Archive for January, 2010
ITVS International: Application for Film Funding; Deadline February 5
ITVS International Call enables independent producers from outside of the United States to create documentaries for U.S. television. Through the International Call, storytellers from other countries introduce U.S. audiences to their global neighbors, opening a window into unfamiliar lives, experiences and perspectives.
The deadline for ITVS International Call is Friday, February 5, 2010. Due dates are not postmark deadlines and all materials must arrive at ITVS by 5:00 PM.
Have additional questions about the International Media Development Fund? Email Cynthia_Kane@itvs.org or call 415-356-8383 x445.
Find more information about guidelines and how to apply >>
The application is now available on the ITVS website. Download now >>
Have additional questions about the International Media Development Fund? Email Cynthia_Kane@itvs.org or call 415-356-8383 x445.
And the 2010 duPont-Columbia University Awards go to…
Filmmakers Elizabeth Farnsworth (at podium) and Patricio Lanfranco (left) accept the 2010 duPont-Columbia University Award. Also on stage include: Gwen Ifill, host of the ceremony; Rob Weiss, Blair Gershkow, and Andreas Cediel, members of the production team.
Last night, the 2010 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards were presented. Among the winners of this prestigious broadcast journalism award was the ITVS film The Judge and the General, by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco, which aired on P.O.V. on PBS.
The Judge and the General reveals the transformation of Judge Juan Guzmán in Chile as he is assigned by judicial lottery to investigate the first criminal cases filed against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. An international detective story, the film follows the judge as he uncovers the truth about the regime he had supported.
Other winners honored last night include:
- American Public Media, American RadioWorks, Michael Montgomery & Joshua E. S. Phillips: What Killed Sergeant Gray
- CBS News & Katie Couric: The Sarah Palin Interviews
- CBS News: CBS Reports: Children of the Recession
- HBO & Edet Belzberg: The Recruiter
- KHOU-TV, Houston & Mark Greenblatt: Under Fire: Discrimination and Corruption in the Texas National Guard
- KMGH-TV, Denver & Tony Kovaleski: 33 Minutes to 34 Right
- MediaStorm & Jonathan Torgovnik: Intended Consequences
- NPR, Michele Norris & Steve Inskeep: The York Project: Race and the 2008 Vote
- WCAX-TV, Burlington & Kristin Carlson: Foreigners on the Farm
- WGBH, Boston, Frontline/World, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy & Dan Edge: Pakistan: Children of the Taliban, on PBS
- WSVN-TV, Miami, Carmel Cafiero & Anthony Pineda: Pill Mills
- WTVF-TV, Nashville & Phil Williams: General Sessions Court
- WWL-TV, New Orleans: NOAH Housing Program Investigation
Learn more about the duPont-Columbia University Awards >>
Community Cinema Screening of Garbage Dreams in Houston
Producing Partners are local community organizations that co-present Community Cinema screenings across the country. Last night, HoustonPBS screened the Independent Lens film Garbage Dreams. Filmed over four years, the film follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. Manar Hindi, Community Cinema assistant coordinator, talks about the event and how she’ll never look at trash the same way again.
Harry Hayes talks with audience members after the Community Cinema screening and panel discussion.
Speakers Harry Hayes, director of the city’s Solid Waste Management Department; Dr. H.C Clark, professor at Rice University; and Cindy Yepez of the Houston Green Scene.
I’ve always wondered what happens with my trash. It seems to magically disappear each week and I don’t really have any idea what happens to it or what impact it has on my community. Well that all changed last night. What I learned at the HoustonPBS Community Cinema screening of Garbage Dreams was fascinating.
Houston recycles about 22 percent of its solid waste. While the number shows an improvement, we still lag behind cities like Portland (63 percent) and San Francisco (72 percent). Harry Hayes, director of the city’s Solid Waste Management Department, said that one of the things needed to increase the number of people recycling in Houston is legislation. He talked about how people in San Francisco are fined if they don’t recycle properly. He said if people are really concerned about recycling they need to contact their elected officials.
