YOUNG@HEART Was Community Cinema’s Holiday Gift To Our Audiences
Young@Heart director Bob Cilman doing a run-through of the James Brown classic "I Feel Good"
As a gift to our audiences, Community Cinema presented the heart-warming and inspiring hit documentary YOUNG@HEART this past December 2009. Many of our over 42 free events included live performances. Exceptional seniors shared their talents and personal stories of courage, persistence, and triumph in the face of adversity.
Our national partners created unique ways for audiences to learn more about the link between creativity, culture, and aging. The mission of the National Center for Creative Aging is to foster an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging and to developing programs that build on this understanding. Learn more about their public awareness campaign “The Art of Aging: Creativity Matters” and the center’s free online resource guide “Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit.”
WTTW Reception for young musicians and their families at the Chicago Cultural Center
Local partners connected our audiences with “on the ground” resources to turn the passion they experience during the film into action in their community. Audience members have said after an event, “I’m going to look for a local choir for my husband!” and “Made me want to join a chorus even if I can’t sing.” Our partners included such distinguished and esteemed partners as the Jazz Institute of Chicago, WTTW Channel 11, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC), KETC, the Missouri History Museum, the SIFF Cinema at Seattle Center, the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Office of Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, San Pedro Chamber of Commerce, and Project:Involve. Project:Involve’s mission is to foster diversity in the film industry and to promote independent film making.
Our events included many super seniors who keep young at heart by performing their talents into their 70′s, 80′s, 90′s, and beyond. Watch videos and see photos from our events. › Continue reading
When Storytelling Ignites the Neighborhood
Sara Brissenden-Smith, Regional Outreach Coordinator, ITVS Community Cinema
By: Sara Brissenden-Smith
Regional Outreach Coordinator for ITVS’s Community Cinema.
Media is such a huge part of our lives today. You can stream live video of events happening on the other side of the world from your office, watch TV episodes on your iPod as you ride Muni, upload your political perspective and your interpretation of Beyonce’s latest video on YouTube… tweet about the meal you just had and break up with your boyfriend via Facebook… all on your way to the BART station. Access to media has definitely changed.
As a young woman of color, I grew up with some very narrow definitions of my community presented in the media. One-dimensional snapshots of my community have often left me feeling disconnected from representations of ‘my experience’. Truthfully, I have a love/hate relationship with media.
I don’t think I really understood how powerful media was until I had the chance to go to Ghana, West Africa about 10 years ago. I met young African boys who were dressed like American rap artists and African girls who strived to look like young women in our music videos. I had always assumed that the challenges I faced looking for diversity and depth to images of my community was an American struggle, one that primarily existed in our inner cities and urban areas. The idea that an 8 year old African girl in a small village in Ghana could be affected by the same images I encountered was unsettling for me. That trip changed my perspective in a lot of ways. It made me aware of the need for communities to come together and dialogue about social issues and I realized that while media can be damaging, it has the potential be a great tool as well.
About a year and a half ago, I had the chance to start working with Independent Television Service (ITVS). ITVS funds, presents, and promotes award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television and cable, innovative new media projects on the Web, and the Emmy Award-winning weekly series Independent Lens Tuesday nights at 10:00 PM on PBS. Community Cinema is a groundbreaking public education and civic engagement initiative featuring free monthly screenings of films from the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens. Community Cinema is on location in more than 60 cities nationally, bringing together leading organizations, community members and public television stations to learn, discuss, and get involved in key social issues of our time. I have the chance to produce free screening events of documentaries by independent filmmakers who tell stories that are unique, diverse and rarely seen.
Organizing screenings in the Bay Area (both in San Francisco and Oakland), I have to say the level of community involvement and engagement has been amazing. Each month hundreds of people come out to see films and community partners share their work and knowledge. Some people come because they don’t know anything about the subject- others because the film tells the story of their lives. I have seen mothers bring their children to learn about tree planting (Taking Root), a grandfather coming to learn about autism to deal with his grandson’s recent diagnosis (The Horse Boy), teachers bringing students to learn about recycling efforts in Egypt (Garbage Dreams), and youth DJs come to learn about the history of sampling in hip-hop (Copyright Criminals). Every month is something different but the formula is consistent, communities share space for a couple hours and leave with questions, ideas and often a greater understanding of the issues and how we are all connected.
For me, working with Community Cinema has really reinforced the importance of telling the stories that are important to you, whether you went to film school, or just learned how to use a video camera. While the experience can be empowering and liberating for the filmmaker and the film subjects, the scope extends far beyond the participants and can have a ripple effect, impacting audiences, communities and the world at large.
