"From Used to Abused" - a film by Lucia Grenna and Gil Rossellini http://www.rosselliniweb.com/used_abused.html The subject of this 2002 documentary is the people that have no choice or opportunity - the young women of Albania. In the era of globalization, international law and human rights issues have to be understood and taken seriously by all nation states. While respecting tradition, cultures must adapt to give security and opportunity to all. The development objective of the proposed Italian Consultant Trust Fund activity is to raise awareness in both Albanian and Italian audiences about why woman put themselves at risk undertaking illegal immigration to Italy and what can be done to redress the current situation. For many unsuspecting women, it's about a dream becoming a nightmare, the promise of a good life leading to abuse and degradation. For the nation, it's a state of affairs that cannot be sustained if the region is to achieve stability and economic well being. Contact Information: Rossellini & Associates Via Sistina 23 Roma, Italia Telephone: +39 06 42821416   Fax: +39 06 4203838 Email: info@rosselliniweb.com 360degrees.org http://www.360degrees.org/about/index.html http://www.picture-projects.com/ An initiative of Picture Projects, 360 degrees offers perspectives on the American criminal justice system. Picture Projects was founded by Alison Cornyn and Sue Johnson. Blurring the boundaries between art and documentary, Picture Projects uses new media technology to create new forms of oral history. The projects combine photography, audio and the interactive dialogue capabilities of the Internet to tell stories and document the world in a way that has never been done before. Over the past five years, the founders have collaborated with other artists, writers and photographers such as Susan Meiselas and Gilles Peress, as well as editors from The New York Times and PBS Online to develop award-winning Web sites and interactive exhibitions. Notable Feature(s): The 360degrees Forum for people to share their ideas about the U.S. criminal justice system, debate related topics, and respond to themes raised by the site. Contact Information: Picture Projects 176 Grand Street, Third Floor New York, NY   10013 USA Telephone: 212.226.3099   Fax: 212.226.4922 Email: info@360degrees.org acorn@picture-projects.com Digital Video "Democratizes" TV - by Julie Piotrowski http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/inside/2002/dvdojo.html http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/index.html While working as a producer with CBS News in 1988, Michael Rosenblum felt increasingly distanced from his subjects with "no way to get close to any character and no way to spend time on any story." Union rules prevented him from picking up a camera. So he left CBS, purchased a small video camera and went to the Gaza Strip to live with a family in a Palestinian refugee camp. The intimate access allowed Rosenblum to film some remarkable footage, which The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour purchased for $50,000 when he returned to the states. Rosenblum found himself with a new career, and he set out to teach other journalists how to make television on their own...how to be a video journalist, a VJ. Contact Information: Medill School of Journalism Northwestern University 1845 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL   60208-2101 USA Telephone: 847.467.1882   Fax: D.C. 202.662.1847 Email: Webmaster@medill.nwu.edu Everybody Loves a Good Drought - by P. Sainath http://www.moulinsmedia.com/ Elected an Ashoka Fellow in 1994, P. Sainath is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought, a landmark bestseller that tells the stories of how the poorest people in India live their lives. In the best tradition of responsible journalism, Sainath criss-crosses the country and tells us stories from life in the "other India", the India far removed from beauty contests and cyber cafes. This book is a collection of about 70 articles that had appeared in the Times of India, quite an unprecedented event in the history of the staid Times which is more used to spending acres of paper on the likes of cricket stars and touting the miracles of the "free market" than on real people with real problems. The book, which won 13 awards, including the European Commission's Journalism Award, is a chronicle of the living conditions in the ten poorest districts of India. For two years Sainath lived among these communities. He traveled across India, often on foot, in hill areas, drought-prone areas, and tribal areas to put the issue of poverty back on the national agenda. According to Palagummi Sainath, the shift from hard-hitting, truth-seeking journalism to innocuous, promotional stenography goes hand in hand with the increase of convergence. In this new media world, a wealthy few not only own the press, but also suffocate its freedom by making sure everything printed or broadcast fits with their business interests. Sainath believes the headlock that international media barons have put on the press contributed to the '90s becoming "the time of the most gross social inequality since the Second World War." Referring to India, where the richest five per cent of the country owns the vast majority of the nation's wealth, he said the nation's press shows little concern for the plight of the poor. In the fall of 2001, Sainath took a collection of his photographs back to some of the villages in India he'd visited over the past dozen