It’s A Video Festival In Your Blog

Community Cinema has amassed quite a collection of videos from our free documentary screening events. We’ve talked to community leaders, performers, a few DJs, and audience members just like you. Here are a few of the short video clips we’ve collected from this exciting season of Community Cinema. We’ll have videos from our current film selection A Village Called Versailles coming very soon.

We asked audience members at last month’s events for The Horse Boy about what brought them to the event, how the film affected their feelings about the topic of autism and alternative healing, and finally what was their experience at Community Cinema.

In March, we presented Dirt! The Movie in dozens of communities nationwide. One of our most successful events was at the San Francisco Public Library. This video is an edited wrap-up of the event including speakers, the audience, and what people were talking about after watching the powerful film.

We presented the award winning documentary Garbage Dreams in January. This edited video captures the activities surrounding our event in Oakland, California.

December’s gift to Community Cinema goers was the delightful and touching Young@Heart about the Young@Heart chorus which is made up of older folk who sing punk, rock, and a lot of roll. We were so fortunate to be joined by many talented seniors at our events. Including Legendary jazz musician Willie Pickens at Community Cinema Chicago.

In Seattle, Young@Heart audiences were treated to a few numbers by Seattle’s Raging Grannies.

And in West Hollywood we were inspired by a number fo talented seniors at the Community Cinema Senior Talent Show.

In November, the runaway smash hit of the Fall was Between The Folds a compelling documentary about paperfolding and origami. Many of our events included interactive paperfolding workshops with local experts sharing their talents. Here’s a glimpse of the paperfolding activities.

Copyright Criminals asked, “Is sampling stealing?” at dozens of events throughout October. We had some stellar DJs and other artists speak and perform at events around the country. We talked to Seattle’s DJ Hypen who was the host of our event.

The audience also weighed in on the question of music as an artform and/or a business.

We want to hear from you.

Tags: audience feedback, community cinema, free events, video, youtube

An Audience Member Shares His Experience at The Horse Boy in DC

The Horse Boy Film: A Viewer’s Reaction by Bill Kirst

Community Cinema Audience Member Bill Kirst

I first heard about the story of the Horse Boy when my sister, Marguerite Kirst Colston, was going on a book tour its author, Rupert Isaacson. During her trip, my sister recommended I pick up a copy of the book at the bookstore. It wasn’t until I got an invite to the pre-screening of the film adaptation that I remembered I had ordered the book on my Kindle. I was excited to hear that the story had been turned into a documentary-style film.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon when I walked over to Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C., to see the Community Cinema screening. There I met up with my sister, her friends, and co-workers from the Autism Society. After a brief introduction about the PBS Film Festival, the movie started.

Immediately I was introduced to Rowan, a boy with autism. Rowan is playing with his toys in the living room. His dad, Rupert, is filming and trying to get Rowan’s attention, hoping he will say his name. Rowan doesn’t respond to his father and focuses attentively on his toys. This was a very familiar scene to me as an uncle. My nephew, Camden, also has autism. I was immediately captivated by Rowan and his similar behaviors. The tantrums, the inability to communicate, his repetitive moment — all of this was just like what I had seen in Camden.

Yetta Myrick (left) and Marguerite Kirst Colston speak at a Community Cinema screening of “The Horse Boy” April 11 at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C.

As I listened to Rupert narrate his story, and echo his frustrations at not being able to communicate with his son, it tore at me. I thought about my nephew and his mom and sister and how it challenges them as a family each and every day. I recognized the same struggles in Rowan as I do in Camden. At times, I felt as if Rupert was reading from the same script or playing to same soundtrack that my sister had once lived.

My emotions ran from low to high as the film progressed and I was reminded of the extreme intelligence and true innocence these children bring to us everyday. I watched a scene unfold where Rowan organizes his animal toys in logical and natural categories without any prompting or instruction. For years I saw similar behavior from Camden, who would take anything apart and put it back together in a calculated and organized fashion with no instruction or guidance. I never underestimate the cognitive power of children with autism. I know they experience life at a heightened level, and I believe that can help us see things differently, perhaps more clearly.