I feel fortunate to be able to witness community members as they participate in this process. Many audience members return month after month, bringing family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors. The conversations that happen are dynamic, sometimes charged and always transformative. People leave screenings knowing more about how huge societal issues are being addressed by organizations down the street from where they live and many are encouraged to learn more and participate, whether that means they learn to compost, or volunteer at a school. As I am encouraged every month, my appreciation for the power and true purpose of media grows, one documentary at a time.
WEI Screenings Take Philly
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Ellen Slack is a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, which is partnering on the Philadelphia Women’s Empowerment Initiative Screening. She offered this report about an upcoming screening of Made in L.A..
Here in Philadelphia, the views in many neighborhoods are still dominated by old factory buildings that once housed our city’s garment and textile industries. The forces that emptied those buildings of the activities they were constructed for are essentially the same forces that in recent years have brought millions of Latinos—and others—to this country.
Manufacturers in search of cheap labor moved to other parts of the U.S. and then many send the work overseas. At the same time, globalization devastated local industries and destabilized economies in huge regions of the world, leaving their working people with little choice but to migrate to the U.S. and western Europe.
Unfolding BETWEEN THE FOLDS
In cooperation with OrigamiUSA and The Mathematical Association of America Community Cinema presented 42 free screening events for BETWEEN THE FOLDS a documentary by Vanessa Gould that delves deeply into the magical intersection of mathematics, science, and art that is paperfolding which is also known as origami. The film drew record-breaking crowds across the country.
Rodger Despres, a local Michigan paper folder, displays a 45-foot long paper model train that took him 1,500 hours to construct.
Our first free event for BETWEEN THE FOLDS took place at the fabulous Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Community Cinema is in its 3rd smash season. Emily Maurin, Community Cinema Producing Partner with WGVU, told us, “We were extremely lucky to have two amazing paper folders with us––Richard Alexander, one of the film’s participants, and Rodger Despres, a local paper folder who has constructed a 45-foot long paper model train. They each offered a different perspective on paper folding. Richard spoke about his artwork as well as his experiences making his own paper. Rodger discussed how he has used paper to engineer working train cars and tracks. He was very excited since Richard was the first paper folder he had met! They talked about how paper folding is almost a secret society that is just now emerging as a mainstream art.”
In the video below, director Vanessa Gould gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like making the film, how she worked with artists and a discusses a variety of issues related to independent filmmaking.
“Crease Is the Word!” Jim Ridley wrote in Nashville Scene about BETWEEN THE FOLDS at the Nashville Public Library. “Vanessa Gould’s documentary has received rapturous notices for concentrating on the intersection of art and science that the ancient paper-folding art represents.”
Mary Delach Leonard wrote in the St. Louis Beacon about our event at the Missouri History Museum. “Watching a former sculptor in France fold a flat sheet of paper into a three-dimensional human caricature … is worth far more than 1,000 words — which makes “Between the Folds” one of those unexpected documentaries you have to see to appreciate.” Read more>>
In St. Louis, approximately 340 people showed up for the viewing of the film at the Missouri History Museum. Sydney Meyer of Community Cinema Producing Partner KETC said, “I was amazed watching the diversity of people fill the auditorium and overflow onto the steps and the sides of the theater. People of all ages laughed and clapped at various parts of the film, signaling they understood what the artists were trying to communicate to them. After the film, the fun continued as more than 120 folks stayed to try their hand at paper-folding with artist Sugi Taylor. There was a lot of laughter and concentration as people attempted to make a paper box and bird.” As I walked around the tables, I heard comments like “I thought the simple figures would be easier. Now I admire the film artists even more!” or “I loved the film and I am amazed I can make this figure out of almost nothing… one simple square of paper.”
Director Vanessa Gould spent 3 days at 3 Community Cinema events in The Los Angeles area, and we were so lucky that she took time to write about it. › Continue reading
COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS Demystified Sampling from its Roots in Early Hip-Hop to Modern Day Video Mash-ups
Kembrew McLeod, co-producer of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS, answers questions from the audience with Tony Berman of Berman Entertainment and Technology Law, who is featured in the film.
For more than 30 years, as hip-hop evolved from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry, hip-hop performers and producers have been reusing portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. But when lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.” Through interviews with many of hip-hop music’s founding figures—like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground—along with emerging artists such as audiovisual remixers Eclectic Method, COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod illuminates both sides of the debate, from traditional musicians who view sampling as pillaging to those who argue that the practice of borrowing is by no means new nor is it unique to hip-hop or even music: Think of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans.