years. The exhibit, "Visible Work, Invisible Women" was seen by more than 100,000 Indians in little more than two months. Notable Feature(s): Journalism of Just Stenography? - an assessment of Sainath's importance in the media world by Dirk Shouten; A Tribe of His Own - a documentary of Sainath's work as a journalist; brief bio of Sainath; a profile of his Ashoka work. Contact Information: Palagummi Sainath Telephone: 202.955.3400   Email: sainath@ilbom.ernet.in History Is Impatient to Embrace Sept. 11 - by Jonathan Mandell http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt111801mandell.htm This New York Times article profiles some of the projects underway that aim to document, understand, and cope with the 9.11 events and the responses to them. Human Suffering Gets a Witness - by Lakshmi Chaudhry http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35461,00.html http://www.witness.org/home.htm This article describes the work of the human rights organization Witness founded in 1992 by musician Peter Gabriel and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights. The Witness Rights Alert is a collection of streamed video clips that document human rights abuses around the world. Contact Information: Lakshmi Chaudhry Email: lakshmi@wired.com witness@lchr.org Migrations - Photographs by Sebastião Salgado http://www.terra.com.br/sebastiaosalgado/migrations/e/index.html Concerned by the millions of refugees, migrants, displaced persons and those struggling to hold onto the little that they have, Brazilian Sebastião Salgado photographed in 41 countries over 6 1/2 years. Why? "My hope is that, as individuals, as groups, as societies, we can pause and reflect on the human condition at the turn of the millennium," he writes. "In its rawest form, individualism remains a prescription for catastrophe. We have to create a new regimen of coexistence." Notable Feature(s): Interview with Salgado; contact sheet; ways to help . Contact Information: Email: amazonas@worldnet.fr Reality Bytes - by John Plunkett http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4470382,00.html http://tv.oneworld.net/ Serious "reality" addicts can look to OneWorld TV, part of the global nonprofit organisation, One World International, for inspiration in the television broadcast medium. The site features short, Video Nation-style contributions from film-makers, both amateur and professional, from around the world. Subjects range from AIDS and global warming to the conflict in the Middle East and the plight of child gold miners in Burkina Faso. OneWorld TV also allows site visitors to upload their own films to the site, either beginning new strands or adding to other people's stories. All they need is a camcorder and a story to tell. Each "mini-documentary" is linked to a variety of related clips, allowing users to follow the story and the characters they are most interested in from beginning to end. And with a potentially worldwide team of would-be film-makers to draw from, OneWorld is positioning itself as a constantly evolving window on some of the most serious issues facing the world today. "Our aim was to reinvent television for the Web," explains OneWorld International director, Peter Armstrong, who has 20 years' experience of making documentaries for the BBC. "There is no point in trying to broadcast 30-minute documentaries over the Web, and we didn't just want to drop clips into a database, which would have been really boring. Because it's interactive, people can take the story in whichever direction they want, and can even become part of the storytelling process themselves." OneWorld International has the support of more than 1,250 partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the globe. Its backers include Oxfam, Greenpeace, UNICEF, the Rockefeller Foundation, BT and the Guardian. It has 120 staff in 12 national headquarters and aims "to harness the democratic potential of the Internet to promote sustainable development and human rights." Notable Feature(s): The OneWorldTV site that is challenging the shape and content of television, making it an interactive form of communication, an actual discussion. Seeing is Believing - by Dana Hughes http://www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=377 http://www.witness.org/ This Ford Foundation report on the nonprofit group Witness tells about the midmorning sun beating down and the humidity trapping the fumes and exhaust from buses and cars as a group of young Salvadorans set up cameras among the people and pigeons in a public park. As they work, they attract a lot of attention from bystanders, including the police, who don't stop them, but continue to watch with suspicious eyes. Learning how to film that suspicion is the reason the group is there. They are setting up their cameras under the leadership of Sam Gregory, the program coordinator for a group called WITNESS that is providing film training for Entre Amigos ("Between Friends"), an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in El Salvador. The group plans to document the discrimination and abuse its members suffer from authorities as part of a campaign for reforms. Contact Information: WITNESS 353 Broadway New York, NY   10013 USA Telephone: 212.274.1664   Fax: 212.274.1262 Email: witness@witness.org A Film Director in a Campaign for Indonesian Democracy- by David Rohde http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt122800.cfm This December 28, 2000 New York Times article focuses on a portion of work by