Curious about documentaries? Thinking of making one or in the middle of production? Examine fundamental issues critical to planning, producing and marketing a documentary. Topics include: Subject - Choosing a topic that's realistic; Taglines and treatments - grabbing people with the written description of your film; Technique - How to pull of shooting your doc; […]
Professor Mansour Farhang is an Iranian-born author and former diplomat who served as revolutionary Iran's first ambassador to the U.N. after the fall of the Sha and before Khomeini. He now teaches international relations and Middle Eastern politics at Bennington College. He will speak on the “Iran Nuclear Program and U.S.-Iranian Relations” and answer audience […]
A new edit of the 1964 documentary What Do You Tear Down Next, documenting the prelude to destruction of hundreds of downtown buildings in Troy, Schenectady, and Albany. Followed by the 1954 classic, How to Live in a City, which visualizes the practical results of the philosophy of Jane Jacobs (who died earlier this year). […]
The Sanctuary for Independent Media celebrates a living legend, the one and only George Stoney, one of America’s greatest documentary filmmakers! Stoney has been making films since 1946, and was one of the early advocates of using video as a tool for social change. The screenings will take place over two evenings with the themes […]
The 2005 documentary Getting Out by Stoney and his former student David Bangall holds true to one of the basic precepts of community media: giving a forum to unheard voices and stories. This film about Rehabilitation Through the Arts, an experimental theater program at the Sing Sing correctional facility designed to prepare inmates for their […]
Composer Zevin Polzin's overnight concert, Notes Against the Threshold of Dreams, will be an exploration of the liminal zone between waking consciousness and dream. This process involves the sonification of states of consciousness into contrapuntal melodies that bend and warp over the course of sleep, finally re-emerging as new melodies created by REM brainwaves. The […]
Bill Brown is from Lubbock, Texas. He has made several short experimental documentaries about the dusty corners of the North American landscape, including The Other Side (2006). He will be screening these along with his new film The Other Side, a 2000 mile journey along the U.S./Mexico border revealing a geography of aspiration and insecurity. […]
Presenting filmmakers and their works in progress to an audience of filmmakers, film lovers and anyone interested in the creative process. The "In-the-Works" Film and Video Festival, curated by Burrill Crohn, the works encompass all genres – from animation to experimental, from dramas to docs. It is a place where filmmakers can get valuable feedback […]
Formed in 2005 Red Morocco is Joe Giardullo, tenor/soprano sax; Bob Forbes, bass; and Harvey Sorgen, drums. This powerful band features Harvey Sorgen, former longtime drummer with Hot Tuna. Joe and Harvey go back over 30 years together, including a time based in Amsterdam, Holland in the 1970s. Joe Giardullo is a free jazz reed […]
Cartune Exprez is a curated program of experimental animations and performances from across the United States and Canada. This event converges hypercolor flash graphics, hand drawn stories, newspaper cut-outs, photo animations, and more. Prehistoric quadrupeds battle ennui, suicidal protagonists stumble through pixelated video game landscapes, the Sunday New York Times reanimates headliner narratives, action adventure […]
In this workshop, led by new media artist Cat Mazza, you will learn the basics of developing a website. It will cover how to brainstorm interfaces and navigation, basic HTML coding and fully implementing a basic website. We will look at various examples and discuss how to make your website most effective for your project […]
How far would you go to stop a war? Anthony Giacchino’s film The Camden 28, tells what happened on August 22, 1971, when twenty-eight men and women in Camden, New Jersey, carried out a powerful act of civil disobedience against United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The group was part of a nonviolent antiwar […]
Composed of an artful blend of documentary and dramatic elements, Khalo Matabane's Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon (2005) is a revolutionary film for South Africa. It breaks from the hard-hitting historical dramas the country has turned out and charges right into the world of ideas from people in the streets. In the film, the struggle […]
A documentary by Israeli filmmakers Avner Faingulernt and Macabit Abramzon Men on the Edge: Fishermen's Diary (2005) is set on an isolated and abandoned beach at the border between Gaza and Israel. Here, against all odds, Israeli and Palestinian fishermen lived and fished together from 1999 to 2003. The Palestinians were teaching the Israelis ancient […]
Composer and bandleader Sabir Mateen has been a musician most of his life. Born in Philadelphia, he started as a percussionist and moved to flute as a teenager. Gradually evolving from alto to tenor saxophone, he has been through a number of musical transformations. He started out playing rhythm and blues in the early '70s, […]
More of a film essay (of the type pioneered by Orson Welles and Chris Marker) than a standard documentary, German filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck's The Net: The Unabomber, the LSD and the Internet 2003) begins with the typical format and structure of a nonfiction film, and a single subject (the life and times of mail bomber […]
This hands-on workshop will change the way you watch TV forever! It will give young people and adults a basic introduction to critical thinking and media literacy as well as a behind-the-scenes experience of creating messages. First, an interactive presentation will explore advertising, identity creation, and the role that media plays in our everyday lives. […]
The author of The Small-Mart Revolution and Going Local introduces a screening of a thought-provoking new documentary by Hanson Hosein, Independent America: The Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop (2005), which uncovers the growing opposition to big box retail across the U.S. and the often desperate fight being waged by independent retailers to stay […]
Multi-disciplinary artist Ben Coonley presents a selection of underground art videos, Internet curiosities, and avant – PowerPoint performances that defy the logic of corporate aesthetics in favor of an ecstatic self-reflexive personal vision. In his Trick Pony videos, singing hobby-horses teach the audience how to play football, dance the Texas Two-Step, and explain the logic […]
Kabul Transit is a documentary that explores the soul of a city devastated by nearly three decades of war. The film follows city residents in the course of their daily lives and listens to their stories of the past and their hopes for the future. The central character of Kabul Transit (2006) is the city […]
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