One audience member asked what he could do to implement a recycling plan in his apartment building, since there was no real precedent for him to follow. Mr. Hayes’ answer was that there was no “curbside” pick up currently for apartment building, so his suggestion was to speak with the owner’s of the apartment building about possibly hiring a private company to collect and haul the recyclables away.
Robert Clift Looks at Racial Identity in Hip-Hop Music
Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity, airing in February on public television, explores the tension between white racial identity and black cultural propriety at a time when hip-hop is redefining American life. Filmmaker Robert Clift recounts some of the questions he received about the film and what it was like working with white rappers — including Vanilla Ice. Read his take below.
C-Note of Too White Crew performs at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Ind.
In the years leading up to this film’s release, I’ve wondered, like any filmmaker, how people were going to react to it. Thanks to Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl show, fines from the FCC was a top concern for many at PBS, and the topic of my film lent itself to some objectionable language. So for years while my film waited for an audience, I fielded people’s questions and comments.
“When am I going to see it?”
“White kids and hip-hop? You’re doing a film about wiggers?”
“Don’t you think we’re past this already?”
“Is that what my kid is doing?”
“It’s going to be on PBS?”
“Did you really interview Vanilla Ice?”
First, yes, I did really interview Vanilla Ice, and yes, he really did consent to the interview. To be honest, I found his cooperation surprising. Getting white people to talk about race was perhaps the most difficult part of making this film, and that difficulty doubled when it came to white rappers. I would have loved to interview Eminem, for example, but I had little success with anything but being brushed off by his handlers. The perception was that he had too much to risk. Too many people, too many hip-hop magazines, some of which were started by white people, might use it as an opportunity to go after him.
Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity airs February on public television (check local listings)
Recent Talkback About Independent Lens
From Stephen Walker’s critical and box office smash Young@Heart to an in-depth look behind the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, this season Independent Lens is rolling out a powerful selection of films that cover a wide range of issues related to the music industry. Check out some of the recent Talkback from viewers about films airing this month.
Young@Heart
“I watched the documentary, Young@Heart, last week and was quite moved. The director has given a great gift to the people of North Hampton and around the world.”
Posted by: Roger Millnitz on January 17, 2010
“I am 51 and hope I have the vitality that these individuals do when I get up there in years. The one song that gets me every time is Fred’s tribute to Bob, ‘Fix You.’ It moves me every time.”
Posted by: Gail on January 17, 2010
“I am in my 70s and I loved this film. The segment where the group did a concert for the jail inmates young enough to be their grandchildren was just so touching to me that it brought tears to my eyes…”
Posted by: Christina on January 18, 2010
View more Talkback and submit your own for Young@Heart >>
Interested in music programs? Learn more about our month-long celebration of music >>
Copyright Criminals Premiering Tonight on Independent Lens on PBS
“What’s the difference between creative ‘borrowing’ and outright theft? The Independent Lens documentary Copyright Criminals offers a thought-provoking discussion of the subject filtered through a history of hip-hop ‘sampling’ culture.”
- United Features Syndicate
Can you own a sound? As hip-hop rose from the streets of New York to become a multibillion-dollar industry, artists such as Public Enemy and De La Soul began reusing parts of previously recorded music for their songs. But when record company lawyers got involved everything changed. Years before people started downloading and remixing music, hip-hop sampling sparked a debate about copyright, creativity and technological change that still rages today.
Copyright Criminals premieres tonight, January 19, at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).
Learn more about Copyright Criminals and other special Music Month programs >>
In the News: The Latest on ITVS Programs
Chicago Public Radio gives an in-depth look at the upcoming Independent Lens broadcast of Garbage Dreams, which also screened at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of Community Cinema. For decades, a group of people known as the “Zabaleen”, Arabic for “garbage people”, have been Cairo’s unofficial trash collectors, sorters and recyclers. They survive by recycling some eighty percent of the trash they collect. Compared to American cities, which recycle roughly thirty two percent of their waste, that’s no small feat.
