, Executive Producer of See3 and Kindling Group - Julie Goldman, founder of Cactus Three Films - Alyce Myatt, Executive Director of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media - Diana Barrett, founder of the Fledgling Fund 11:45 Announcements/Shout-outs 11:50 Birds of a Feather Lunch- Birds of a Feather lunch is a way to sign up for a theme or issue you would like to discuss before the conference, network online with people with similar interests, and meet for lunch to discuss that topic. You can sign up for your BOF group or create a new one on our networking site. 1:15 Raffle 1:30 Panel: Outreach and Connection- This panel will focus on the various ways that outreach and audience connection can be incorporated into social-issue media, and provide new approaches in measuring impact. Featuring: - Andrew Mer of Snagfilms - Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, film makers of Made in LA - Scott Kirsner, author of CinemaTech - Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming of the Bay Area Video Coalition - Maia Ermita, Director of Festival & Outreach, Arts Engine 3:00 Networking Break 3:30 Panel: Art, Ethics and Mission- What happens when you make a beautiful film about a dark subject? This panel will take a look at how to marry the ethics of media making with the aesthetic choices required to make powerful art. Featuring: - Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, film makers of War Dance - Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program - Thomas Allen Harris, Director of Chimpanzee Productions - Sky Sitney, Programming Director of SILVERDOCS 5:00 ReceptionPublished on February 12, 2009
Ninth Annual Festival Jury
Pamela Cohn has been a documentary filmmaker and digital shooter since 2003. As an independent media producer and project director for the past seventeen years, Pamela Cohn has a broad range of experience in production, branding, animation, and film projects. In her blog, Still in Motion, she conducts in-depth interviews with filmmakers, producers, programmers and distributors, and reports from both domestic and international festivals. Pamela currently writes for FILMMAKER Magazine, Culture Unplugged and others arts, media and film sites and publications and is co-producing a multi-platform media outreach project that will launch this year. Her recent projects include producing the 2008 Inaugural Cinema Eye Honors and Documentary Voices: Pulling Focus, a symposium staged in Dubai, UAE. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1993 with honors in poetry, American history and Italian language and literature.
Imani A. Dawson is an award winning author and producer with nearly a decade of professional media experience to her credit. Her work has appeared in a variety of media outlets including MTV, BET and the Associated Press. In 2007, she was selected to participate in the LATV/Fox Media Fellows program. She is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Abigail Disney is a filmmaker who is involved in producing a number of documentaries with social themes. Her first film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which was short-listed for an Academy Award, is a feature-length documentary about the women of Liberia and their efforts to bring peace to their broken nation after decades of destructive civil war. Besides filmmaking, Abigail is co-founder and co-president of the Daphne Foundation along with her husband, Pierre Hauser. The Daphne Foundation is a progressive, social change foundation that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working with low-income communities in New York City. Abigail also acts as Vice Chair of the board of a successful professional investment company, Shamrock Holdings Incorporated. Abigail received her Bachelors degree from Yale University, her Masters degree from Stanford University, and her Doctorate from Columbia University. She lives in New York with her husband and their four children, one dog, three cats, a fish, a rabbit and an immortal turtle named Alfred.
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, Producer, Director and Editor, has been committed to cultural and social issues documentary filmmaking for over a decade. Her editing debut garnered an Emmy for WGBH's Greater Boston Arts series, and she has continued to distinguish herself as both a producer and editor, having worked on numerous award-winning documentaries for public television and cable. Among these is Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a groundbreaking PBS documentary about manhood and gender politics in mainstream Hip Hop, on which she is co-producer and editor. Currently she is the co-producer and editor of Mrs. Goundo's Daughter, the story of a young Malian's mother's quest to protect her daughter from female genital cutting. She is also the producer and director of 180 Days, which examines the NYC Teaching Fellows Program through the eyes of three new teachers during their first year in the public school system. Her commitment to social change extends to working with non-profit and grassroots organizations on video programs.
Ben Herson, an internationally celebrated producer and musician, is the founder and director of Nomadic Wax - a global Hip Hop record label and production company dedicated to recording, documenting and presenting Hip Hop and underground music from around the world. He graduated with a major in African Studies and Anthropology from Hampshire College in 2000 and did post baccalaureate studies in Wolof (West African Language) at Columbia University. While studying West African drumming in Senegal, Herson stumbled upon a vibrant Hip Hop scene in Dakar, Senegal. Enthralled by the political and social message of the groups' lyrics, Herson returned with equipment and began befriending and producing some of Senegal's top MCs. These recordings formed the critically acclaimed African Underground Albums vol. 1 and 2. In 2004, Herson co-founded the Trinity International Hip Hop festival at Trinity College, the first international Hip Hop festival in the United States and began touring with global Hip Hop music and educational programming to colleges and universities throughout the United States. In 2007, Herson developed an award winning seven-part documentary series on youth, Hip Hop, and politics in West Africa titled African Underground: Democracy in Dakar, a selection of which was honored at the Media That Matters Film Festival with the Roots & Rhymes Award. Herson also produces and hosts a bi-monthly radio show on New York public radio (WNYE) featuring Urban music and political discourse from around the world.
