PauletteFilmsBlog

Ladies and Gentlemen - Story Doula

2010-01-09T09:12:00.000-05:00

Click here for my new blog for a new decade. I am not giving up PauletteFilms. I just feel the need hang out over at Story Doula at least for this first semester of teaching and new adventures. Come visit!! And I'll be posting to PauletteFilms occasionally. Happy New Year/Decade!

My. Favorite. Director. Of. All. Time.

2009-12-04T20:45:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, December 5th in London, a retrospective of director Sally Potter's work opens and lasts through December 28th. I saw the sexy, witty, provocative film Orlando, based on the Virginia Woolf novel, at the Angelika Film Center in New York in 1993 and walked out of the theater shaken and shifted forever. I never grow tired of watching Orlando, it is hands-down my favorite film. And Potter's other films do not disappoint. Ever.

Starting with Thriller's reversal of genre convention (in which the heroine lives), through Orlando's magical gender-blending, to Rage, which brings anti-globalization protests and citizen journalism into fashion, Sally Potter's films change the world in style.

Orlando (1993), the result of seven years' work including daring location recces in Russia and Kazakhstan, helped launch Tilda Swinton's career and won awards internationally for its handsome looks and dazzling, witty play with gender, class and costume drama.

Here is a new trailer for Orlando for the remastered film premiering at the retrospective:

And oh, how I would love to visit the new Sally Potter archive of production materials. Yummy!

Animation/After Effects - a Few New Adds

2009-11-21T19:31:00.003-05:00

I'm pretty obsessed with Flash and After Effects these days. My tech partner Pinky-Pink and I recently made a ball squish and bounce with motion tweens and such and Frida Kalho got to smoke her cigarette with bone animation. When we figure out how to export without weird artifacting I'll post. Take a look at a music video done entirely digitally, using After Effects. Beautiful.

Here's the ongoing debate between film and digital brought to life in stop motion:

Film vs. Digital from Lauren Randolph on Vimeo.

Using Crochet to Solve Complex Math/Save Corral Reefs

2009-11-17T18:56:00.003-05:00

Oh, this is blissful. Australian science writer Margaret Wertheim combines art and science/womanscraft and research to solve complex math and save the world's corral reefs. I'll sleep well tonight, just knowing Margaret and her sister Christine are out there.

Photo Op Protest of Pub Weekly Zero Inclusion of Women in 2009 Top Ten List

2009-11-13T20:22:00.004-05:00

Rupert thinks A.S. Byatt is brilliant.

Jillie grooves on Barbara Kingsolver.

Kathleenie extols Carol Kaisuk Yoon.

Day of Action! - Protest Publishers Weekly's Zero Woman Author Top Ten List

2009-11-13T09:43:00.003-05:00

shewrites.com posts a call to action today to protest Publishers Weekly's inclusion of zero point zero, zero women authors in their Top Ten Books for 2009. Please take your own action and be sure to talk back to shewrites.com.

My action was a protest post on the Publishers Weekly website:

"No women in your top ten?! Please consider, what does this say about your ability to actually see, hear, or read other perspectives? No wonder there are such class, culture and gender divides in our world today. So much of the population simply gets ignored - systematically and in this case completely. You do not see their story as valid. This is tremendously damaging.

I urgently ask you to explore ways to think more deeply and creatively about this. I recommend watching a beautiful Ted.com talk "The Danger of a Single Story" by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie.

It may help you understand why the outrage at your list. I look forward to the dialogue. Paulette"

Today's Webinar on NGOs Using Video for Social Change

2009-11-12T17:29:00.002-05:00

Wow. That was intense. Today I spoke into my computer screen for one hour about how NGOs can create powerful video. I was a little more nervous about it beforehand - I've not done a webinar before and I do best with the energy of a crowd. But I think this first one with oneworld.net went fine and it did help me define and articulate how NGOs and video intersect.

Click here for the audio podcast of today's oneworld.net webinar.

Click here for the oneworld.net description of the podcast.

Below is my powerpoint (actually keynote). Does anyone know how to import this more elegantly into blogger?

Here's the oneworld.net description of the event:

Online video is a powerful medium for communicating about your issues. However, organizations need to overcome a few hurdles to get started and continue online video projects on a regular basis. You don't need a large budget to start, but you do need to get the basics right to create effective online videos.

Paulette Moore, Filmmaker, Journalist & NGO Consultant, will talk about how your organization can get started with video. She will talk about the tools you need, training required for staff and different types of video content you can produce.

Imogen Heap - Techno Diva

2009-11-07T06:35:00.002-05:00

Take a look at Imogen Heap’s mastery of the digital. Poetic. Fascinating. Beautiful.

Itbeginswithme Blog Stats

2009-11-06T15:40:00.006-05:00

Today I learned how to take computer screen shots - so thought I'd post the weekly viewer stats for the Itbeginswithme blog I created, co-author and administer for UNHCR. These are stats from day one - and views have been increasing steadily. Yay! (Bet you can pick out the weekends.. and August.)

This past week - my re-post of friend, colleague and restorative justice pioneer Howard Zehr's reflections on "The Colonizing Discourse of the Other" took the lead in viewer popularity. Click here for that post.

And click here for Howard's blog on restorative justice.

Rapping at Fear - Mixed Media

2009-11-04T12:39:00.002-05:00

Like how the young filmmaker in this Media that Matters film from Bogata mixed animation and other methods to keep this short film moving.

Nov. 12 - Webinar for oneworld.net on Video for NGO's

2009-11-04T11:21:00.003-05:00

Online video is a powerful medium for communicating about your issues. However, organizations need to overcome a few hurdles to get started and continue online video projects on a regular basis. You don't need a large budget to get started, but you do need to get the basics right to create effective online videos.

Paulette Moore, Filmmaker, Journalist & NGO Consultant, will talk about how your organization can get started with video. She will talk about the tools you need, training required for staff and different types of video content you can produce.

This meeting will take place online and by phone. It costs $15 for staff of OneWorld partner organizations and costs $30 for others. For more information, email roshani.kothari[at]oneworld.net.

Click here for link to oneworld.

Midsemester Feedback from Research as Art and Transformation Class

2009-11-04T08:13:00.003-05:00

Howard Zehr and I asked for mid-semester feedback in our Center for Justice and Peacebuilding Research as Art and Transformation class yesterday. Two students Brian Gumm and Ryan Beuthin were extremely creative in their response! Yay!

Scrub - A PauletteVoodle

2009-11-01T10:48:00.001-05:00

Oh, Jay Smooth

2009-10-30T12:00:00.002-04:00

Would that we could all think... and speak... so clearly.

Jeff Scher - Filmmaker/Animator, NYTimes Opinion Page

2009-10-26T17:20:00.003-04:00

Speaking of Animation - this guy is lovely.

Click here for a profile in the Motionographer blog. Love that he talks about the money side of things.

First Stop Animation Ever

2009-10-25T18:22:00.002-04:00

Working on stop animation - to teach next semester. Here is a movie the wonderful Patience Kamau and I put together this afternoon to play with the technology and concepts.

The Playful Search for Beauty

2009-10-09T22:49:00.001-04:00

The ceramics designer Eva Zeisel looks back on a 75-year career. What keeps her work as fresh today (her latest line debuted in 2008) as in 1926? Her sense of play and beauty, and her drive for adventure.

This Guy Cracks Me Up

2009-10-07T20:11:00.002-04:00

I'm new to Craig Ferguson - so we are still in the honeymoon phase. His reaction to the David Letterman scandal...

Elizabeth Gilbert on Creative Process

2009-10-03T19:23:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to figure out why I didn't like the book "Eat. Pray. Love." This TED talk by author Elizabeth Gilbert about the creative process is amazing, authentic. I am going to give the book another try!

F.O.P. Series - Annabelle Hester on Interviewing

2009-09-19T23:06:00.001-04:00

Director, producer Annabelle Hester talks about responsibility to characters, audience and client.

F.O.P. Series Ken Crawford on Interviewing

2009-09-17T11:58:00.002-04:00

Ken Crawford, Producer and Director at the Newseum in Washington, DC. discusses the art and craft of interviewing.

Crawford Directed and Produced Running Toward Danger - a film about the journalists who covered 9/11 and The Pulitzer Photographs: A Glimpse of Life. - a series of films about Pulitzer Prize winning photographers.

Click here to view clips of the films from the Newseum website.

F.O.P. Series Christina Bavetta on Interviewing

2009-09-17T11:53:00.003-04:00

Christina Bavetta, independent Director and Producer of non-fiction television, discusses the art and craft of interviewing on her Discovery Channel show about the 9-11 flight which crashed in Pennsylvania. The program is titled "The Flight that Fought Back".

Click here for the link to the program's website:

Morning Pages 8.19.09

2009-08-20T03:39:00.002-04:00

Written in Nairobi, Kenya - Summer 2009. Filmed in Harrisonburg, VA.
.

Morning Pages

2009-08-19T01:52:00.002-04:00

A new Harrisonburg home in the Shenandoah Valley... the place where I began to keep morning pages as a means of discernment around life and work. This morning, I was compelled to add video to morning pages.