Listen now >>
“Even for someone who cares about the environment, [Jamie Lee] Curtis says Dirt! [The Movie] was an education. ‘I was as astonished as you will be when you see the film, about the earth being alive.’”
Read more >>
“Sam Cooke: Crossing Over on American Masters: The PBS series takes a respectful look at the life and death of the silky smooth singer, first in gospel and then in pop.”
Read full review >>
“One from the heart, the documentary Mine relates yet one more wrenching, infuriating story about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation wreaked both by the storm and by human error and indifference.”
Read full review >>
“What’s the difference between creative ‘borrowing’ and outright theft? The Independent Lens documentary Copyright Criminals offers a thought-provoking discussion of the subject filtered through a history of hip-hop ‘sampling’ culture.”
Read more >>
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Legacy
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a sword that heals. [It] cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the heart of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s was the use of nonviolent direct-action protest. Inspired by the example of Jesus, and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi during India’s struggle for independence, black church and community leaders in the United States began advocating the use of non-violence in their own struggle. Beyond spontaneous and planned student sit-ins, several organizations were formed to fight for civil rights using Gandhi’s model of nonviolent dissent and action. Three of the most influential groups—the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—were pivotal in bringing about social change in America.
Read more about the life of King, Jr. on the Independent Lens website >>
Check out the PBS Indies page on iTunes where you’ll find these powerful films about the African American civil rights movement
Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Green
The unlikely story of America’s original shock-jock — Petey Greene — who battled the system and his own demons during a time of civil unrest in the nation’s capital.
Banished
From the 1860s to the 1920s, towns across the U.S. violently expelled African American residents. Today, these communities remain virtually all white. As black descendants return to demand justice, Banished exposes the hidden history of racial cleansing in America.
Each film is now available for rent for $2.99 or for purchase at $9.99.
In the News: Garbage Dreams on The Kojo Nnamdi Show
Filmmaker Mai Iskander
Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.
Filmmaker Mai Iskander recently sat down with Kojo Nnamdi on WAMU in Washington, DC to talk about global environmental challenges and how the “Zabaleen” — or garbage collectors — has captured the world’s attention for their startlingly efficient, eco-friendly, and low-tech methods of recycling.
PBS’s Independent Lens at the 2010 Television Critics Association Press Tour
Narrator/actor/author Jamie Lee Curtis discusses Dirt! The Movie, airing April 20 on Independent Lens on PBS.
TreePeople founder and president Andy Lipkis, narrator Jamie Lee Curtis, and filmmaker Gene Rosow.
Greetings from the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour in Los Angeles. Held twice a year, TCA gives television critics and other journalists a chance to preview upcoming programs from major broadcast and cable networks.
We’re here with the filmmakers of Dirt! The Movie, narrator/actor/author Jamie Lee Curtis, and Andy Lipkis, the founder and president of TreePeople. We presented a panel on Dirt! to about 200 television writers, journalists, and bloggers from across the country.
We kicked off our presentation with a trailer for Independent Lens’s Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander’s award winning documentary that is on the short list for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary (airing on Independent Lens on April 27). We followed it with a trailer for Dirt! and got down to the “dirty” business of answering questions.
Jamie Lee jumped in immediately to talk about why she loves this documentary saying that she believes the humor and animation make it extremely affective for all viewers, including young people. Noting that the older generation has “f*#+@’d it up” and the next generation now has to find ways to fix the environmental problems we face.
Andy Lipkis was asked what prompted him to start TreePeople (40 years ago) at the age of 15. Filmmakers Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow talked about the discoveries they made while making the film and the simple yet profound understanding that dirt — that seemingly simple matter under our feet — is actually more alive than we are. It will heal itself and us if we allow it to.
Check out the trailer of Dirt! The Movie:
Dirt! The Movie will broadcast at 10:00 PM on April 20 on Independent Lens as part of PBS’s 40th Anniversary Earth Day programs (check local listings).
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