According to New York Magazine's September, 2008 40th anniversary issue, Jennie Livingston's film, Paris is Burning, is one of the most important cultural works to come out of New York City in the last 40 years. Paris won a Sundance Grand Jury Prize and is, according to Variety, one of the top-performing documentaries in the history of the medium. Livingston's 35mm dramatic short Who's the Top? premiered at the Berlinale in 2005 and has screened at over 100 festivals and cultural venues worldwide, including theatrical runs at the Boston MFA and London's ICA. Her digital piece, Through the Ice, was commissioned for the 10th anniversary of WNET/Thirteen's Reel New York and also screened at Sundance in 2006. Currently, Livingston is at work on Earth Camp One, a feature documentary and mediation on grief and loss that's been funded by Netflix and by the Guggenheim Foundation. She's also written and is developing The Room in the Mountain, a dramatic feature set in the art worlds of East Berlin and New York in 1989. Livingston is a graduate of Yale, where she received the Sudler Prize for work in painting and photography.
Niaz Mosharraf was born in Bangladesh and immigrated to the United States in 1997. He graduated from the elite Brooklyn Technical High School in 2007 and is now attending Brooklyn College studying film productions and marketing and minoring in business. His first film, America For Dummies won the Media That Matters Film Festival's Youth Voice Award in 2008 and the Woodstock Film Festival's Jury Award. Niaz was one of the two U.S. representatives for the 2008 Youth Initiative Bar Camp in Istanbul hosted by the Soros Foundation to discuss social media and its effects around the world. Mosharraf, along with a group of six other filmmakers has also co-produced and co-directed Over Here, a project under WNET/Thirteen and Reel Works Teen Filmmaking. His love for filmmaking was kindled by his experience in Reel Works and he eagerly wishes to pursue it in the future. Niaz is very inclined toward political and social issues and hopes to one day make a difference in this world through his passion for filmmaking.
Deborah Rudolph joined HBO in 1993 as a producer's assistant, and helped produce an award-winning, national anti-violence PSA campaign. For two years she worked as a publicity assistant in Media Relations, moved to the Corporate Affairs division in 1997, and is now manager of Corporate Giving. Before joining HBO, Ms. Rudolph worked as a freelance photographer, as well as a production coordinator for videos and commercials in both NY and LA. She graduated from NYU with a degree in Fine Arts, and is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Communications at Columbia University. She serves on the advisory board of Free Arts NYC.
Rebecca Schleifer is the advocate for the Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. She has authored numerous reports and advocacy documents on HIV and AIDS in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and North America, focusing on the human rights of people living with and at highest risk of HIV and AIDS. Her research and advocacy have covered the role of criminal law in addressing (or impeding) the response to HIV/AIDS; government restrictions on HIV/AIDS information to youth and harm reduction services to injection drug users; access to HIV prevention and other post-rape services to survivors of sexual violence; and abuses against people living with and at high risk of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Bangladesh, South Africa, Jamaica, Ukraine, India, and Thailand. Rebecca has a JD and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, and an AB from Harvard-Radcliffe College.
Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm is executive director of WITNESS, an international human rights organization, and an attorney with nearly two decades of experience in media and new technology. Prior to joining WITNESS, she served as executive vice president of Content Strategy & Acquisition at Joost, the global online video platform formed by Niklas Zennstroem and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Previously, Alberdingk Thijm spent more than a decade at MTV Networks International (MTVNI) and was instrumental in its international growth and its forays into new media. As executive vice president of Business Affairs for MTVNI, she oversaw business affairs for all of its branded businesses and channels worldwide (excluding the U.S.A.), including digital media initiatives, audiovisual co-productions, new business development, strategic partnerships and joint ventures. In both these roles, she expanded the global reach of the companies through the development and implementation of strategic content, new media, and marketing strategies. She speaks Dutch, English, French and German.