IRIN Launches Films about Internal Displacement

2009-08-05T08:27:00.003-04:00

The Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) (a humanitarian news and analysis service) recently launched “Forced to Flee” – a series of short films about internal displacement.

Around the world tens of millions of people have been forced to leave their homes. Some have been driven out by conflict, some by natural disaster. Some have been displaced in the name of development, others by climate change.

Click here to view the films.

[Photo © IRIN: A displaced (IDP) family in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh]

Participatory Media Proves Powerful Tool in Aftermath of Kenyan Violence

2009-07-21T19:45:00.001-04:00

Media workshops and public screenings are proving powerful tools for dialogue and integration in Kenya. The country erupted in violence over the disputed election results of December 2007 when ruling president Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga. The human and economic toll of the violence has been catastrophic for Kenyans.

Media Focus on Africa Foundation and FilmAid International will hold a 9-month series of media awareness campaigns and public workshops across Kenya to heal what remains of the animosity, uncover true reasons for the violence, and ensure the devastation does not happen again.

In this video Oceanic Oballa of Media Focus on Africa, Steve Otieno of FilmAid International and Likoni Community Leader Mishi Juma Mboko talk about the power and challenges of participatory media.

In this video, the FilmAid International team from Nairobi sets up a screening in the town of Likoni, near the coastal city of Mombasa, one of the more violent regions during 2007 violence. With their mobile advertising and huge, inflatable movie screen, the team attracted a crowd of hundreds to the town square to watch a video about a dialogue between victims and perpetrators of the violence.

Click here for FilmAid International's website

Click here for Media Focus on Africa's Website

FilmAid's Participatory Video Program in Kenyan Refugee Camp

2009-07-21T19:36:00.002-04:00

FilmAid International is pushing the edges on what they call participatory video; involving community in producing dramatic films, talk shows, instructional videos and documentaries for social change.

In these videos...

Kakuma Refugee Camp Program Director Christopher Agutu gives an overview of the PV student program at the Kenyan camp:

Kakuma refugee students Stella Luka from Sudan and Mark Oloya from Sudan talk of their experiences as budding filmmakers with FilmAid:

Kakuma facilitators Catherine Anyango Ofwono of Uganda and Scisa Rumenge from Congo talk of the challenges and rewards of organizing the PV program:

Jimmy Carter Rails Against Religion-Based Discrimination

2009-07-21T19:34:00.001-04:00

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter rails against the damage religion-based discrimination against women and girls does to all of society.

Read the full text in Australia's The Age by clicking here.

"The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family." - Jimmy Carter

81-year-old French Filmmaker Still Working Strong

2009-07-18T07:26:00.002-04:00

Filmmaker Agnes Varda's reputation keeps growing with age. :) A new movie called Beaches of Agnes explores Varda's life.

From NPR: "smart, touching, sometimes unabashedly silly, as when Varda dresses up as a potato. She sifts through the diverse elements of her life, from her birth in Brussels in 1928 through the self-inventing moment when she changed her name from Arlette to Agnes to her present day status as an octogenarian grandmother and cinematic icon."

Click here for the NPR story and audio.

FilmAid - Production Company Partners with UNHCR

2009-01-19T05:44:00.009-05:00

"Films are powerful and evocative tool for fostering understanding and tolerance in the world." - Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureate

From FilmAid's website:

FilmAid International uses the power of film and video to reach the world’s most vulnerable communities with messages that inspire them, address their critical shared needs, and effect social change.

Principles:
FilmAid has been embraced by many leading humanitarian organizations due to unwavering commitment to its core principles:

FilmAid works with local advisory committees to ensure that the content used in its programs is appropriate and relevant for the intended audience. These Advisory Committees represent a cross-section of the local population and engage the rarely heard voices of women and youth.

FilmAid collaborates with local communities in program design, implementation and evaluation.

FilmAid partners with humanitarian experts, physicians and nongovernmental organizations in the field.

FilmAid performs ongoing evaluations to measure results and identify possible program improvements.

website: filmaid.org

Good Thoughts

2009-01-19T05:09:00.004-05:00

If you want to become whole,let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight,let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full,let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn,let yourself die. If you want to be given everything,give everything up.- Tao Te Ching

Picture: Artist and Naturalist Andy Goldsworthy

Howard Zehr on Contemplative Photography

2009-01-17T06:37:00.012-05:00

Professor, advisor, and restorative justice pioneer Howard Zehr talks about contemplative photography, its meditative approach to life and subject and how that approach can change our predatory relationship to the greater world.

"When I have the camera, I see things in the world that I would miss otherwise." - Howard Zehr

Listen to his interview at:

http://cdn1.libsyn.com/paulgiguere/TOP-0046.mp3?nvb=20090117112406&nva=20090118113406&t=0d3a5831251d2d1a3ad21

New Yorker Article about UNHCR in Chad

2009-01-14T03:57:00.002-05:00

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/05/090105fa_fact_harr

The Right to Self Defence is Not a Strategy for Peace

2009-01-13T19:30:00.002-05:00

by Lisa Schirch

Washington, DC - From an Israeli perspective, the cost in international outrage and Palestinian civilian lives of the current attacks on Gaza is worth the price of crushing Hamas’s firepower. The goal is seductive, and Israel will likely succeed in slowing the development of rockets by Hamas in the short term. But just like Israel’s siege of Lebanon in 2006, the Israeli “shock and awe” military strategy in Gaza will not undermine Hamas’s leadership or bring long term security.

Both Israel and Gaza have a right to defend themselves. But there is a difference between a right to defence and an effective strategy for ending the attacks and ongoing violence.

The key ingredients of Hamas’s rockets are not metal casings and bags of explosives brought through tunnels from Egypt, and then built and launched from Gazan garages.

Blasting Gazan infrastructure and killing members of Hamas do nothing to destroy the motivation that compels a young Palestinian boy to pick up a rock or strap explosives to his body.

The real recipe for Hamas’s rockets is an environment of desperation and humiliation spawned by a complicated brew of poverty and political impotence.

Gaza is a prison with 45% unemployment, the highest in the world according to the United Nations. Half the population is under 18 and a third of the population lives in refugee camps. Palestinians have little land and few rights. This fuel of despair and humiliation gives rise to new generations of extremists and an ambition for more sophisticated rockets.

The siege of Gaza could consolidate extremist leadership in the Palestinian territories in the same way Israel’s 2006 attacks on Lebanon strengthened Hizbullah. The attacks undermine the development of moderate leadership in Gaza and the West Bank as moderate leaders look impotent to their people in the face of Israel’s attacks.

Since only moderate leaders in Gaza are willing to look at a future of coexistence with Israel, one wonders with whom Israel expects to negotiate in the future. Israel’s military strategy will make security that much more difficult to achieve.

The same is also true for the prospects of more moderate leadership in Israel.

Hamas’s attacks make it more difficult for moderate Israeli politicians to negotiate for peace. Hamas’s rocket attacks ensure that Palestinians will remain isolated and cut off from international support.

The rockets prolong the Palestinian wait for a homeland and for their legitimate human rights.

Achieving both Israel’s goal of security and Hamas’s goals of land and human rights for Palestinians requires a better, smarter strategy. The recipe for peace and security comes not from one-sided plans. Rather, it requires equal attention and empathy from both sides.

The strategy starts with a new, more inclusive narrative of cause and effect. The predominant Israeli narrative vis-a-vis the current attack on Gaza starts with the inexcusable shower of Hamas rockets on Israeli homes and schools and resonates with a history of more than 2000 years of discrimination and fear. The predominant Palestinian narrative centres on the devastating loss of their land, homes and businesses to others, causing many to become refugees crowded into small, barren enclaves.

An effective strategy must acknowledge legitimate grievances present in the narratives on both sides. Both Palestinians and Israelis have a historical legacy in the region.

Both know what it is like to be a people without a land and share the passion to retain what they see as their land. Both feel victimised by the other.

A smarter strategy would be for Hamas to recognise Israel’s right to existence and safety and for Israel to recognise and address the economic and political fuel of desperation among Palestinians. Palestinians need a state, freedom of movement and international assistance to create jobs.

Public opinion polls show there are plenty of people on both sides who support these steps. It’s time the United States and the international community stood behind Israeli and Palestinian moderates, rather than allowing themselves to be distracted by the militants on both sides who search for an elusive military solution to this political and economic problem.

###

* Lisa Schirch is professor of peace-building at Eastern Mennonite University and director of the 3D Security Initiative. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

UNHCR - a Community Based Approach to People of Concern

2009-01-13T06:33:00.003-05:00

Here is a link outlining UNHCR's change of approach to the people that they serve. The change looks at people of concern not as dependent beneficiaries who are to be saved and assisted, but rather as equal partners who have an active role in protecting themselves and organizing for their own basic needs. The document states the need for an attitudinal change within the organiztion. This is useful to me as I begin working with UNHCR's Community Development section.

http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/47f0a5a92.pdf

VBlog #2 - Paulette Goes to Switzerland

2009-01-12T18:43:00.002-05:00

It is two days before I begin my work at UNHCR and today I left Annemasse, France where I live to explore Geneve where I will work. This is my first attempt at Flip video AND IMovie - so please give me lots of leeway for this rough product! It will improve!

