a new time…
a new job…
a new season…
a new place…
and a new name.
You have now entered the documentary shangri-la…
Now, here is a kinks song.
You go girl! February 11, 2008
Here is to Amy Winehouse… you can’t keep a scappy puppy down! I look forward to hearing all of her good music in the years to come.
This is what I have been up to… February 9, 2008
I have always wanted to start a film festival:
Please help us transport festival culture and great creative work to the cornfields of Illinois!
Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival
March 27-30, 2008
Call for Submissions
Deadline: February 29, 2008
We are looking for films of high artistic quality that satisfy at least two of the following criteria:
1. Films created with an eye for gender and/or social justice issues
2. Films that link local and global issues
3. Films created by people underrepresented in the media field (women, people of color, queer/transgendered, the
disabled)
4. Films made by people from the Central Illinois area
How to submit:
Send a DVD or digital videotape of your film and a cover letter addressing the film festival criteria to:
Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival
Christopher Mitchell
Theatre Arts Department
600 Lincoln Ave
Eastern Illinois University
Charleston, IL 61920
Guidelines:
1. Films should be short: under 60 minutes in length.
2. Film DVD or digital videotape should be labeled with 1) your name, address, and email address and 2) the title of your
film.
3. You should email us at cjmitchell@eiu.edu to confirm the submission.
4. In your cover letter, explain how you and your film fit our criteria and include a two-three sentence synopsis.
Note: There is no submission fee for this film festival.This film festival promotes the mission of our Women’s Studies Program at Eastern Illinois University: to promote an understanding of how issues related to gender, age, race, economic status, sexual identity, and nationality affect women’s lives and the communities in which they live. In order to promote an equitable and sensitive environment for all persons, the Council also responds to issues affecting women on campus and in the community.
Si, Se Puede! February 9, 2008
A little music…some moving images and you have magic!
Finally, some vision about the future that doesn’t involve killing people!
Readings on Argumentation February 3, 2008
We are in the home stretch of finishing our book project:
And just a small observation for all those aspiring authors out there…indexing sucks!
We are not all special snowflakes…I am not that innocent January 7, 2008
When I first took in this picture, my heart when out to her. As an avid US Weekly reader, I always refer to “Britney” as my favorite train wreck. She was the sugary-sweet teen sensation who is a good part of a decade younger than me and reminiscent of a tarty-girl next door. At the peak of her pop-princess reign, I remember routinely trying to persuade my 14 year-old niece into looking up to someone…cooler…edgy-er…maybe just a tad bit more artistically talented. Britney has some catchy music and in my estimation, she is a solid and good second-rate performance artist…but that has never been my issue with her. From early on in her career Britney seem to find her value…her worth as a brand pivoted around titillation (much like her pop culture momma, Madonna). My issue with Britney, in regards to my adolescent niece, was her tendency to reach out for a shorter shirt or naughty stockings with a subtle desperation for affirmation (very un-Madonna-like). Until, of course, take this road to its natural conclusion and you have a mother of two flashing her naked va-jay jay all over Los Angeles.
Unlike Madonna, Britney’s titillation never grew up and just got kind of sad…
Today was the first time I witnessed the visual raw emotion of her very public pain and thought I recognized something about it. There is some part of me that identifies with the expression on her face. I have been there, maybe not to the same depths or on such a visible stage but growing up is hard to do (especially with a mental illness, an unfortunate drug problem, under the microscope of public scrutiny, and rich enough to not have benefited from the experience of being told “no” ).
Vacation Therapy July 15, 2007
Back from Hawaii and brother’s wedding was beautiful….
It was very hard to leave the amazing beaches and perfect weather…
Got to spend a lot of time with special honey….
Now I have to go back to work….and that’s a bummer….
The Project of Parellel Media June 20, 2007
For the last seven years, my research projects have mostly revolved around activist media (noun) or media activism (verb). Sometimes these two phenomena are the same, sometimes they are not. Occasionally, an activist media text falls upon deft ears with no engagement beyond the viewing experience and conversely, media activism can emerge from the most unlikely of media events. In contemporary times, exploring and drawing the boundaries for understanding the engagement between activism and the media is tricky theoretical business. And now, my task is to narrow and focus what I am speaking about when I say “activist documentary.” One of the questions at the forefront of my mind is: How does one recognize, identify and label activist documentary? Or, in other words, how do you know it when you see it?
It was interesting to talk to people who are working on the ground, making and distributing activist media, about the function and character of these texts. Brian Drolet at Deep Dish TV in New York City had this to say:
The two interesting markers that Brian identifies are abstract but incredibly important to this discussion: that activist media (or what he terms parellel media), it is a truth telling mechanism and gives voice to the voiceless in society. In both of these characterizations, the process of political struggle is forgrounded and activist media is the megaphone of the marginalized. Which begs the question, what kind of connection must activist media have to the project of activism and the people who extend and struggle on behalf of the political work identified by an activist media text?
New York-Austin-San Francisco-Los Angeles-Charleston, IL June 15, 2007
Well, I am not in Charleston yet… I leave Los Angeles on Saturday and re-enter the cornfields of central Illinois in the early evening.
I am excited but really exhausted. I have spent the last month talking to some very interesting people about the scope, potential, functions and history of activist documentary film and video from the 1970s to the present. Tracking down those who produce, write about, distribute, organize around, fund and struggle with activist documentary was not always easy. But I am grateful to the many new friends who-with such generosity-introduced me other important people connected to this work. Although these trips have felt like a literal rollercoaster ride, it felt good to wrap up my time in San Francisco having lunch with a very smart critic who exclaimed, “I think you have got something here.”
These trips to interview folks have produced many frantic moments of rethinking my positions, recognizing my biases as an academic, being creatively pushed as a documentary maker, and learning to enjoy the chaos of discovery. In the next week I hope to start posting some video and thoughts about what I learned. That is, after a long, hard sleep.
More soon–
P.S. I adopted a new puppy, cute photos forthcoming…