The moment in the film I can’t forget is when Rowan runs up to a horse and immediately establishes an unexpected connection with the majestic animal. When Rupert risks putting his son on the horse’s back, he experiences a near miracle. While in contact with the horse Rowan enters a state of relaxation and ease he has not experienced before. Rowan speaks in a full sentence to say “He’s a nice horse.” This simple exchange opens up a world of possibilities for Rowan and his family as they embark on a journey to better understand autism as they heal and grow as a family.

Tags: Audience Talkback, autism, busboys and poets, Washington DC

Community Cinema Welcomes New Producing Partners: Louisville Film Society and KET

Producing Partners are local community organizations that co-present Community Cinema screenings across the country. Ken Wilson of Louisville, Kentucky with the Louisville Film Society shares some of his thoughts about becoming a Community Cinema and Community Classroom partner. BETWEEN THE FOLDS shows Thursday, Nov 19 at 3:30 PM at Fern Creek Traditional HS 9115 Fern Creek Rd. The film will be followed by a community discussion.

The Louisville Film Society in Louisville Kentucky

The Louisville Film Society has wanted for a long time to have a presence in local high schools – to foster both filmmaking and film appreciation. We found an ideal connection at Fern Creek. Fern Creek High School is a Louisville public school in a lower-middle class area where there is very little cultural activity.

With the encouragement of FC’s principal, Dr. Houston Barber, we have formed a film club and have begun turning their little-used auditorium into the site for our Community Cinema showings. Students have been given duties in publicity, set-up of equipment, and announcements and panel participation. One project we are planning to give the students is the shooting of an opening “Welcome, turn off your phones, here are our sponsors…” video. Eventually, students in the film club will be making films for a student film festival that will be part of the Louisville Film Society’s Flyover Film Festival, held in June. We are hoping their exposure to the subjects and techniques of the Independent Lens films will broaden and deepen their work.

Kentucky Educational Television

The alumni association at Fern Creek is very active. We are hoping that our monthly Community Cinema screenings will bring them back to school to engage with current students. We hope to raise students’ awareness of artistic, political, cultural questions and connect them to the wider community – and to raise the community’s awareness of those kids’ potential as creative, aware, productive citizens. We want to make enlarge the scope of Louisville’s artistic and intellectual life, and put film at the center of that life. We want people talking about, creating, and enjoying film and film’s subjects.

We want Fern Creek to become a cultural center for the area, and for it to become a destination for people from other parts of the city. The nature of Community Cinema – the range of its subjects and approaches – makes it a perfect catalyst for that kind of change. Ultimately the high school community will connect with the adult world around it – not in a hierarchical way, but as intellectual equals wrestling with interesting and important questions and issues. And as more and more people from outside the neighborhood hear of these screenings and discussions, Fern Creek will begin to matter more to the whole city.

We are partnering with the University of Louisville, with Kentucky Educational Television, and hope to have connections with film groups in Lexington and Paducah, Kentucky. As we begin to bring in panelists and organizations from around Louisville and Southern Indiana, we know formal and informal connections – with students, between organizations, and with the LFS – will begin to happen. We also want kids to make connections with students from schools around the city.

Read more about Community Cinema in Louisville>>>
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Tags: education, film society, KET, Louisville

One Size Fits All: Community Cinema Flexes Its Flexibility

Volunteers at the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women

One aspect of having worked with the Community Cinema program for the past four years is that I have had the pleasure of working with people from so many communities including Washington, D.C. and Grand Junction, Colorado as well as Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Miami. Recently a few of my colleagues asked me to share some of their impressions about the Community Cinema program. We welcome your comments especially if you are a Producing Partner, Cinema/Outreach Coordinator, or an audience member.

Meet Sara Brissenden-Smith who represents Community Cinema in the Bay Area. She is always asked, “So, what’s the topic this month?”

Meet Tiffany L. Verkler who is Promotions Supervisor for Arkansas Educational Television Network. This is her first season with Community Cinema. We are all excited to bring Independent Lens documentaries to Arkansas audiences.

Meet Lynn Allen who has represented Community Cinema statewide in Idaho since our very first season.

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Tags: community, community cinema, discussion, events, films, itvs