Born and raised by his grandmother in Brooklyn, New York, 17-year-old Shiyah Trotman started his film journey through the Bronx's Ghetto Film School where he made the short film Superstitious. His ventures have taken him to Paris, France where he was part of another Ghetto Film production, Et Alors Charlottle. Shiyah received his first behind-the-scenes look on the Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Tribeca Film Fellows production of "Our City, My Story." Shiyah has been a member of the youth committee in the Urban Visionary Youth Film Festival and contributed to its success by helping coordinate the event and hosting its annual Video Slam. Recently, Shiyah interned for Soze Productions, home of independent filmmaker Paola Mendoza (On the Outs) and producer Michael Skolnik (Without The King). He also acted as a production assistant on Paola Mendoza and Gloria LaMorte's entre nos. Aside from film, Shiyah loves poetry and attends workshops of Urban Word NYC. Currently, he is a high school senior at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice.
Lalitha Vasudevan has worked with youth both in and out of school, as a teacher and as a researcher. She is interested in how youth craft and produce stories while using different literacy, technologies, and media. Currently, Lalitha is studying education, literacy and media in the lives of court-involved youth by using a multimedia storytelling methodology. Her research includes publications in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, E-Learning, and English Education, and is co-editor of the volume titled, Media, Learning, and Sites of Possibility (2008, Peter Lang). Lalitha, who completed her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, is an assistant professor of Technology and Education at the Teachers College of Columbia University.
Edited by Austra Zubkovs
Published on February 10, 2009
February 8: Argentina Turning Around To Screen At Seattle Human Rights Film Festival at 1:00 p.m.
We are happy to announce that Argentina Turning Around , from the Eighth Annual Media That Matters Festival, will be screened on February 8th as part of the Seattle Human Rights Film Festival. The film, which won last year's Labor Award at our festival, documents the extraordinary story of Argentine workers who formed a grassroots effort to re-open and cooperatively manage previously darkened factories. The film was produced and directed by Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young, and will be shown in its entirety, at a running time of 37 minutes. See the film on February 8th, 2009 at the Northwest Film Forum. 1515 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98122.The screening will take place at 1pm. Visit Brown Paper Tickets to reserve your seat now.Published on February 8, 2009
February 7-8: A Loud Color and Something’s Moving to screen at “Reel” Civil Rights Film Festival, Little Rock, AR
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, in partnership with Market Street Cinema, presents the 3rd Annual "Reel" Civil Rights Film Festival on Saturday, February 7 and Sunday, February 8 at Market Street Cinema, located at 1521 Merrill Drive in Little Rock. The festival features documentaries and films related to past and current civil and human rights issues in the United States and abroad. The festival is free, and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. All Saturday films will be preceded by A Loud Color, from the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival Directed and Produced by Brent Joseph, A Loud Color is a short film about post Katrina New Orleans. All Sunday films will be preceded by a Something's Moving from the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival. Directed by Randy Vasquez and produced by Jonathan Skurnik, Something's Moving focuses on how survivors of a U.S. boarding school for the Lakota are breaking the chain of trauma in order to heal their spirits, their community, and country. For additional information, please call the park or contact Market Street Cinema at 501.312.8900.Published on February 7, 2009
February 7: Neglected Sky and Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary) to show at Aurora Picture Show in Houston, TX at 6:30 p.m.
We are happy to announce that Neglected Sky from the fifth annual Media That Matters Film Festival and Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary) from the sixth annual Media That Matters Film Festival will be screening at the Aurora Picture Show on Saturday, February 7 at 6:30 p.m. Aurora Picture Show presents a night celebrating green building and community building, consummated with pancakes and maple syrup. The free outdoor screening will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, February 7 (screening begins at 6:30 p.m.) at The Mirabeau B, 2410 Waugh Drive at the corner of Hyde Park Blvd. The evening will include short stacks of warm pancakes, followed by a short stacks of short films about sustainability. WHEN AND WHERE: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, February 7 (screening begins at 6:30 p.m.) Outdoors at 2410 Waugh at the corner of Hyde Park TICKET INFO: Aurora's Pancake Supper and Films event is FREE and open to the public. Pancake serving is for the first 100 patrons only. Patrons are encouraged to bring blankets and picnics. Call Aurora Picture show at 713-868-2101 for additional information. Founded in 1998, the Aurora Picture show is the only microcinema of its kind in the Southwest. Aurora supports non-commercial independent and artist-made film, video and new media artists through fifty programs a year. Aurora's human scale promotes a meaningful and community-oriented exchange between artists and audiences. Aurora Picture Show Delicia Harvey Executive Director, Email harvey@aurorapictureshow.org or Phone 713.868.2101Published on February 7, 2009
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