ABCs and SATs: College Life as a Single Mom

2009-01-12T03:55:00.002-05:00

Michelle Vilandry is a single mom to 5-year-old daughter Julie and a full time sociology student at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. This film, which covers one day in November 2008, follows Michelle and Julie's challenges, rewards, philosophies, joys, dreams, logistics, banalities, art, and relationships. Made in collaboration with Dr. Amy Sarch Schopick, Director of Women's Studies at Shenandoah University.

15 minutes

ABCs and SATs: College Life as a Single Mom from Paulette Moore on Vimeo.

Pillars of Justice - documentary

2009-01-12T03:53:00.000-05:00

Shenandoah University filmmaker and Eastern Mennonite University grad student Paulette Moore teams up with Winchester attorney and EMU grad student Brenda Waugh to explore how architecture in the courthouse aids the pursuit of justice and solving community conflict.

Pillars of Justice from Paulette Moore on Vimeo.

Liberation Theology - Manna!

2008-11-12T11:05:00.006-05:00

Spiral design for stained glass window from J. & R. Lamb studios, suggesting the dynamic workings of the Holy Spirit; now in U.S.Library of Congress. [20th Century. Specific date unknown.]

This is an important aha for me. Liberation theology addresses my particular challenges with the peacebuilding field - that those working on reconciliation perhaps attempt to reduce hostility too quickly at the expense of justice. Manna!

Great new article by David Steele for USIP addresses this. This website is a resource for liberation theology.

http://www.liberationtheology.org/

Living in France 2009 - Annemasse

2008-10-29T10:28:00.008-04:00

I will be living in a flat in Annemasse, France during my time working for UNHCR in Geneva beginning in January.

Here are a few maps a photo, a google street view car video and some tidbits of information about the town.

Annemasse is situated in the Rhône-Alpes region of France, in the heart of Haute-Savoie. Its central location lies between the Mont Blanc and Lake Léman.

At the doorstep of Switzerland, between Mont Salève (1,375 m) and Voirons (1,400 m), Annemasse and its suburbs have a privileged geographical situation with natural acces to the mountain valleys of northern Haute-Savoie.

6 dynamic communities:
Ambilly, Annemasse, Etrembières, Gaillard, Vétraz-Monthoux, Ville-la-Grand, more than 60, 000 inhabitants provide a modern and friendly character.

Thanks to well-known international firms, the Annemasse region generates considerable business due to a large hotel capacity (1,400 rooms). In immediate proximity to Geneva.

French railway SNCF, aviation, and general public transport network, an international airport (Genève-Cointrin) at no more than 30 minutes away and a new highway network, Annemasse and is highly accessible.

Google street view car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_8KhvtZB9g

Practicum 2009 - UNHCR the UN Refugee Agency

2008-10-29T09:49:00.005-04:00

From January - June of 2009 I will fulfill my M.A. practictum requirements for Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding by working with UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency in Geneva Switzerland. The section I will be working under is called Community Development, Gender Equality and Children. The UNHCR employs a staff of approximately 6,300 people in more than 110 countries

-UNHCR home page: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home
-Brochure from my section on determining the interests of a child:
http://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/4566b16b2.pdf
-Here is the group's mission statement: http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/4565a5742.pdf
-And, of course, the Wikipedia run down of what the agency does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_High_Commissioner_for_Refugees

Here are some basic facts:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.

In more than five decades, the agency has helped an estimated 50 million people restart their lives. Today, a staff of around 6,300 people in more than 110 countries continues to help 32.9 million persons.

Friday, Nov. 7, PM Speaks at College Communicators Association Meeting

2008-10-25T15:35:00.002-04:00

Friday, Nov. 7 at 1:15 p.m. at Eastern Mennonite University Seminary, Harrisonburg, VA

Student Driven Television Programming: The Challenges and Rewards

Paulette Moore, director/producer of special projects at Shenandoah University and a documentary filmmaker, will present on "Fridays @ 11," SU's student roundtable about news and current events that is aired on local cable television and on YouTube. Moore will discuss the challenges of creating content, evolving technology, sustainability of programming and partnering for greater audience reach. Time will be provided for an audience workshop about how to involve a group of universities in a video round-robin on YouTube using similar programming.

About CCA: The College Communicators Association of Virginia and the District of Columbia seeks to advance the cause of higher education in the Commonwealth and the nation's capital through an exchange of ideas among its members and through its programs and to provide professional development opportunities for its members.

http://www.collegecommunicators.org/

PauletteFilms Intv with Jotman Featured on His/Deutsche Welle Page

2008-10-21T09:53:00.006-04:00

Jotman is a Southeast Asian blogger whose baptism by fire was the September 2006 coup in Bangkok, Thailand. He's continued to blog about Thailand and Burma since then and the purpose of his blog is to spark "creativity and global citizenship". In 2007 he was awarded the Reporters Without Borders Award and the Best of Blogs award sponsored by Deutsche Welle.

The interview I conducted with Jotman this summer at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn is now posted on Jotman's main page as well as Deutsche Welle's.

Jotman:
http://page1.jotman.com-a.googlepages.com/aboutjotman

Deutsche Welle:
http://dw-gmf.de/conference_2008/811.php

"Jotman noted the storm devastated Myanmar's main rice-growing region" - CNN

"Jotman is one of the most interesting sources on the Burmese crisis." Reporters Without Borders".

Kino Microcinema

2008-10-14T14:42:00.005-04:00

"The reason for this movement is to give you a good kick in the ass." Kino filmmaker.

"Kino" is the Greek word for "movement" and means "film" or "the cinema" in Russian, German and other languages. Born in Montréal in 1998, Kino began as a challenge, made by founding filmmaker Christian Laurence to his friends, to make one short film per month until the year 2000. However, at the end of this period no one wanted to stop and, in fact, Kino had formed into a movement that encouraged filmmakers in groups scattered across Montréal and Europe to "do well with nothing; do even better with a little," and—most importantly—to "do it right now!"

WHO ARE KINOÏTES
KINO welcomes, without discrimination, anyone who wishes to undertake a serious artistic challenge. We are concerned first and foremost with artists involved in cinema, television, and multimedia, but KINO offers itself up to all those who are called to cinematographic adventure, regardless of age or prior experience.

KINO MONTRÉAL: THE NERVE CENTRE
KINO is a decentralized movement, which means each cell is managed independently. However, in order to facilitate the exchange of information or to speak on behalf of the network, Kino Montréal humbly acts as the “Mother Cell” and presides de facto over the KINO organization.

Here is a video about Kino from a Wisconsin cell of Kino:

http://www.wis-kino.com/films/good_kick-williams.php

And the official Kino website:

http://www.kino00.com/index.php?s=kino

Global Voices Online

2008-10-02T10:33:00.002-04:00

http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/

Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society.

How Global Voices Works
Our Primary Goals
The Global Voices Team
How Global Voices Works:

Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online - shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard.

With tens of millions of people blogging all over the planet, how do you avoid being overwhelmed by the information overload? How do you figure out who are the most influential or respected and credible bloggers or podcasters in any given country, especially those outside your own?

Our international team of volunteer authors, regional blogger-editors and translators are your guides to the global blogosphere.

Radio Intv. with Dr. Miles Davis Shenandoah University

2008-10-01T16:29:00.002-04:00

Dr. Miles Davis, business professor at Shenandoah University and intrepid entreprenuer interviews S.U. film maker Paulette Moore. Moore discusses the sacrifices and rewards of following her passion for independent film filmmaking. To hear the interview go the following link:

http://www.theriver953online.com/page.php?page_id=12580

And scroll down to the September 17th show.

For My Mom - Patricia Moore

2008-10-01T05:03:00.003-04:00

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Magical Perseids

2008-08-12T11:24:00.004-04:00

Tonight and tomorrow morning the annual Perseid Shower. Under perfect conditions, observers can expect to see about 90 to100 meteors an hour, said Wayne Hally, a self-professed "meteor geek" who writes a newsletter for the North American Meteor Network. (National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080807-perseids.html)

Washington DC Blogs

2008-07-25T11:21:00.003-04:00

Glad to hear that someone's blog is digging into DC's creativity:

http://www.creativedc.org/blog/

And here are sites for DC filmmaker Jeff Krulik http://youtube.com/jeffkrulik who made the short cult film Heavy Metal Parking Lot http://www.heavymetalparkinglot.com

On A Reflective Day

2008-06-17T09:15:00.004-04:00

Why ponder thus the future to foresee
and jade thy brain to vain perplexity?
Cast off thy care, leave Allah's plans to him -
He formed them all without consulting thee.

-Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat

Wrap up from the Deutsche Welle Media in Peacebuilding Conference

2008-06-10T11:53:00.005-04:00

What exactly can and should media do in places of conflict? What dangers come with peacebuilding and conflict prevention? These and other questions were the topics of discussion at the first Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, which was held June 2 - 4in Bonn, Germany.

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi (above) spoke during the conference's opening day. "When violence is detected, the human conscience is also awakened," Ebadi said. "There you can find an answer. Journalistic work is both a dangerous and a holy job."

