What fun to show Indelible Lalita outdoors for the first time - at Dover Street Park in Oakland, California, which has occasional public events and an awesome community garden!
Student-Led Conferences
In Charge: Student-Led Conferences at Pittsfield Middle High School from Julie Mallozzi on Vimeo.
Hot off the press - a new video we created for Pittsfield Middle High School in rural New Hampshire, which is undergoing major school change towards more student-centered learning. The video showcases the school's use of Student-Led Conferences, in which high school students prepare a portfolio of work and lead a presentation with their parents, advisor, and invited guest. Attendance at the conferences is far higher than the school ever experienced with traditional Parent-Teacher Conferences.
We are producing a series of longitudinal videos documenting several aspects of Pittsfield MHS's amazing transformation. These pieces, generally 5-15 minutes in length, go far beyond the typical promotional web video. They aim to help schools around the country learn from Pittsfield's experience, and possibly replicate some of the changes themselves.
The project is funded in part by the Nellie Mae Educational Foundation, and produced in collaboration with Jane Feinberg at Full Frame Communications.
Behind the Doc Lens Launched
The new web series Behind the Doc Lens has launched, with the goal of "demystifying the world of documentary filmmaking." I was interviewed for episode 5, about my film Indelible Lalita, and it's live this week - check it out!
This was a lot of fun to do, and I admire producer Isabel Garcia for taking on such an ambitious project.
Driff Records Festival
Just got home from a great time at the Driff Records Festival, launching four new CDs. I had never seen a drum trio before this one - with Curt Newton, Eric Rosenthal, and Luther Gray - and I loved it. I found the music from Pandelis Karayorgis's new CD Cocoon concise, poetic, and beautifully played. And this was the first time I heard my husband's new group BOLT, a high-energy dose of complex improvisation.
The format was fun, with five short sets in three hours, and breaks for drinks and snacks in between. Looking forward to more "transatlantic improvisation" from Driff!
Associate Producer Minhae Shim
Congratulations to Minhae Shim on her recent graduation from UMass Boston! Minhae has been working with us for two and a half years, doing everything from web design to assistant editing, copyediting, production assistance, and graphic design. And I'm very pleased that she is staying on at Julie Mallozzi Productions as Associate Producer.
Pictured above is Minhae's very cool installation Video Sasson, which she describes as "a phantasmagorical meditation on media, remediation, and the editing process. Discarded strips of videotape are repurposed to create a screen through which a digital video is projected. In the video, newly severed pieces of hair float across the screen to the tune of a familiar funeral ballad that has been rendered unrecognizable by the editing process. The work uses the inescapably human material of hair to comment on the omnipresence of media and its evolution, and to connect video editing to a familiar, tactile experience." I saw the piece at the Nowhere/No Here show at the Harbor Art Gallery in January, and loved its very concrete yet ethereal presence. Minhae's film Color Theory (co-directed with Danny Roth) won the 2013 Short Waves competition and will screen at the Boston Asian American Film Festival in October. In addition to her production work, Minhae is an active writer (see her recent piece in the Independent or her blog).
It's great to work with people you admire!
Art of the Pitch
What a thrill to do my first public pitch at today's Art of the Pitch session at Making Media Now - for my new documentary Circle Justice - and to be selected as the best pitch! It was a great experience to stand in front of about 100 people, including a panel of industry folks led my wonderful moderator Judith Vecchione, and have just five minutes total to describe my project and show a video clip. The feedback was very helpful, not to mention the audience's warm support.
I'm very excited by this Circle Justice project. It's a feature documentary about a woman named Janet Connors, whose son Joel was murdered in a home invasion 12 years ago. Frustrated by the inhumanity of the criminal justice system, Janet meets the perpetrators and becomes a leader of restorative justice circles.
PBS World Broadcast May 13
We're very excited to announce the television premiere of Indelible Lalita on May 13, 2013 on PBS World. Check local listings for broadcast times.
A nice article, "Soul Beyond the Skin," just came out in Harvard Magazine about the film.