KLRU Celebrates Local Filmmakers Featured on Independent Lens

Do you live near Austin, Texas? Love indie film?

On March 2, KLRU-Austin will commemorate Texas Independents’ Day by celebrating the work of three local filmmakers whose work will appear on this season of Independent Lens on PBS.

Filmmaker and University of Texas Professor Paul Stekler will moderate a panel discussion with Michel O. Scott (The Horse Boy), Karen Skloss (Sunshine), and Keith Maitland (The Eyes of Me) starting at 8 p.m.

Following the discussion, there will be a special screening of the Independent Lens broadcast of The Eyes of Me at 9:00 p.m. Space is limited.

Learn more and RSVP today >>

Can’t make the screening or live too far away to attend? Fear not – check out Beyond the Box blog next week for clips from the event and a full recap from Keith Maitland, filmmaker of The Eyes of Me. Stay tuned!

Tags: events, film screenings, KLRU

WTIU-Bloomington LINCS Partnership: BLACKING UP

Linking Independents and Co-Producing Stations (LINCS) provides matching funds (up to $100,000) to partnerships between public television stations and independent producers. To apply for LINCS funds, independents must first approach a public television station and establish a partnership.

Learn more about a recent LINCS partnership with WTIU-Bloomington, IN and the film BLACKING UP: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity, which explores the tension between white racial identity and black cultural propriety at a time when hip-hop is redefining American life. Brent Molnar, program manager at WTIU, shares his thoughts about the film, which airs in December on public television.

As a Program Manager of a local PBS station, I was brought into the BLACKING UP project to assist the producer, Robert Clift, in creating a more conservative version of his original documentary, and to make recommendations for editing strong language and specific content that public television viewers might find objectionable. Initially, I thought my role with the documentary was to be fairly nuts and bolts – bleep this, pull that out, say this in a different way, etc.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the amount of historical content and the broad range of perspectives BLACKING UP contained. As a society, I think we sometimes gloss over the human experience, and may even begin to pocket people into different categories, just to be able to deal with everything that comes at us in a given day. When this happens, I think we lose part of the richness and depth that our culture really possesses. This can lead to us not only missing out on opportunities to understand one another, but to understand ourselves as well.

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Tags: film resources, hip hop, KLRU, LINCS

KLRU-Austin LINCS Partnership: TATTOOED UNDER FIRE

Linking Independents and Co-Producing Stations (LINCS) provides matching funds (up to $100,000) to partnerships between public television stations and independent producers. To apply for LINCS funds, independents must first approach a public television station and establish a partnership.

Learn more about a recent LINCS partnership with KLRU-Austin and the film TATTOOED UNDER FIRE, which looks at a tattoo parlor in Killeen, Texas where war-bound and returning soldiers go under the needle and confess their deepest secrets and fears. Maria Rodriguez, senior vice president of programming at KLRU-Austin, shares her thoughts about the film, which airs in November on public television.

I am deeply saddened by the events at Fort Hood this past week. My thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers and their families at this time.

When I first watched clips of TATTOOED UNDER FIRE by Nancy Schiesari, I saw an outline of a unique story that needed to be brought to public television. I saw young men and women just out of high school who were preparing to go to war in Iraq as they as visited a local tattoo parlor near their base. There they revealed their American pride, their concerns and fears about going over to fight. Then the film provides more revelations upon their return from Iraq. Each soldier gives their own personal perspective giving us the sense of the human and cultural cost of war. It gives a perspective and an experience that very few of us will ever experience in our lifetime.

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Tags: film resources, Iraq, KLRU, LINCS