the Indonesian film director Garin Nugroho who has created a series of television public service advertisements and lobbying for media reforms that he hopes will help to hold together his fracturing nation. By focusing on public service ads, Nugroho is putting a debated medium to one of its greatest challenges: Can the ads, which are dramatic and cinemagraphically gorgeous, help halt the deterioration of Indonesia's civic fabric? He believes that television can become a major factor in building a diverse and stable democracy. The article also traces the development of the advertising medium in fostering social change in the United States (and Europe and developing nations) through the Advertising Council and counterparts, which champion social causes through print, radio, and television media. A Lens on the World: Musician Peter Gabriel Provides Human Rights Activists With Cameras for a Cause - by Ann Hornaday http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/washpost112102.cfm http://www.witness.org/ This Washington Post article details the compelling story of the nonprofit organization Witness and its success around the world in providing video cameras and training to activists, journalists, educators, environmentalists, young people, and others bent on documenting situations the call for relief and social change. Contact Information: WITNESS 353 Broadway New York, NY   10013 U.S.A. Telephone: 212.274.1664   Fax: 212.274.1262 Email: witness@witness.org A Peek Through Blue Collar Lenses - by Anthony DePalma http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nytimes061803.cfm http://www.bread-and-roses.com/ This June 2003 article profiles a project called Unseen America, which lends cameras to people society often overlooks, coaches them in the art of taking pictures that tell stories and then professionally exhibits their photographs in a gallery. Esther Cohen, executive director of Bread and Roses, the cultural arm of 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, started Unseen America in 2000 to shed light on problems in health care, housing, education and employment. "By making the issues of the lives of the working class visible, we can come close to resolving some of those issues," Ms. Cohen said. Through the lenses of about 100 donated point-and-shoot 35-millimeter cameras, people can fill in the blank spots of their lives. Ms. Cohen said that when cameras were given to a group of homeless people, some of them shot houses and apartment buildings "because that is what they never had." And a Chinese garment worker recently explained that taking photographs of her life made her feel "like a frog that jumped out of a well." Another article quotes Cohen who believes that being seen is the prelude to being heard. "When we did this project with building-maintenance workers and mounted exhibits in the buildings where they worked, the maintenance workers assumed another identity," she says. "They became people because they took photographs." But the project is as much about art as it is about politics. "I think the expectation is that working people don't have much relationship to wonderful culture. That's wrong..." Bread and Roses actively strives to depict artistic, cultural and historical themes and issues affecting people from many backgrounds. The New York Times has recognized us as "the most important cultural project in the labor movement". Bread and Roses established the only permanent union exhibition space in the nation, Gallery 1199, at the union's New York City headquarters. Because of its diverse constituency of working people, many of whom are immigrants, Bread and Roses is the national leader for collaborative work, with a union, to bring the arts to an enormous group of people largely not reached by traditional arts institutions and programs. Notable Feature(s): More on Unseen America: Fast Company magazine article Making Unseen America Visible; Bread and Roses; Seeing Unseen America: A focus on workers' creativity sharpens the picture of their lives. Contact Information: Esther Cohen Bread and Roses 330 West 42nd St. New York, NY   10036 USA Telephone: 212.603.1186   Fax: 212.603.1775 Email: estherc@1199.org A Schoolroom Where Life Is the Curriculum - by Leslie Camhi http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nytimes091403.cfm This New York Times article traces the development of the French documentary on a one-room, rural school, "Etre et avoir," or "To Be and to Have," which is something of a departure for the filmmaker Mr. Philibert, 52, who has tended to train his camera on more remote subjects, whether scaling high peaks with a rock climber, or exploring the world of the deaf or the universe of a psychiatric clinic. Yet, he insists, a common thread unites his work. "My films speak recurrently about learning to live together...about respecting the singularity and difference of people who are unlike ourselves. The school in 'To Be and to Have,' and school in general, is the first place where you come out of your shell and start associating with others. It's not just about math and English. It's about learning to live in society." One could say emphatically that the documentary's theme or lesson is about the need for and usefulness of empathy in the world, whether in a teacher's work with young children or, by extension, with adults working with others at work. As expressed in the indieWire article by Howard Feinstein (see below): Upon being asked why his films are all set in