Filmmakers

This speech from our good friend Mimi Pickering from Appalshop shows how the participatory media movement has deep roots. Here Mimi discusses some of her experiences producing and distributing media for social change with partners in rural communities in America.

In the fall of 2006 The Center for Social Media brought NYU professor George Stoney to screen his insightful documentary How the Myth Was Made: A Study of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran before a packed class of students and visitors at American University's School of Communication. Stoney, a pioneer of documentary filmmaking, was director of the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change project and is considered to be the father of public access television. He is also the director numerous documentary films including All My Babies and The Uprising of '34.

Here are some words that Professor Stoney shared with the audience after the screening:

Award-winning photographer Lou Dematteis, who has spent more than two decades documenting social and political conflict and their consequences in the United States and around the world, is our Fall 2006 Visiting Photographer. He will be at American University to give a guest lecture on October 19 on his career as a photographer.

Vicky Funari, whose work focuses primarily on women's stories, as well as the complex identities of today's culturally mixed and dynamic migratory populations, is the Center's Fall 2006 Visiting Artist. She will guest lecture in SOC production classes Oct. 18 – 19, and will also screen her latest film as part of the Human Rights Film Series.

From the Making Television Matter book, coalition outreach campaigns are not only good mediums for strengthening the impact of a film's message, but a successful coalition engages all community members to give a common voice to a project.

Go to: http://www.benton.org/publibrary/mtm/Pages/six.html