Ebadi highlighted simple and profound points around journalistic practices that to me were the most poignant messages coming out of the conference. "Mentioning the religion of someone who is convicted of a crime can lead to war," Ebadi said.

Below is an interview with Southeast Asian blogger Jotman, who was first to report the 2006 coup in Thailand and has been a persistant voice for resistance monks and cyclone victims in Burma. I couldn't show Jotman's face because of his work... so you'll soon figure out why the interview is titled "Talk to the Hand".

More interview posts from the conference can be found on PauletteFilms

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

2008-05-12T11:02:00.014-04:00

Someone asked me recently where I felt the energy was on Shenandoah University campus... well there's a lot of energy to choose from, but notable this semester was Dr. Amy Sarch Schopick's Women's Studies classes. She's pulling in young men and women from all corners of the campus. Together Amy and her students are breaking taboos, enlightening the community and doing amazing interactive projects to empower and to heal.

One of the many creative projects was the "Break the Glass, Break the Silence" event where more than 40 people gathered to write messages against violence on pieces of glass and then threw them from a ladder, shattering below. The shards are being incorporated into mosaics.

http://www.winchesterstar.com/article_details.php?ArticleID=6248

These classes have had a stunning impact on the students and those around them. One student's mother told me her daughter took over the family Easter table in her eagerness to share all that she was learning.

"I had an awareness some sexual violence even against children was going on," said the mom, who is a retired elementary school teacher. "But this class has made it clear how deeply destructive the issues are."

A male student's writing further illustrates the impact. Here's what he sent to Amy at the end of the semester:

"When I first came into the class I could say I wasn't a feminist because I thought the whole thing was a joke just a class, but as I kept coming I started to see that I was....I had to change my mind on the whole feminist movement; I was rejecting it, not even trying to give it a chance, like girl I didn't like or something. But it started to grow on me, I started to see that it was more than just a word, people really had strong feelings about this stuff. ..."

He goes on to write about Betty Kilby Fisher, the character in the Wit, Will and Walls documentary who spoke to the class about her experiences with violence she experienced as a plaintiff to desegregate Warren County, VA schools in the 1950s.

"...the lady that came and told her story of how she was raped in school just broke me down and I wanted to snap. This lady seemed very sweet and nice and for someone to just take what's her without her giving it to them pissed me off. It felt like I knew her, like she was an aunt or grandmother of mine. That's when I really gained a new respect for the whole feminist movement. I feel like it's my duty to empower guys about feminism. It's been a many of day when I get out of class and go talk to my boys about what I learned in class... I feel I can help make a small change in my area where I live. So I'm proud to say I'm a feminist."

Photos Scott Mason, Winchester Star

Seeing Selma, Alabama

2008-05-09T12:14:00.013-04:00

Took a slow train to Birmingham, Alabama and now making our way through Selma to Montgomery on a little tour of the Civil Rights South.

Selma is a German name meaning "divine protector" or "helmet of God" and it feels in this famously racially torn town there seems to be a surge of pride and realignment of priorities.

The historic St. James Hotel where we are staying is owned by black entrepreneur Nathaniel Goldston. He is revitalizing the entire block around the building. We met Chef Richard Graves out back this morning, watering his herb garden and he told us his cuisine is about health, freshness, goodness.

Just down the block at the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, consultant Sam Walker presided.

http://www.selmavotingrightsmuseum.org/#

http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/al4.htm

Sam showed us the jaw dropping "I Was There Wall" where hundreds of notes are posted from foot soldiers and other participants in the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. One surprise was a note from a state trooper who had been called in as back-up from Mobile, Alabama on the day of the protest. He had no background on the march and took part in beating the protesters. He was so disturbed by his actions that one month later he resigned.

Segregationist icon Sheriff Jim Clark had less of a remarkable turn around. Sam told us he was tipped off several years back that Clark was at a local restaurant meeting with would-be writers of his biography. Sam took a busload of schoolchildren from New York over to meet with Clark. Clark refused to be interviewed and told the children that if "you had been there, I'd have whupped your asses too."

Wow.

Wit, Will and Walls - The Trailer

2008-03-27T14:58:00.005-04:00

Here is a YouTube trailer for Wit, Will and Walls, the short documentary I directed, produced and wrote with Shenandoah University that profiles Betty Kilby Fisher, who at 13-years-old was plaintiff in the 1958 case to desegregate Warren County Schools. Through the trauma she and her family suffered, Betty found a way to heal herself and help others open up around issues of race.

For more information about scheduling the full 20 minute film for a screening and discussion with Betty Kilby contact paulette@paulettefilms.com.

Watch 5 minutes now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nH-GypdBy4

2007 Films Directed by Women

2008-03-04T16:56:00.002-05:00

In honor of Women's History Month - here's a list posted by Women in Film and Video, DC.

2 Days in Paris by Julie Delpy (picture above)

Across the Universe by Julie Taymor

After the Wedding by Susanne Bier

August Rush by Kirstenn Sheridan

Away from Her by Sarah Polley

Avenue Montaigne by Danielle Thompson

Blame it on Fidel by Julie Gavras

Blood and Chocolate by Katja Von Garnier

Broken English by Zoe Cassavates

Catch and Release by Susannah Grant

Diggers by Katherine Diekman

Gray Matters by Sue Kramer

Introducing the Dwights by Cherie Nowlan

Itty Bitty Titty Committee by Jamie Babbit

Jane Austen Book Club by Robin Swicord

Om Shanti Om by Farah Khan

Persepolis Co-directed by Marjane Satrapi

Rails and Ties by Alison Eastwood

Red Road by Andrea Arnold

Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour by Lisa Comrie

Screamers by Carla Garapedian

Sherrybaby by Laurie Collyer

Stephanie Daley by Hilary Brougher

Talk to Me by Kasi Lemmons

The Namesake by Mira Nir

The Nanny Diaries by Shari Spinger Berman

The Savages by Tamara Davis

Things We Lost in the Fire by Susanne Bier

Tortilla Heaven by Judy Hecht Dumontet

Waitress by Adrienne Shelly

Save the Date and RSVP

2008-03-02T19:46:00.004-05:00

A special event in Washington, DC...

Come experience Eastern Mennononite University CJP's pioneering program to address the legacy of slavery in U.S.racial relations, "Coming to the Table." Descendants of slaves and slaveholders invite you to join them at the "Table of Brotherhood" envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Documentary film "Wit, Will and Walls" by Shenandoah University filmmaker Paulette Moore and coffeehouse discussion at Busboys & Poets Café, 2021 14th St., NW, Washington, DC, from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 29. Free (donations accepted).

The invitation is posted at: http://www.emu.edu/cjp/event-2008-03-29.pdf. Space is
limited, so please register as indicated on the invitation.

Op-Ed on Race Relations in Richmond Times

2008-03-02T19:01:00.003-05:00

An intensely scheduled life has kept me from blogging lately - but I have been doing some writing. Here is an op-ed I wrote for black history month that appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch in February.

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-02-10-0123.html

By PAULETTE MOORE
TIMES-DISPATCH GUEST COLUMNIST

WINCHESTER Black History Month presents an opportunity to look at the state of race relations in our country. The problem is, we lack processes to examine where we are in that realm. The media once presented proof of injustices that led to the civil rights bat tles. The screen images we now see are fleeting and fractured and there is an unspoken unease around race. We are unsure where to begin, how to proceed, or what we are supposed to be talking about.

Nobody can ignore recent progress; Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state, Sen. Barack Obama is a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful persons in the entertainment industry. Yet disturbing issues around race constantly bubble up then disappear into the ether without a way for us to make sense of them.

When racial tension around teens in Jena, La., exploded, protesters journeyed south to demonstrate, then everyone went home. A black woman, kidnapped and tortured in West Virginia, has fallen away from our national consciousness. A sportscaster suggested up-and-coming golfers lynch Tiger Woods in an alley. In reporting the story, Golfweek magazine's image of a noose on its cover shows us that something about the way we see, relate, and talk to one another around race is not working.

Five decades ago the country settled its racial struggles through a series of legal battles. That was the first phase of desegregation. Perhaps the unease we continue to experience around race tells us it is time to address these issues on another, more emotional and personal level.

PEACE-BUILDING and conflict resolution experts advocate the use of storytelling as a way to do that. Recently, narrative was used to settle clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and as the main vehicle for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A North Carolina-based program called The Listening Project interviews citizens in conflicted areas around the world to find hidden keys to social change.

In Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, author and activist Betty Kilby is compelled to tell the story of how violence and racism during the civil rights era affected her life. Kilby was 13 years old when she and 21 other students became plaintiffs in a 1958 court case to desegregate public schools in Warren County. The state of Virginia closed the schools under the state's Massive Resistance laws rather than allow Kilby, her brothers, and black peers access.

Kilby and her family were shot at in their home, and their cattle were poisoned. When the schools desegregated and students returned, Kilby was raped in the auditorium.

It took Kilby more than 40 years to write about her experiences in her 2002 autobiography titled Wit, Will, and Walls. Her story allows one to realize an untold human side of this complex struggle. Children were targeted by the state and suffered deeply. Families were ostracized from their community while many stood by and said nothing. Kilby, depressed and self-destructive, went on to battle racism and misogyny throughout her lifetime.