institutions, [Philibert] replies, "It's not so much institutions that interest me: It's learning to live together. It's not so easy to learn to respect others and their idiosyncracies." His work reveals a great capacity for empathy and love. The MoMA exhibition could even be entitled "Nicolas Philibert: The Extraordinary Humanist." Notable Feature(s): An indieWire story on the same film and filmmaker. A Sympathetic Lens on Ordinary People - by Julie Salamon http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nytimes061603.cfm Milton Rogovin is 93 years old in 2003. Mr. Rogovin had been an optometrist in Buffalo, when in 1958 he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee and declared "the Top Red in Buffalo" by a local newspaper. His optometry practice fell apart; parents forbade their children to play with his children. As a distraction he began taking photographs in storefront churches whose parishioners were mainly African-American, with a professor friend who was recording music there. When the project was over, Mr. Rogovin kept taking pictures, concentrating on Buffalo's dispossessed. Eventually he expanded his range to poor and working people around the world. Now Mr. Rogovin is rightly regarded as one of this country's most important social-documentary photographers, in the tradition of Walker Evans and Margaret Bourke-White. The most striking aspect of Mr. Rogovin's evocative work is its utter naturalism. While he captured many people in bleak surroundings, his photographs reflect no condescension or pity — or prettification — but rather an appreciation of the lives being shown. "The artistry was the least of my interest. I just saw photographs of people. Ordinary people interested me so much, and I wanted someone to pay attention to them." Adventures in a Book Trade - by Andrew Jacobs http://partners.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002jacobt.html This NY Times book review of Michael Duneier's SIDEWALK with photographs by Ovie Carter tells the story of Manhattan's curbside booksellers, the lives they lead and the services they perform for the health of the city. Notable Feature(s): Online text of SIDEWALK's first chapter. Advocacy video: Producing change - a report by Karen M. Hirsch http://www.benton.org/publibrary/practice/features/advocacyvideo.html This report from the Benton Foundation makes the case strongly for the efficacy of video in effecting real social change. "Advocacy programming is created out of the desire to improve society. It is made to provide housing for the homeless, to protect someone from AIDS, to stop a bulldozer from destroying a forest. A camera can't build a house and a videotape can't stop a chainsaw, but people using video can—and do. Moving pictures convey the reality of social issues like nothing else, and as video technology has become widely available, activists throughout the world have discovered one of their most valuable tools." Notable Feature(s): The report is part of a series called Strategic Communications for Nonprofits. For more information write: The Center for Strategic Communications 72 Spring Street, Suite 208 New York, NY 10012 212.965.0180 E-mail: cscinfo@pipeline.com Valuable directory of advocacy video contacts. Contact Information: Benton Foundation 1625 K Street, NW Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.638.5770   Fax: 202.638.5771 Email: benton@benton.org Afghan Rebels in a Neverland of Sorrow on the Screen - by Leslie Camhi http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt111801.htm The film documentary "Jung: In the Land of the Mujaheddin," made by three Italian filmmakers in Afghanistan, is a searing portrait of the devastation brought on by two decades of armed conflict in a land that until recently most people had forgotten. It is a vision of Afghanistan that the policy analysts and retired generals on news broadcasts cannot begin to offer: a remarkably intimate look at the human costs of war. AFGHANISTAN LOOKS AT ITSELF: A photo essay by Ivan Sigal http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/articles/eav021502.shtml# The Taliban were successful in destroying both access to information and the means to produce it as part of their mechanism of authoritarian rule. As with the destruction of the system of education, as with the banning of many cultural activities, so with media. The Taliban reduced newspapers to a bare minimum of staff and length, junked television, and drastically reduced radio broadcasting. Many broadcasters and journalists fled to neighboring countries, or further abroad, and many will not return. In the wake of the Taliban's departure, Afghanistan has begun once more to look at itself, through lenses of its antiquated TV cameras, through tentative stabs at restarting and rebuilding theatre, through cinema and through photographers wielding homemade portrait cameras on the streets of Kabul. One result, shown here in a dramatic collection of black and white documentary photographs, demonstrates the power of the image to effect social change, to recapture memory, and to protect human culture. At a Festival, Documentaries as History - by Stephen Kinzer http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nytimes041002.cfm This April 2002 New York Times article reports on the cultural role documentarians are assuming of telling people what they want to know about history and society. Camcorders in Activists' Hands: Tools for Change - by Sara Stuart http://www.mediarights.org/news/article.php?art_id=00020 