We Tell: 50 Years of Participatory Community Media The We Tell: 50 Years of Participatory Community Media series is part of a national, traveling exhibition focused on place-based documentaries that situate their collaborative practice in specific locales, communities, and a need for social change. Comprised of six thematic programs that probe salient topics (body publics,… Read more »
Dr. Randi Gray Kristensen is assistant professor in the University Writing Program, deputy director of the Writing in the Disciplines program, and affiliate faculty in the Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs, at the George Washington University, Washington DC. She is co-editor of Writing Against the Curriculum: Anti-Disciplinarity in the Writing and Cultural Studies… Read more »
“Media offers the means and material of an imagined community…Motion pictures coming out of Jamaica…convey content as they catalyze an imagined family reunion. ” – Terri Francis This week, Shadow and Act revives IU professor Terri Francis’s earlier essay, “Slow Jam, Experiencing Media as Love Letter in Jamaica or What I thought of the ‘One People’… Read more »
In 1810, a third of Buenos Aires was African. Still, the received, albeit simplistic, narrative – placing the Argentine expanse as a land of opportunity for Europe’s masses and Buenos Aires as the cosmopolitan center (a la Paris) – maintains the Argentine story as a narrative sans Africans, or, one in which Africans conveniently disappeared… Read more »
Dear Mandela, a South African documentary about Abahlali baseMjondolo, has won the Golden Chameleon (yes – that’s the top nod) at this year’s Brooklyn Film Festival, Sleeping Giant and Fireworx Media have announced. The Golden Chameleon now joins the Golden Butterfly (Movies That Matter Film Festival’s top prize) in a growing list of accolades for… Read more »
A new(er) documentary film by Idrissou Mora-Kpai follows the stories of Afro-Vietnamese orphans born of Vietnamese mothers and West African fathers – tirailleurs sénégalais – brought by the French to fight la sale guerre, mostly in today’s Viet Nam. The synopsis: Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film reveals the little… Read more »
The 6th annual International Indigenous and Afro-descendant Film Showcase and Awards took place last week in Lima, Peru. The Anaconda Prize – the event’s top award – went to the Guatemalan film El oro o la vida (Gold for Life). Hosted by Susana Baca (Afro-Peruvian singer and Minister of Culture), the event expanded this year… Read more »
This weekend on June 26, the BFI in London will be showing Mamá Chocó, a Colombian documentary that centers on Paulina, a mother of 26, who flees the war-torn, historically-black region of Chocó in search of a new home in Cali. The film screened in New York in May and is headed to festivals in… Read more »
The fascinating documentary Mr. Dial Has Something to Say is currently showing at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibit Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial. The film screens in a continuous loop in the IMA’s Davis Lab until the exhibit closes on September 18, 2011. See trailers here, and here.
“Although overshadowed by colleagues like Albert and David Maysles and D. A. Pennebaker, Mr. Leacock was a seminal figure in developing the artistic theories and the small, lightweight camera and sound equipment that led to a new style of reportorial filmmaking.” The New York Times 03/25/11 Click here to read the entire article.