For me, Kilby's story explains clearly how and why racial tensions rise to the surface today. We are just beginning to deal with the fallout. It hasn't been that long.

REMARKABLY, Betty Kilby's story is not all about trauma. She freed herself from much of the rage of racism. In large part that happened with the awareness that people of all races and classes were relating to her story.

A few years ago at a speaking event, a white man about Kilby's age approached her and said, with obvious emotion, "I just wanted to make sure you were all right." Then he walked away. Kilby said to me, in tears, that she wondered if he was one of the boys involved in the rape. Whether he was or not doesn't change the power of that moment. Kilby's heart is open to the possibility that someone who harmed her violently could have remorse. And a white man in rural Virginia was profoundly affected by Kilby's story.

Betty Kilby understands inherently what conflict resolution experts are eager to tell us: Our stories heal and humanize. They help us find meaning in a conflict and have a unique potential to redirect the past and open options for the future. We don't need to wait for the media to come back from their frenetic jag. Through our stories we have the tools to begin the process of defining where we are on race . . . and where we are able to go.

Paulette Moore is a filmmaker, director, and producer of special projects for Shenandoah University Television in Winchester, and is pursuing a master's degree in conflict transformation at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg. Contact her at (703) 597-7766 or pmoore2@su.edu.

Ray Reprise

2008-01-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

More about pioneering tv producer and pal Ray Farkas who we lost to colon cancer a few weeks back. He had an eclectic and influential career, first for NBC's Huntley Brinkley Report and later making documentaries.

NPR's Alex Chadwick made a beautiful tribute to Ray:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17929512

And here's a link to the Alex/Ray co-production Interviews 50 Cents:

http://www.musarium.com/interviews50cents/intro_fm.html

Bye, Bye Ray!

2008-01-09T00:50:00.000-05:00

My friend and inspiration documentary director and producer Ray Farkas has died and I will miss him. His was a brave and original voice - so much so that the just mention of his name could send certain Discovery execs into fits of rage! He and his movies made me laugh or cry or both at the same time. Thank you, Ray, for teaching us about t.v. and humanity and making us understand that "It's not t.v., it's brain surgery!!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010703192_2.html

Rumor's of TV's Demise: Greatly Exaggerated

2007-12-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

I must say I've put off exploring the news that This American Life - the stunningly good radio show hosted by the sublime Ira Glass - had made a television debut on Showtime. TAF is so eclectic and so original that I felt television in all its literal-ness would kill its unique voice. Not so, it seems. TAF has partnered with Killer Films - who created Boys Don't Cry, Far From Heaven and I Shot Andy Warhol. The result? A whole new being that couples the radio show's famous dramatic narrative with beautiful, cinematic images that seem to take TAF to a whole new level.

This is very good news.

Here is the website:

http://www.thislife.org/About_TV.aspx

Save the Date - Wit, Will and Walls at American University

2007-12-02T06:23:00.000-05:00

Save the date for the Washington, DC premiere of Wit, Will and Walls; the Betty Kilby Fisher Story. American University's Center for Social Media (my VERY favorite film advocacy organization)is hosting the film as part of their MLK celebration. Betty and I will be there to present. Mark your calendars and come on over!!!

When: Wednesday, January 23 at 6PM
Where: Wechler Theater, 3rd Floor, Mary Graydon Center, American University Campus

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/events/2008mlk/867

Sunday Quotable - On Boldness

2007-11-11T18:22:00.000-05:00

A fellow peacebuilder reminded me of this quote today.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Peacebuilding This Week/Fridays at 11

2007-10-22T14:05:00.000-04:00

This week on Fridays at 11, Shenandoah University's student news roundtable show - participants talk about the fallout from the Jena 6 situation in Louisiana, where for the past year tensions have escalated over racial clashes. Watch 6 minutes now on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgLcXJ9vnPc

Another YouTube story explaining the Jena situation... very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY

And an interesting analysis by Peter Applebome in the NYTimes Our Towns column from last week about the significance of the appearance of nooses in Jena, at Columbia University and at a New York post office. Is the appearance of the noose a racial crisis? Or just a rope in the hands of fools?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E4D61338F937A25753C1A9619C8B63

Media Buildings - New Concepts Communicate

2007-09-19T05:41:00.000-04:00

Nice article in the NYTimes today about 3 new buildings, dedicated to media, breaking new ground on interacting with the public... WGBH in Brighton, MA, the Newseum in Washington, DC and the Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. Love it.

On WGBH:

The building’s facade is itself a media element: a digital skin that will project varying LED images every day. (The city prohibits any text display there because of broader concerns about commercialization.) On a gray morning, for example, the electronic mural could display fluffy white clouds in a deep blue sky.

The notion is to have the building consistently engaging with the public. “Hopefully people will think, ‘What is WGBH going to throw at me today?’ ” Mr. Olcott said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/arts/design/19pols.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190194695-pkVG8DJHPUPpFuWMMjzRpQ

EMU Quotable - Amen, Sister

2007-09-18T19:28:00.001-04:00

"Things grow here."

-Amy Potter, Program Assistant, Practice Institute at Eastern Mennonite University reflecting on the wonder of life and work in the Shenandoah Valley

http://www.emu.edu/personnel/people/show/pottera

Center for Justice and Peacebuilding Students

2007-09-17T14:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a link from Eastern Mennonite University with bios of my fellow Center for Justice and Peacebuilding graduate students. Gosh, they're a pretty amazing bunch:

https://www.emu.edu/ctp/new-students

The Point - The Photojournalist

2007-09-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

On this edition of The Point for SUTV, I interview Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Bernie Boston and his wife Peggy about being witness to the civil rights era, decades at the White House, scores of front page news stories... and their new phase of life in the Shenandoah Valley.

Watch 7 minutes now on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oaNzF6OeHOQ

Peacebuilding This Week - 9/11, Another Lens

2007-09-12T18:43:00.000-04:00

On the 6th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC, EMU Conflict Transformation Masters Program student and Fulbright Scholar Boniface Cheembe from Zambia said he was receiving calls from overseas asking how people in this country were observing the day. He told them he couldn't speak for the rest of the country, but he felt right to be in a class called Conflict Analysis examining the root causes of the struggle between the U.S. and Al Qaeda.

Fellow CJP student Michele Edwards forwarded this thought provoking link - about a few cautious voices beginning to suggest the unthinkable... that maybe it is time to consider talking to Al Qaeda. See what you think...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070913/ts_nm/alqaeda_dialogue_dc

Sunday Quotable

2007-09-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

"Nothing is so harmful to inventing as a critical sense waiting to pounce on the drawbacks of any new idea. Judgement hinders imagination. "

-Roger Fisher, Warren Ury
"Getting to Yes"
Harvard Negotiation Project

Peacebuilding Idea of the Week - Red Dots

2007-09-05T06:56:00.000-04:00

Classes for my Conflict Transformation Masters program at Eastern Mennonite University began this week and among so many interesting thoughts and ideas swirling around, one local effort described by a Virginia teacher named Michele in my Analysis class struck me as simple and important.

After tragedies like Virginia Tech and Colombine, Michele said that teachers and administrators in her school write the names of all of their students on a chart and if any teacher has a connection with a student, a red dot is placed next to the student's name.

Students who have no dots; those who are not communicative, not known, who have the potential to fall between the cracks of society, those students are sought out by teachers and administrators to connect in some way. They schedule lunch, a talk, a deliberate effort of interaction with the student in the hopes of creating a web of community which they hope will stave off a spiraling of those "no dot" students into violence.

Quarryography in Stonington Maine

2007-09-02T17:18:00.000-04:00

Here is what I did with my summer vacation! Thanks to co-worker/all around cool guy producer David Norman - I was part of a Shenandoah University crew that made a 14 hour trek to Stonington, Maine (and back!) to film a gorgeous, quirky, touching performance called Quarryography. The dance is directed by renowned choreographer Alison Chase in collaboration with Mia Kanazawa.

The two bring professional dancers, university students and their beloved community together to show us what goes on at the local quarry when no one is watching...

Watch 3 minutes now on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xZccJxuaw0

Shenandoah University Tours France #3 - Notre Dame

2007-08-27T12:16:00.001-04:00

In the last of a 3 part series - the Shenandoah Conservatory Choir is one of just three international groups chosen each year to sing at Notre Dame's High Mass in Paris. Students take us behind the scenes at the renowned cathedral - revealing the sights, the sounds of the event and the antics of some amusing Eucharistic ministers.

Watch 6 minutes now on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EILYhAz9D14

Shenandoah Conservatory Tours France #2 - Normandy

2007-08-27T12:12:00.000-04:00

Shenandoah Conservatory choir members continue their tour through France with a trip to the poignant landscapes of the Normandy Beaches. There the group gives an impromptu and deeply moving performance to some appreciative onlookers.

Watch 5 minutes now on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jS166JxnXEc

Shendandoah Conservatory Tours France #1 - The Arrival

2007-08-27T11:42:00.000-04:00

Shenandoah Conservatory Choir takes a rollicking tour of France. In this, the first of 3 segments, the group performs in major cathedrals, channels Marie Antoinette at the Palace of Versailles, and students reflect on the challenges and the honor of working with Grammy Award-winning conductor Robert Shafer.