Activists often do not have the resources or the time to produce, edit, and distribute documentaries. However, they continue to use video cameras in their struggles for change. Activists have found that video can influence behavior and keep the opposition on their toes. They want to demonstrate to their adversaries that they can reach a large audience with powerful video images. Video is a potent tool for advancing campaigns and building social movements. This article illustrates how a video camera can be a valuable, non-violent tool. Contact Information: Media Rights 104 W. 14th St., 4th Floor New York, NY   10011 Telephone: 646.230.6288   Crime scene investigator - Mexican photographer Enrique Metinides found humanity in catastrophe http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/guardian072203.cfm This 2003 Guardian newspaper article by Adrian Searle traces the photographic career and content of work that challenges one to understand the world, violence, and every sort of outrage. Notable Feature(s): Online examples of Metinides's work. Dark Days: Nightmare Society of Wrecked Urban Lives by Stephen Holden http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/083000dark-film.html?fl0831 http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/082700homeless-film.html?fl0831 "Most of this unforgettable movie was filmed below the streets of Midtown Manhattan in a dank Amtrak railway tunnel where a colony of around 75 homeless put down roots, some for as long as 25 years, among the rats and the garbage." One distinguishing feature of this film and its potential impact on social change is that the tunnel dwellers themselves served as film crew as well as film subjects. And, as Mr. Singer points out, "Dark Days" manages the tricky feat of humanizing its subjects without overly sentimentalizing them. Notable Feature(s): A companion New York Times article by Peter Applebome, "Home Was a Tunnel and Neighbors Were His Cast," tells more of the actual process of making the film and its lessons about people living on the street. Contact Information: Marc Singer c/o Film Forum 209 West Houston Street South Village New York, NY   10014 USA Telephone: 212.727.8110   Email: filmforum@filmforum.com Fields of Sorrow - A Photographer's Diary - by Peter Turnley http://digitaljournalist.org/issue9904/fields01.htm http://digitaljournalist.org/contents.html The Digital Journalist here presents a gallery of Peter Turnley's photographs from 1999. The first one shows ethnic Albanian citizens of Kosovo walking along the railroad tracks to avoid the landmines planted by the Serbian army. Tens of thousands of refugees were then pouring into Albania and Macedonia, as Serbian forces execute a "scorched-earth policy" in Kosovo. Notable Feature(s): The entire collection of photographs is available on an index page. Contact Information: Dirck Halstead - Editor and Publisher Email: dirck.halstead@pressroom.com Final Reflections on Documenta 11 - by Charles Giuliano http://nyartsmagazine.com/69/documenta.htm Even though this week Platform Five, the hundred day long exhibition component of Okwui Enwezer's vast and ambitious Documenta 11, officially closes in Kassel, Germany, on many critical levels, this marks not the end but rather a transitional moment in what is really an ongoing work in progress. The four Platforms leading up to the exhibition itself- Democracy Unrealized, Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation, Creolite and Creolization, Under Siege: Four African Cities Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos- combined with the exhibition of more than 150 artists and its accompanying 618 page catalogue, represents such a vast amount of information and written and transcribed text, that it may indeed be many years before we fully absorb and utilize all of this vast resource of information. It is ironic that this essay is datelined 9/11. We are discussing documenta just one year after the Attack on America. But Enwezer's project, some five years in production, proved to be amazingly relevant to an art world that has changed dramatically and with great finality from what it was just a year ago. It contained precisely the social, political, environmental and global issues that one found absent from last Spring's irrelevant and insulting Whitney Biennial which propagated the pathetic myth of art world business as usual. Five years ago, Enwezer was hired precisely for the purpose of destroying the old hegemony, to recognize the singular efforts of established American and European artists addressing the relevant issues of our time, and also embracing the visions of the developing world, outsiders of every stripe, and the disenfranchised. A stunning treasure was the work by Ravi Agarwal that narrated the tensions and daily life on the border between India and Pakistan.... Documentary video projects ranged from the horrors of Rawanda, a rare Iranian snowstorm, to a politically complex reaction and official denial, on multiple monitors, of the catastrophic sinking of a vessel with illegal migrants in the Mediterranean. Another highlight involved one of the first, Palestinian, black and white films. It was a work with primitive production values that narrated a drama of migrants attempting to illegally enter Kuwait in the hold of an empty water truck. Because of the glitch the three migrants suffocate and experience a horrific death while crossing the desert. It proved to be a riveting film. Contact Information: Charles Giuliano 82 Webster Street Boston, MA   02128 U.S.A. Email: Charles.Giuliano@verizon.net Friend of the dead - by Peter Lennon, The Guardian http://society.