environmental
Countdown to World Water Day Short Film Contest
To celebrate World Water Day 2010 ITVS and the University of Miami invite you to participate in the One Cut contest, a non-fiction short film contest designed to bring attention to the global water crisis affecting millions around the world. We are looking for films that will inspire viewers to make a change in their own lives to address the global water challenge at a personal level. The best entries will be personal, creative, visual stories that can be shared across all borders and languages.
The contest has three cash prizes:
* First prize: $500
* Second prize: $300
* Third prize: $200
Films should be at least 2 minutes in length and can be no more than 15 minutes long. Entrants are required to submit their films in digital form online and will be guided through the application process when they submit their entry form online. A distinguished panel at the School of Communication, University of Miami, will judge the contest.
The competition will be open until March 22, 2010 on World Water Day. Prizes will be announced shortly after.
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.
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“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.’”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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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).
Community Classroom Offers Free Resources to Educators
ITVS’s Community Engagement and Education team recently attended conferences hosted by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), which draw thousands of educators from around the country. Learn more about ITVS’s involvement from Chi Do, associate director of communications, and Annelise Wunderlich, national community engagement and education manager.
A large crowd gathers at the National Association of Women’s Studies conference to hear speaker Angela Davis.
Angela Davis was the keynote speaker at the NWSA conference and spoke before a packed house about the need for women’s studies programs to embrace new voices and to stand up to the challenges facing women and girls today with renewed strength. Our Women’s Empowerment collection does just that. This free resource provides film content excerpted from ITVS’s award-winning documentaries exploring stories of women’s leadership and empowerment in Bolivia, Egypt, Israel and Kenya. Film clips are accompanied by standards-based lesson plans, discussion guides and action guides for use by educators as well as non-profit, international and community-based organizations. Women’s and gender studies professors we spoke to were enthusiastic about using these films in their curricula.
Across town at the NCSS, we gave out hundreds of free DVDs to social studies teachers hungry for high quality film content in their classrooms. Lesson plans and clips from HIP HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, SENTENCED HOME, KNOCKING and our VOTE DEMOCRACY! collections were especially popular at the exhibit booth.
We also screened the film TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai with filmmaker Lisa Merton appearing for the Q&A via online video chat. The next day we held a workshop about how to use this inspiring story of environmental activism in Kenya to connect students to local organizations focused on green issues.
Watch the video below to hear from a high school teacher who attended the screening:
Educators and staff for NGOs or community organizations can order FREE DVDs, or stream the film clips and download the lesson plans on our website. Learn more >>
We also launched our new social media sites for those interested in learning more about using film to further their work.
Native American Heritage Month: Upcoming ITVS Programs
POWER PATHS, airing November 3 at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS
SUMMER SUN WINTER MOON, airing in November 2009 on public television
As the nation observes Native American Heritage Month throughout November, PBS will air programs that examine and celebrate the many aspects of Native American life and history. Be sure to check out these two new compelling ITVS documentaries:
POWER PATHS, airing November 3 at 10:00 on Independent Lens (check local listings), looks at how Native American tribes are turning to solar and wind sources to provide clean sustainable energy for cities across the west. Their traditional values regarding conservation and the earth offer real solutions to America’s energy crisis. A co-production of NAPT.
SUMMER SUN WINTER MOON, airing in November 2009 on public television (check local listings), tells the story of an unexpected collaboration between a Blackfeet poet and an unconventional classical composer that led to a unique work of art from the perspective of American Indians today.
Encore presentations of ITVS programs this month also include: TRUE WHISPERS: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers, MISS NAVAJO and MARCH POINT.
Get broadcast listings and more information about upcoming ITVS programs >>
In the News: The Latest on ITVS Programs
Correspondent Jeffrey Brown interviews Megum Sasaki, the director and producer of HERB & DOROTHY. [TRT: 7 minutes].
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“Independent Lens begins its eighth season with Megumi Sasaki’s HERB & DOROTHY, about the unlikely art collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel of New York, which Nathan Lee called a ‘modest, touching documentary’ in The New York Times.”
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Director Bo Boudart discusses his film POWER PATHS on New American Media.
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“…Roberta Grossman’s beautifully made BLESSED IS THE MATCH… Won audience awards at numerous Jewish film festivals and a spot on the shortlist for the Academy Award for best documentary feature (though it ultimately didn’t receive a nomination). It also is slated to air next April on PBS.”
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ITVS Explores the Global Water Crisis Beginning Tonight on The Documentary Channel
Concerned about the global water crisis? Do you think the media could do a better job of telling the story?
Be sure to watch an enlightening quartet of international documentaries designed to bring awareness and attention to the worldwide water crisis beginning tonight, September 7 at 9:00 PM on The Documentary Channel.
Through the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, ITVS and the Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami collaborated to form the 1H20 Project. Working with a select group of public broadcasters from Asia, Africa and Latin America, the 1H20 Project supports programming about water issues and potential solutions worldwide.
In the News: The Latest on ITVS Programs
“Like numerous makers of nonfiction film, [Bill] Benenson believes the critical platform for documentaries is television. Regardless of what happens to DIRT! The Movie in theaters, the film will be a part of next year’s Earth Day programming presented by PBS and ITVS, the Independent Television Service.”
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“SCARRED JUSTICE: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 explores an inexplicably forgotten incident when black student protestors were killed by police. It’s an important work of historical reportage.”
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“Even atheists may find their world rocked by Nati Baratz’s UNMISTAKEN CHILD, a simple documentary about a Buddhist monk’s search for the reincarnated soul of his beloved teacher.”
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“I saw a good–no, a very good–movie the other day… It’s called THE ENGLISH SURGEON, and it’s about a brain surgeon who does pro bono work in Ukraine.”
Read full review >>
Ithaca Community Cinema Reports on TAKING ROOT
Ithaca Community Cinema recently held a screening of the Independent Lens film TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai at S.T.A.M.P.’s Guerrilla Griots Human Rights Media Arts Center. TAKING ROOT tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a global movement. Afterwards, a discussion was led by the film’s musical composer and two sisters from Kenya who participated in the Green Belt Movement. Read more about this event and its impact in the report below from the Guerrilla Griots blog.
The Ithaca Community Cinema screening of TAKING ROOT.
TAKING ROOT music composer Samite of Uganda with the one of the Kamau sisters of Kenya.
S.T.A.M.P.’s Guerrilla Griots Human Rights Media Arts Center is one of over 50 venues throughout the United States who participate in a free, monthly screening series in partnership with ITVS and PBS. Community Cinema is a monthly screening series which creates accessible opportunities for civic engagement and public education around important social issues.
To bring in Spring, Community Cinema featured TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. TAKING ROOT tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights and defend democracy––a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration. On March 20, over 100 people from the greater Ithaca area packed a small screening room downtown to watch the film; listen to the inspiration of TAKING ROOT musical composer Samite of Uganda; learn from two sisters from Kenya who participated in the Green Belt Movement; and share local, fair-trade and organic fare courtesy of GreenStar Community Projects.
Upcoming Screenings
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Community Cinema selections are screened in over 50 locations throughout the United States. In March, Community Cinema presents Dirt! The Movie, directed by Bill Benenson and Eugene Rosow.
It’s under our feet and under our fingernails, but what is it? And how did it get there? Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, find out how industrial farming, mining, and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods, and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink, and breathe. Which is why we should stop treating it like, well … dirt.
Check out the schedule and find Community Cinema in your neighborhood >>Recent Posts
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