"Robert Shafer has been a treasure for the Washington choral community for more than 30 years."

-The Washington Post

Watch 7 minutes now on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ltHtGEZI6oo

Quote of the Year

2007-08-21T13:19:00.001-04:00

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

-Mary Oliver
Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Oliver

Photo by Tyrone Turner

Save the Date - October Peace Conference

2007-08-17T02:06:00.000-04:00

October 26-27, 2007 the Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking in Memphis, Tennessee. The theme is Building the Beloved Community and it's presented by the National Civil Rights Museum, Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, HEAL Foundation and Indian Community Fund.

http://www.gandhikingconference.org/

I'll be speaking along with author and activist Betty Kilby Fisher and "cousin" Phoebe Kilby who works at Eastern Mennonite University about the role of television and film in building community.

The title is Seeing Ourselves, Healing Our Hearts; the Role of Filmmaking in Building Peace Within Community.

Our proposal states that television and filmmaking as a magnifying element and delivery system for storytelling and narrative is proving to be an important tool in areas of tension and crisis to build community and promote peace. This presentation is a case study of two recent documentaries about desegregation in the Shenandoah Valley created by Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia titled; Wit, Will and Walls; the Betty Kilby Fisher Story and its companion film In My Grandmother’s Footsteps. We will recount how these films have provided a platform for personal exploration and public discussion around the social trauma of the civil rights struggle in the Shenandoah Valley and have led to opportunities for healing and reconciliation within the community.

Reclaiming Indian Rights

2007-07-23T12:52:00.000-04:00

Enfranchised, A Daughter's Journey is the topic for a documentary about my mother and me for which I am currently seeking funding.

In 1970 my mom, Patricia Moore, aged 37, sold our family’s Indian Rights to the Six Nations of the Grand River Reservation in Brantford, Ontario. Her intent was to settle once and for all the question of her identity.

Patricia’s father was Mohawk and grew up on Six Nations Reservation in Brantford, Ontario. Her mother was white, a former indentured maid from Rochester, NY who married to escape a life of servitude. She, sadly, later referred to her husband’s relatives as “the dirty Indians”

Throughout Patricia’s life, she was forbidden by her mother from telling others about her native background. This secret came to define her. People asked her why she had dark skin and a prominent nose. Was she Italian? Jewish? The questions were troubling and persistent. And her anticipation of them was torture. Her mother’s racism instilled in Patricia a deep and abiding shame about who she was and what other people thought of her.

This shame led my mother to a legal loophole in how to deal with her abhorrent identity. Patricia Moore found she could sell her rights to claim herself as an Indian back to her Mohawk tribe under a Canadian law that had been in effect for more than 100 years. Canada’s Indian Act intended to mainstream Indians into white society and promoted a process where Indians became full citizens by relinquishing ties to their community including language, dances, traditions and rights to land. Until 1960 an Indian could vote in a federal election only by renouncing his or her Indian status. The United Nations ruled in 1981 that the Indian Act was a human rights violation and by 1985 Canadian Indians were no longer able to sell their rights.

But on June 22nd, 1970, in Brantford, Ontario my mother saw the provisions of the Indian Act as an opportunity to in one small way be free of a lifetime of scrutiny. When the transaction was finished, Patricia received $36 and was deemed by Canadian law “a person”. The registrar crossed out my mother’s name on the tribal books and next to it wrote the word that the Canadian Government gave to those who forfeited their Indian identity; “Enfranchised”.

The hour-long documentary titled Enfranchised, A Daughter’s Journey tells the intimate story of my mother and me; two strong-willed women wrangling with our identity and our legacy. This show documents our physical, spiritual and legal quest to regain the Mohawk rights we lost on June 22nd, 1970 and to reclaim a missing part of our family’s history.

Watch 3 minutes now on YouTube - I contact Six Nations Reservation in Brantford, Ontario to attempt to begin the process of reclaiming these rights.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HGuyPWYx61k

More about Monetizing the Web

2007-06-21T08:55:00.001-04:00

Well, a cool internet TV group called Cooking Up a Story (www.cookingupastory.com)
seems to be revealing how to monetize TV production on the web. They've hooked up with internet distributor Brightcove to push their product and bring in revenue for a simple concept of an internet show about food, sustainability and the people who are dedicated to both.

Here is the pitch from CUAS site:

Syndicate our shows through Brightcove on a managed account and receive 20% of the ad revenue, when available. Cooking Up A Story Syndication Offers:
Single Title; Multiple Line-up; Single Line-up; Sign up now for your free player(s) and for those who qualify, share in the ad revenue generated from your site.

And the pitch from Brightcove:

http://corp.brightcove.com/about_brightcove/overview.cfm

The Brightcove online service is used by content owners, consumers, web publishers, and advertisers. With Brightcove, content owners can create, distribute and monetize Internet TV channels. At the same time, consumers use Brightcove to discover, watch, share and participate in channels. Web publishers can find content and syndicate channels to enhance their sites and generate new revenue. Finally, marketers can use Brightcove AdNet to aggregate online video audiences and reach consumers across wide range of niche channels with both advertising and branded broadband content.

The Point - The Orchardists

2007-06-07T15:23:00.000-04:00

Today on The Point - I interview Diane Kearns and Philip Glaize, orchardists from Frederick County, Virginia who talk about the state of their industry and the subtleties of apple tasting.

Watch it now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5GhYl4gjao

Shenandoah University Choir Tours France - Highlights

2007-06-04T12:32:00.000-04:00

Here is what I've been working on during my recent blog silence:

Shenandoah Conservatory Choir tours France where the group is one of only 3 international choirs per year invited to sing during High Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Watch 2 minutes now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJTvRYbawmk

Photo by Byron Jones

Local News Coverage of SU Students' Show

2007-05-08T11:07:00.000-04:00

Today's TV 3 Winchester story about SU student roundtable Fridays at 11.

http://www.tv3winchester.com/home/headlines/7381461.html

Everything Is As It Should Be

2007-05-08T06:45:00.000-04:00

Spitsbergen is a Norwegian island in the Svalbard archipelago. It has spectacular mountains, abundant glaciers and desolate tundra, where stones are littered over a flat and mostly featureless terrain. In places on this tundra, the stones are arranged in a remarkable way; they lie not in a chaotic, haphazard jumble but in an ordered array of hauntingly beautiful, nearly perfect circular piles.

Today NYTimes blogger and theoretical physicist Mark Buchanan links these stones to human social patterns in some lovely and reassuring ways:

Although we tend to think of ourselves as individuals making up our own minds, we’re obviously influenced by what others around us do. Social patterns routinely emerge that have little to do with the character of individual people.

Check out the link at:

http://buchanan.blogs.nytimes.com/?th&emc=th

and a study from UC Santa Cruz on the crazy Norwegian stones:

http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/02-03/01-20/patterns.html

National Geographic Levees Story

2007-05-07T16:39:00.000-04:00

Photog pal and National Geographic New Orleans go-to-guy Tyrone Turner is at it again - this time with a breaking news story on the city's breaking levees. His full post-Katrina layout makes the cover of National Geographic's August edition... but this news was so big NG released it early to its website and to other news organizations including the New York Times. This is the first time ever the magazine has previewed a story in this way.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0705/index.html

And a New York Times article reacting to the story using a Tyrone photo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/us/07levees.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Fridays at 11 - Talking about Campus Safety

2007-05-01T14:34:00.000-04:00

On the latest Fridays at 11 – SU students in their weekly roundtable talk about the recent explosion of a homemade bomb on SU campus and the steps being taken to insure safety and responsibility. Be sure to watch it now and post your comments on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1jBDsK-9r4 – 6 minutes in length.

Brought to you by SU students Lacey Rollins lrollins@su.edu and Raul Hasbun rhasbun@su.edu.

The Architect's Brother

2007-04-26T19:53:00.000-04:00

I love this photographer/sculptor/artist. His work is breathtaking.

http://www.parkeharrison.com/

http://www.decordova.org/decordova/exhibit/2004/parkeharrison/parkeharrison04.html

Robert ParkeHarrison collaborates with his wife, Shana, on the conception and execution of complex images that combine performance, sculpture, photography, and painting. Their innovative approach to picture making draws upon their use of paper negatives and collage to construct stories of loss and struggle amid landscapes scarred by technology and over-use.

At the heart of these pictorial tales is a lone individual—ParkeHarrison himself as “Everyman”—engaged in Herculean struggles with nature and artifice. The mythic world he creates mirrors our world, where nature is domesticated and controlled. In actions that are both humorously metaphorical and lyrically poetic, ParkeHarrison constructs beguiling stories that make us consider what we have done or are doing to our earth.

Fridays at 11 - Talking about Virginia Tech

2007-04-24T15:17:00.000-04:00

Shendandoah University students in their weekly roundtable talk about the fallout from the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. See it now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbKWBl1D-HE

Grad School for Conflict Transformation

2007-04-23T10:16:00.000-04:00

In an effort to give an academic grounding to my move to take my films to a public setting for dialogue and reconciliation, I am off to grad school for a seminar class this summer and a full time quest in the fall for my Masters in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University. This is an emerging field of study - keying off of the justice and peacebuilding that went on in South Africa after apartheid.

