I'm on a shoot in the Baltimore area now - travelled up here with my film subject Janet Connors, who is winning the Noam Chomsky Peace & Justice Award from the Justice Studies Association. Congratulations, Janet!
BU Student Film Screening
This year I had fifteen students in my Production I class at BU. It's tons of work for the students - learning all about using DSLR cameras, recording sound, editing on the Avid, and of course the art of storytelling. So it's immensely satisfying to have a public showing of their work at the end of the semester.
Last Friday my students all showed their films, and I was very impressed with what they came up with in such a short time. Then on Tuesday we had a course-wide Production I screening, with three films from each of the six sections presenting. Tonight at 7pm the graduate students in Production 2 will be showing their films in COM 101, 640 Commonwealth Ave., Boston - come along if you are interested!
Above is a film by my student Michelle Orozco. I really liked how she handled the flashback scenes: something that can be hard to pull off well and is sometimes overused. But it worked beautifully here!
Fun in Fourth Grade
What fun I had on Monday visiting my daughter Maya's fourth grade class at Montclair Elementary School in Quincy. I talked to them about life as an independent documentary filmmaker - and how I came to this career partly through other people sharing their passion for it when I was young. It was neat to see how they responded to clips of my films (especially Monkey Dance), and how hands shot up with questions throughout.
And of course everyone enjoyed playing with my camera equipment...
Thank you to the students and Ms. Joyce for letting me visit!
Indelible Lalita at Notre Dame
My film Indelible Lalita will be screening at the DeBartolo Peformance Center at the University of Notre Dame on Friday, April 11 at 6:30pm as part of a monthly screening series sponsored by the Harper Cancer Research Institute. I will be there for a Q&A.
I'm excited to show the film in this context, as I have been approached by many audience members who have faced cancer themselves or with family members and were moved by the film.
We had a fun screening last week (photo to the left, by Marie Hartness) at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women at Harvard University: another type of audience for this personal story.
The Art and Design of Sustainability
Massachusetts College of Art and Design is in the running for the Second Nature Climate Leadership Award. As part of the competition, the schools submit a video, which we produced over here at JMP. It was a great experience working with the various students, staff, and faculty at MassArt to create this video: it's clear that sustainability is truly in the DNA of MassArt. The entire MassArt community strives to make the world a more sustainable place through art and design. They have, among many other things, installed over 1500 LED lightbulbs, made sure their new facilities are LEED silver or gold certified, and created many classes and student organizations about sustainability. Good luck, MassArt! We're rooting for you!
America Reframed rebroadcast
I had the pleasure of editing and co-producing this film with Sharon Linezo Hong and Monique Verdin.
The Imprint of the Past Upon the Present
I was glad to make it out last night to the LEF Foundation-hosted gathering in honor of the 60th Anniversary of the Flaherty Seminar. I've been to the Seminar three times over the last 18 years, and each time was thoroughly memorable. Spending a week in upstate New York, watching movies all day and night (last time I was there, we watched over 80 movies in 6 days), and talking about them with fellow filmmakers, programmers, and critics over meals and drinks.... it's a dream scenario.
The program was an interesting collection of documentary shorts set around the world - though, in keeping with Flaherty tradition, no one in the audience knew what we were going to see until it came onto the screen. None of the films a traditional film structure. As director and several-time Flaherty curator John Gianvito (pictured above, talking to Flaherty board member Elizabeth Delude-Dix) described it, what tied this program together was these films exploration of "the imprint of the past upon the present." I'm quite taken with that idea.
These are the films that screened:
- Complex by Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat (Beligum, 2008, 9 min.)
- Satyagraha by Jacques Perconte (France, 2009, 5 min.)
- 14.3 Seconds by John Greyson (Canada, 2008, 9 min.)
- Tito Among the Serbs for the Second Time by Zelimir Zilnik (Serbia, 1994, 43 min.)