Community Cinema
Community Cinema Remembers Lynn Allen
Community Cinema is the largest engagement program in broadcast history in 100 markets across the country. The program started in Boise, Idaho with Regional Outreach Coordinator Lynn Allen. The Community Cinema family recently lost our colleague, friend, and an inspirational leader. Here is a tribute to her 30 years of service to Public Broadcasting.
Free Screening of Waste Land Tonight in Orange County
A free screening of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Waste Land starts tonight at 7:30 PM at the UltraLuxe Theater in Orange County.
Filmmaker Lucy Walker’s acclaimed documentary about the artist Vik Muniz and his collection of portraits from garbage will air April 19 on Independent Lens.
Community Cinema goers in the Orange County area will have an opportunity to screen the film for free tonight at 7:30 PM. A Q&A with the film’s editor Pedros Kos will follow the screening.
Watch the trailer after the jump >>
Community Cinema Gears Up for February
Starting next week and throughout the month of February, Community Cinema will hold free preview screenings of Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story in over 95 cities across the U.S.
The documentary by filmmaker Daniel H. Birman, follows the story of Cyntoia Brown, who is serving a life sentence for murder at the age of 16. Me Facing Life challenges our assumptions about violence and explores how factors such as biology and family history can doom some young people from the start. Watch a preview after the jump.
Get Free Stuff from Independent Lens!
Want free stuff? Want this poster from the Winter/Spring Season of Independent Lens? Done. It’s yours! We’ll even give it to you in person. Seriously.
We’ve created a sort of speakeasy contest to get you to our events and the poster in your hand. There are just a few steps involved.
First, visit the Community Cinema Facebook page and › Continue reading
Wangari Maathai’s Message in Honor of MLK
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Environmental Justice Leader Wangari Maathai, who is featured in the film Taking Root, offers a few words to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of community service.
Video produced by: Lisa Merton and Alan Dater
Legalities of Hip-Hop Front and Center in D.C.
Fair Use panel at the Worlds Beats Life, Inc. Remixing Art of Social Change teach-in
Michon Boston is Community Cinema’s regional outreach coordinator in Washington, D.C. She helped organize a recent panel about legal issues raised in the documentary Copyright Criminals and filed this report.
Earlier this year, Community Cinema D.C. partnered with Words Beats & Life Inc. for its presentation of Copyright Criminals. WBL Inc. returned to the documentary last week for a discussion on fair use as part of their teach-in initiative, “Remixing the Art of Social Change: A Hip-Hop Approach.”
The six-day event brought Hip Hop legends to D.C. including DJ Kool Herc, Kurtis Blow, and Common. The final day at the Washington Convention Center was ground zero for a series of special focus panels and workshops.
› Continue reading
ITVS Takes Engagement Behind Bars and into Schools
A Village Called Versailles was one of the films screened before inmates
As we gear up for another season of Community Cinema, BTB is highlighting some recent coverage of how this program has been adapted to engage inmates in San Francisco and Los Angeles. These pilot initiatives are furthering our mission of reaching underserved communities, including the incarcerated.
This past year, Community Cinema screenings were incorporated into two educational programs: the Five Keys Charter School in San Francisco — the first charter high school based in a prison — and the M.E.R.I.T. Program in L.A., which provides educational and life-skills courses for inmates.
Read more about these programs from this recent profile by the National Center for Media Engagement.
Announcing the Sixth Season of Community Cinema
Community Cinema returns for its sixth season with nine compelling documentaries from this year’s lineup on Independent Lens. The free screening series, which begins in October, connects thousands with community-based organizations in more than 70 cities nationwide and online.
Check out America Ferrera, the new host of Independent Lens, singing the praises of our Community Cinema series:
Community Cinema screens films monthly › Continue reading
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.
Ngôi Làng Mang Tên Versailles – (A Village Called Versailles)
Panelist Uyen Le is interviewed for Saigon TV KJLA
Community Cinema’s National Coordinator Desiree Gutierrez reflects on a screening of A Village Called Versailles held earlier this month before an entirely Vietnamese audience in Southern California.
As one of the National Community Cinema Coordinators, I am use to hosting screenings with diverse crowds, but Sunday night I had the chance to be the outsider at a screening of A Village Called Versailles hosted by Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County’s Little Saigon.
The newspaper was the first Vietnamese publication outside of Vietnam and has a rich history. As it was told to me, the newspaper originated out of a series of letters that traveled back and forth between Vietnam and the U.S. as people tried to track down their family members and friends after the war.
Tiffany Le a reporter at Nguoi Viet reached out to me last month wanting to learn more about hosting a screening of A Village Called Versailles. She knew the residents of her community would want to see the film, but as she pointed out, they would not drive to LA or West Hollywood to attend one of our already scheduled events. We made arrangements to host the film at the newspapers auditorium in the heart of Little Saigon.
The newspaper had given us tremendous media coverage. We had a feature with images run a few days before the screening, and an interview with the filmmaker run the day of the event, not to mention a half page ad in the World Cup edition of the paper. Needless to say, the Vietnamese community knew we were having an event and they turned out. Nearly 200 people and four media crews filled the auditorium, and as I had been warned, I the only “Westerner” in the room.
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