Here is a blurb about the Masters Program:

http://www.emu.edu/ctp/

The mission of the Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation is to promote reflective practice by providing value-based, applied education in conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma healing, mediation and related applied fields.

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), formerly the Conflict Transformation Program (CTP), was founded to further the personal and professional development of individuals as peacebuilders and to strengthen the peacebuilding capacities of the institutions they serve. The program is committed to supporting conflict transformation and peacebuilding efforts at all levels of society in situation of complex, protracted, violent, or potentially violent, social conflict in the United States and abroad.

Fridays at 11/ SU Students on YouTube

2007-04-17T16:05:00.000-04:00

Today on YouTube - the premiere of Fridays at 11 - the new weekly SU student-produced show on hot topics of the day. I am serving as their staff advisor. The first show features discussion about shock jock Don Imus being fired from his programs for insulting remarks/racial slurs he made against the Rutgers women's basketball team. What a cool, interesting, thoughtful group of students. Lacey Rollins and Raul Hasbun took the lead in making this happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai9R41NtHGs

Sculptor on YouTube - The Point

2007-04-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

Clarke County stone carver Malcolm Harlow was a journeyman at the National Cathedral for 7 years in the mid-1970's. We talk with him on SUTV's The Point about his craft, the past and the future of his trade and his "crazy place".

Click on this YouTube link to watch this 9 minute segment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuJdW_NlL8Y

And this is Malcolm's bio on the Stone Carver's guild website:
http://stonecarversguild.com/m_harlow.htm

Malcolm's Personal Statement:"I like the sting of that chip of stone against my cheek."

Dance about Race - SU Dance Ensemble

2007-04-02T08:09:00.000-04:00

Shenandoah Universty Dance Ensemble rehearses for a piece called Race - inspired by my documentary short Wit, Will and Walls; the Betty Kilby Fisher story. The dance premiered this weekend and we intend to take it on the road with the film. Very talented SU Professor Ting-Yu Chen was the choreographer - along with the dancers.

Check it out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrCyPaK6Qw

And Ting-Yu's personal site Flying Lions Dance Company:

http://www.su.edu/personal/FlyingLionsSite/

Suburban Secrets on CourtTV

2007-03-25T16:53:00.000-04:00

Check out Suburban Secrets on Court TV, Monday, March 26 at 10:30pm. This is a show I directed in January with Sirens Media out of Silver Spring, MD. A Dudley, Massachusetts woman was poisoned by her husband and it took her mother and a dedicated detective years to put him behind bars.

It's called Methanol Mystery.

http://www.courttv.com/onair/shows/suburban_secrets/index.html

Adventures in Geekdom - DVD Recorder Update

2007-03-25T16:23:00.000-04:00

Attention all you poor TV producers with PCs out there - your Luddite days of shrinking, ripping, and 10-step programs to produce a simple DVD are nearly over. While our Mac friends get to drag and drop their vid projects onto on-board DVD recorders, we've been suffering with our lack of a viable solution to produce a critical format.

NYTimes reporter David Pogue recommended the Sony VRD-MC3 DVD Recorder in his Circuits column a few weeks back. I just got the device and it is what he promised; a simple 4-button, high quality, low cost device that makes life so much easier.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01EEDE1231F93BA35750C0A9619C8B63
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?CategoryName=acc_DIAccessories_ImageStorageDevices&ProductSKU=VRDMC3

You still have to do an output to Mini-DV tape before transferring it over - but this is a great solution until the PC world decides to cross the DVD divide.

Here is an excerpt from the Pogue column:

DIGITAL VIDEOTAPES -- If you have a more recent camcorder -- a MiniDV digital model -- things are even simpler. You connect the camcorder to the Sony's FireWire jack. The camcorder magically rewinds itself and then pours itself onto a blank DVD. Each scene on the tape is supposed to become a new title on the DVD automatically, although that feature didn't work on my unit.

The Sony can even handle video from Sony high-definition camcorders, although it doesn't burn high-def DVDs -- just wide-screen, standard ones.

All this being said, Pogue's next 2 columns dealt with the DEATH of the DVD - but in the meantime, this was $249.00 well spent.

The Indomitable Hazel Dickens

2007-03-03T06:46:00.000-05:00

One of the most haunting moments in film in on of my favorite movies of all time is that of a folk singer standing by the grave of a slain West Virginia coal miner singing a simple and heartwrenching hymn. That scene is in John Sayles film "Matewan"; about unions and mine workers and that singer is bluegrass maven Hazel Dickens.

Thanks to the dynamic-duo-brother-filmmakers Clai and Will Lashely, I was recently honored to meet and adore Hazel close-up while the Lashley's interviewed her in her adopted hometown of Washington, DC for their upcoming documentary on Bluegrass tentatively titled "Music Across the River".

Dickens is characterized by her "high lonesome" singing and her provacative pro-union, feminist songs. Her voice is considered among the most powerful and moving of all bluegrass singers.

All in the room were struck by this National Heritage Fellow's authenticity and humor. The stories of her family's extreme poverty and of writing "Black Lung", a tribute to her coal miner brother were poignant and moving. She was delighful as she told of moving to Baltimore to work in factories and trying to fit in by finding the "ings" at the end of her words; "sing-ING instead of singin".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Dickens

Look for an upcoming tribute album to Hazel which includes covers by Roseanne Cash, EmmyLou Harris, Wyononna Judd and others.

Also, keep an eye on the Lashleys and the progress of their comprehensive film. Here is the link to their website.

http://www.thespitnimage.com/

Thank you Will and Clai - and thank YOU Hazel Dickens.

Where's the Table?! Over There in Richmond!

2007-02-27T06:20:00.000-05:00

I thought it was a joke from the Onion Newspaper when a colleague sent me a news clip saying civil rights leader Al Sharpton's forebearers were slaves owned by Strom Thurmond's family, a longtime segregationist. Apparently it's true.

It seems, however, that the Sharptons and the Thurmonds won't be taking any lessons of transcendance from Betty Kilby Fisher and Phoebe Kilby along the lines of sitting down together at the table, as Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/nyregion/26sharpton.html

Mr. Sharpton said he had not heard from the Thurmonds and had no immediate plans of contacting them. “This is not family,” he said firmly. “This is property.”

Amazingly, some transcendance on race issues is coming out of Richmond, Virginia - former capitol of the Confederacy. The Virginia state legislature issued an apology over the weekend for the state's past history of slavery. The Old Dominion becomes the first southern state to formally acknowledge its role through legislative channels. The measure also expressed regret for the state's treatment of Native Americans.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7593249

The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070225/ap_on_re_us/slavery_apology

In Virginia, black voter turnout was suppressed with a poll tax and literacy tests before those practices were struck down by federal courts, and state leaders responded to federally ordered school desegregation with a "Massive Resistance" movement in the 1950s and early '60s. Some communities created exclusive whites-only schools.

Among those voting for the measure was Delegate Frank D. Hargrove, an 80-year-old Republican who infuriated black leaders last month by saying "black citizens should get over" slavery.

Audience Feedback From WWW Screening

2007-02-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

Here are comments from those who attended the Wit, Will and Walls screenings from 2/17 and 2/18. These link to the posting about the screenings below. I will add to these as more come in - so please feel free to send me your comments:

Jill Finsen, Artist and Non Profit Policy Staff - It was remarkable that Wit, Will and Walls brought together relatives of a former slave and slave owner—a significant meeting as told by both of these women. Wit, Will and Walls allows us to better appreciate what was a remarkably courageous and threatening experience for those who led the way. Thanks to those who participated 50 years ago and to those who continue to keep the story alive to improve relations for today and the future.

David Sheon, President PR Firm - After hearing those stories, I appreciate more how deep the emotional scars, the systematic disenfranchisement, and the cultural deprivation caused by white society's raping of black society must still hurt.

Consider that Kilby's great grandmother - if I've guessed the generations correctly - could well have been a slave attacked/raped by the slave owner. Somehow I doubt it was love behind that! So the wheels were put in motion from that point on to create a person who would not be "at home" anywhere.

Then the well documented systematic and "legal" closure of the high school, the brutal attack, and the social alienation of Kilby by her peers, educators, and courts brings the ignorance/hate/intolerance to another generation. The story of being constantly attacked by spitballs, and then being sent to detention because she had the nerve to complain about it - is such good imagery, and so painful for us all to hear.

Reconciliation is a much higher hurdle than I ever realized, but we're fortunate to be living at a time when courageous people are beginning to poke their heads out from dark closets. The heroes of our day come in all colors, ages, shapes and sizes.

Kris Larsen, TV Director, Producer -When Betty Kilby Fisher told her story of reconciliation and introduced her "cousin" Ms. Phoebe Kilby, she pointed out that "we are living Dr. Matin Luther King's dream" -- I doubt there was a dry eye in the place! Also, involving young filmmakers to tell Tanesia's story is a brilliant move - the stories, and the whole evening, unfolded beautifully. Epic!