With OVER 50 free screening events from coast to coast audiences were able to sample the flavor of hip-hip and electronic music first-hand from some of the subjects featured in the film. The Philadelphia event featured worldwide DJ sensation based in Philly, RJD2 (RJ Krohn – pictured to the right, on the left). The photo is a TwitPic uploaded live from the event. Our event in Oakland welcomed DJ legend Jeff Chang. Local hip-hop radio DJs hosted events in St. Louis and Seattle. In Seattle, KUBE 93 FM DJ Hyphen who co-hosts “Sunday Night Sound Session” introduced the film. “Sunday Night Sound Session” airs every Sunday night at 10:45 PM. “J. Moore and I offer listeners the newest, dopest hip-hop from all around the country, including local music from our own backyard,” boasts DJ Hyphen. Tune in around the Puget Sound Region or online worldwide. DJ Hypen introduced COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS and left the audience with some things to think about while watching the film.
Read on for more video clips, photos, and community connections.
Summer Film Series to Address Women Creating Change
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater, is part of the summer film series in select cities.
When women and girls are provided with opportunities for education and jobs, access to health care services, and are a vital voice in governance, we can make great strides in addressing serious social issues such as poverty, violence, and political corruption. There has never been a better time than now to use film as a tool to shine a light on women and girls who are affecting change around the world.
This summer in more than 10 cities across the country, ITVS will be partnering with local public television stations and community organizations to present a special series of screenings that will highlight issues affecting women across the globe and in communities here in the U.S. Previous Community Cinema audience favorites such as Taking Root, Iron Ladies of Liberia , and Shadya will be featured among the 15-plus films selected for this exciting series of events.
Partner organizations include the Chicago Foundation for Women, Seattle University Women Studies Program, Priority Africa Network ,and the City of Los Angeles. Among the cities in which the screenings will be held: Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Louisville, Rochester, New York, St.Louis, and Denver.
Stay tuned here for event listings. Follow us on Twitter or become a fan to be the first to receive updates on these and other upcoming events!
Community Cinema Rocks the Bay Area
Sara Brissenden-Smith, regional outreach coordinator for the Bay Area, gives us highlights from a season of Community Cinema screenings.
I just completed my first full season of Community Cinema — that’s 18 screenings, with more than 30 community partners, 40 panelists, and more than 1,000 audience members.
A DJ spins at the Copyright Criminals screening in Oakland
Copyright Criminals brought out some of our most energetic and diverse viewers. People flooded into the theater and almost immediately lost themselves in the music. Maybe it’s because I’m a hip hop fan, but having youth DJs mixing Lauryn Hill and Tribe Called Quest started my night off right. Law students, hip hop enthusiasts, teenagers, established authors, and DJs all contributed to conversations about artistic expression, creative ownership, and the overall impact on hip hop.
D TOUR Events Drew Potential Donors and Increased Awareness of Organ Donation
(left) D TOUR director Jim Granato and (right) June R. Wallace, Community Affairs Coordinator, California Transplant Donor Network at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center
Throughout the month of September 2009, Community Cinema presented free preview screenings of the documentary D TOUR. Each of the 36 events between September 1 and September 29 connected audience members with information about local organ donation registries and shared the stories of transplant recipients and the donors who saved their lives. The emotionally moving film follows indie rock drummer Pat Spurgeon on a “dialysis tour” as he waits for a kidney transplant match and tours with his band, Rogue Wave. The film lead to many deeply personal and heartfelt discussions with speakers afterward. Even if you missed one of our events, you can still easily connect with the local donor registry in your area.
And, you should. The need is dire. Every 13 minutes another person is added to the national organ transplant waiting list. One in nine American adults— more than 20 million –have kidney disease, and most don’t know it. Nationally, about 106,000 people are awaiting transplants of all kinds. In the Puget Sound region around Seattle there are over 1600 people waiting. In the DC area alone, there are nearly 2,000 people waiting desperately for an organ to save or enhance their lives. More than 3,400 individuals live in the New England region waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. 20,000 people on the wait list live in California.
Every D TOUR event gave audience members a chance to hear the local stories of transplant recipients, donors, doctors, nurses, and/or those living their lives while waiting for a life-saving organ transplant.
Find That Film. Indie Film Finder. Fun!
Want to see where that hot new indie film is playing near you? Search by zip code at itvs.org and find out how close your favorite independent films are to you.
Local listings and video clips are all available online. Browse the titles most interesting to you with our “find films” feature here.
Independent Lens Submission Deadline: 9/24/2010
Independent Lens is currently accepting submissions for the October 2011-June 2012 season. Jointly curated by ITVS and PBS, we welcome a spectrum of independent documentary, including social issue, point of view, history, and animation. A number of short films are also accepted and broadcast each season.
The deadline to submit is Friday, September 24, 2010. For more information read the Independent Lens submissions FAQ. And to get a feel for some of our award-winning programs, check out trailers from this past season…
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