Dr. Ann Denkler, SU Historian - The best part of the events was the venue of the church. The film, the church, and the community just fit together perfectly. I also think that your film brings out the need to know history, to reconcile racially, and, most importantly, to celebrate these two things. It's as if one shouldn't simply try to understand racism and the horrors of segregation without looking at how the African American community wants to see it dealt with. And, clearly, it should be looked at as a celebration of healing.

Bob Burke, SU Director of Corporate Relations - For me the story is not historical but a part of who I am. I remember segregation in Southern Missouri and how stupid I though it was and how disturbing it was for me that white adults in my church could support the idea including my parents. One of the reasons I gave up going to church. The only time my father and I had a physical altercation was over segregation. It was a pretty good fight, I was 16.

M. Tyson Gilpin, Attorney - I attended the screenings of “Wit Will and Walls” at two different places. First, at the home of Tracy Fitzsimmons in Reliance, VA and second, at Mt. Carmel Church in Winchester, VA. Despite the fact that the audiences were from completely different backgrounds the reactions were the same. The audiences were powerfully moved by the coming together and triumph of Betty Kilby Fisher and her granddaughter to tell the story. In addition, both the white Kilbys and the African American Kilbys were in both audiences. The spontaneous bonding within the greater Kilby “family” at both events was inspiring.

Dr. Warren Hofstra, SU Historian -What hit me the hardest about Betty’s story and your work together is how much it lives today. Betty’s story begins 50 years ago, but what you and Betty have to say about race and reconciliation for the present is very powerful. That power was very evident in Sunday’s premiere.

Patsy Moore, Secretary, My Mom - I was very impressed with the words from Dr. Deborah Lee, the public historian, as she stressed that movements survive and much is accomplished when they are faith and spirit motivated. We linked arms and concluded with "WE SHALL OVERCOME". I know this film will evolve into a full hour-long documentary. Motives are correct and God will bless.

Sheila Smith, Director of Photography -The thing that struck me most was the courageous reunion between the grandaughter of the slave owner and Betty. Only when meetings like this happen can reconciliation and healing begin. And I was touched my the anguish of Betty's father, having to sacrifice his daughter's safety and innocence to send her into the school to "earn" the education which he was deprived.

Also, I was encouraged my the documentary made by the younger generation. It seems they really understood the hardship Betty's generation had to endure so that their descendant's could have a better life and with that realization comes the responsibility of both races of today's generation to continue the work needed for our society to move towards racial equality.

Dr. James Bryant II, SU Historian - Betty Kilby Fisher's story is a testament of how faith and perserverance can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. She gives us lessons for life.

Claiborne Lashley, Lighting Director - I have been in the film industry since 1983; worked on 30+ feature films. John Sayles, Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster, Ivan Rittman… Whoop Goldberg, Julia Roberts, James Earl Jones, Tom Cruise…many others.

That’s Hollywood; I prefer Betty and Paulette.

Through their vision and interpretation we come face to face with an issue that is haunting yet we see that a nightmare can become a dream. To be identified with a project like Wit, Will and Walls means to give something to our culture that is poignant and educational.

Betty’s story needs to be shouted from the mountaintop.

Wit, Will and Walls - the Shenandoah Valley Screenings

2007-02-24T23:38:00.000-05:00

It has been an amazing month of gearing up for and screening Wit, Will and Walls; the Betty Kilby Fisher Story in 2 public venues. We were scheduled for three, but a wintery blast of glacial ice across the Shenandoah Valley last week conspired to keep us out of Warren County High School, the historic location where Betty Kilby Fisher was the infant plaintiff to desegregate the county's schools. Look for that screening, with some special guests, to be rescheduled in March or later this spring.

The lead-up to the weekend was the round of press in Winchester and Front Royal with Betty and me. The most intriguing interview was with Dan McDermott of The Valley Today radio show. It was on this show that Betty revealed that she had kept the fact that she had been raped in Warren Couny High School auditorium a secret from her mother until last Wednesday. Her mother's response after 50 years? She simply said quietly "So it's true."

This has been a terrifying experience for Betty to work through, but telling the truth of it when she has been ready has been cathartic for her and healing for others. Dan was a sensitive and insightful interviewer - lots of trust there for Betty to share her story. A link to the interview:

http://warrencountyreport.com/podcasts/20070215/20070215VT.mp3

And a link to the companion story in Dan's independent newspaper The Warren County Report (Dan is the hardest working man in media today) http://warrencountyreport.com/kilby.pdf

On Saturday night 2/17 we screened at Old Reliance Theater, in Reliance, VA. Shenandoah University Vice President Tracy Fitzsimmons and her husband Dr. Chuck Call live upstairs in this refurbished schoolhouse - and their basement is a theater where ambitious social issue theater productions like The Laramie Project and The Vagina Monologues have been staged with great success. A few hightlights:

I was proud to screen the SU student piece about Betty's granddaughter, Tanesia. Tanesia portrayed her grandmother in my film. Sibling teams Nick and Kevin Matheson and Hallie and Cody Penwell worked VERY hard to profile Tanesia and her take on her family's legacy with touching results.

During discussion after the screenings, a woman named Phoebe Kilby from Harrisonburg, VA announced that she's done preliminary research and believes that her family was the Kilby slaveholder and Betty's family were the slaves! She felt that by contacting Betty that they together would be able to live out Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of the daughters of the slaves and slaveholders sitting down together at the table. Betty's family has already taken to calling her "cousin Phoebe"!

Not at all ironically, but sort of startlingly Phoebe Kilby works with Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg. EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding hosts a project called Coming to the Table, which gathers and documents the stories of the descendents of slaves and slaveholders.

http://www.emu.edu/cjp/comingtothetable/

An NPR story about the Coming to... project:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5239251

On Sunday 2/18 we screened at the wonderful Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Winchester, VA. What an afternoon of discussion and truths. When the discussion was over, all in the church linked arms and sang "We Shall Overcome". Thank you Pastor Gilbert Mack, Linda Jackson and the congregation from Mt. Carmel for welcoming us to your beautiful venue. I look forward to more collaboration... and singing!

Gasps from Documentary Audience At American University

2007-02-01T07:21:00.000-05:00

At American University this week for their always-excellent "Making Your Documentary Matter" seminar sponsored by the Center for Social Media. This group addresses the current and varied issues for independent filmmakers focused on using media for social change.

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/2007_mydm_agenda/

Among the stunning array of speakers from the first symposium - Benjamin Walker of PBS's We Shall Remain - a massive American Experience project to document Native American history which will take up nearly half the broadcast season in 2009 -

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/

Walker comes from the new media initiatives for this project and the audience gasped and applauded when he revealed that he will help arm thousands of native americans in Arizona with an unbelievable new Nokia phone which will have video capture and EDITING capability built-in. They will gather video over the course of one year and document their American Experience on a PBS website. Wow.

The phone is N93 which costs around $700 with Carl Zeiss optics and memory cards with built in instructional videos on how to shoot quality video.

http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/nokia_n93_cell_phone.html

All of the speakers speak of cell phones as the 4th screen - the follow-on to theater, television and compter screens.

More to follow as the conference progresses!

Suddenly, the Poet

2006-12-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

THE DEAD
The dead are always looking down on us, they say
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
They are looking down through the
glass-bottom boats
of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

Garrison Keillor's sublime radio show Prairie Home Companion featured from New York City this week Billy Collins, the 44th U.S. Poet Laureate and professor of English composition at New York City College. Fans of Collins cheer that he is the first Poet Laureate since Robert Frost to enjoy both critical and popular acclaim. Since I tend to be over-exuberant about things that interest me, I will spare you the descriptors and simply let you decide.

http://www.bigsnap.com/g-nyt01.html

"This lament for the diminished audience is a soap opera, a 'Little Match Girl' of high culture. To me that's ridiculous because the facts are that good poetry is exorbitantly rewarded with grants, travel, fame and positions in universities that were unthinkable 20 years ago. It's a wild time to be a poet." says Collins.

JAPAN
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It’s the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on the surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it into the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

http://www.bigsnap.com/linklibrary.html#poembypoem

"Poetry is my cheap means of transportation," Mr. Collins said. "By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield. There is a wonderfully self-entertaining aspect to all of this. You feel delightfully insane in a way, slipping the bonds of logic."

TENSION

“Never use the word suddenly just to
create tension.” —Writing Fiction

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.
When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.
A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.
I observed a window of leafy activity
and, beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving
to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.
Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
Another drip from the faucet?
Another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue
to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on their shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone’s guess.
The sun rose ever higher.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning
began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountain to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats
suddenly fringed with little colorful, dangling balls.

Wit, Will and Walls - Save the Date

2006-12-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Lend your voice to an historic documentary by participating in 2 public premieres of Wit, Will and Walls; the Betty Kilby Fisher Story. Presented by SUTV and The Knowledge Point.

February 16, Warren County High School, Front Royal

February 18, Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, Winchester

SU graduate Betty Kilby Fisher was just 13-years-old when she became a plaintiff to desegregate Warren County Schools in 1958. The activism that her family embraced and the subsequent violence they endured for their beliefs shaped Betty's life and the lives of those around her. After decades of facing racism and misogyny that brought on rage and depression, Betty now embraces her role as an African American elder whose incredible story leads us on a path to recognition and reconciliation.

Specific times TBD.