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4418487,00.html This May 2002 article from The Guardian tells the story of a remarkable woman in London who attends to the final stage of life of people who die without family or other support. Her work is the subject of the documentary "Old." From Small Screen to Big Screen: The Roots of a Documentarist - by Howie G. Severino http://www.nfb.ca/documentary/html/en/3.4.1.2e-featured_articles.html This personal account testifies to the power of the documentary form and technical advances to help this journalist move toward becoming a documentary director. He explores how these same changes have also made broadcast video more accessible in general and are democratizing the field. Communities and amateurs can now aspire to document for public consumption vanishing customs, changing ecosystems, endangered species, and even human rights violations. Journalists have been accustomed to feeling that we own this role of documentor and public explainer. Technology is giving many others the power to perform this service. Harlan County, USA - A film by Barbara Kopple http://www.frif.com/cat97/f-j/harlan_c.html http://www.lib.unc.edu/house/nonprint/nationfilm.htm Barbara Kopple's Academy Award-winning documentary chronicles four years in the lives of 180 coal-mining families struggling to win a United Mine Workers contract at the Brookside mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. The groundbreaking film illustrates the strength of those families during their confrontations with strikebreakers and police, and concentrates on the growing political awareness of the women, many of whom become active and militant for the first time in their lives. Contact Information: First Run/Icarus Films 153 Waverly Place New York, NY   10014 USA Telephone: 212.727.1711   Fax: 212.989.7649 Email: info@frif.com Home Was a Tunnel and Neighbors Were His Cast - by Peter Applebone http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/082700homeless-film.html?fl0831 This New York Times article traces the development of a remarkable film. One October evening in 1994, a scruffy pod of homeless people sitting around a fire in the dank, dark Amtrak tunnel they lived in beneath Manhattan heard a thin, animated man named Ralph come up with an idea. "Someone should be making a film about this stuff," he said. The others nodded or laughed or agreed or shook their heads at the absurdity of the thought, and the conversation moved on. Honoring News Photos as Picture-Taking Evolves - by Douglas Heingartner http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt050305.html http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/ This New York Times account of the 2004 awards from World Press Photo, a nonprofit organization based in Amsterdam, that sponsors what has become photojournalism's premier event. Arko Datta's photo of a woman grieving for a relative killed by the tsunami was named Photo of the Year. The article assesses the popularity and power of still photos that capture socially relevant news and situations. Notable Feature(s): World Press Photo aims to encourage high professional standards in photojournalism and to promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information. To this end Photo supports professional press photography on a wide international scale. Promotional activities include an annual contest, exhibitions, the stimulation of photojournalism through educational programs, and creating greater visibility for press photography through a variety of publications. The prize-winning photographs each year are assembled into a traveling exhibition that is visited by over a million people in 40 countries. A yearbook presenting all prizewinning entries is published annually in six languages. Indigenous Filmmakers Give Glimpse into Their World http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ipsnews.net%2Finterna.asp%3Fidnews%3D28356 An April 2005 report on the Anaconda Awards for videos made in South America's tropical rainforests. Notable Feature(s): Grand Prize winner "The Search for Blue" by Peruvian director Fernando Valdivia; Native Networks information on film festivals. INTERVIEW: Films Without Borders: Abbas Kiarostami Talks About "ABC Africa" and Poetic Cinema - by Scott Foundas http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Kiarostami_Abb_020507.html "ABC Africa" is among Kiarostami's greatest works. Documentaries can serve many purposes: to inform, educate, shock and inspire. But Kiarostami manages to accomplish all of those functions at the same time that he transcends them. Though it is his first overtly "international" production (and his first fully non-fiction work in over a decade), "ABC Africa" is essentially, like all of Kiarostami's films, a breaking-away from specific national and cultural orientations to speak in a more universal tongue: a film without borders. Morever, according to Kiarostami, "this digital camera makes it possible for everybody to pick it up, like a pen. If you have the right vision, and you think you're an instinctive filmmaker, there's no hindrance anymore. You just pick it up, like a pen, and work with it. I predict that, in the next century, there will be an explosion of interest in filmmaking, and that will be the impact of the digital camera." Contact Information: indieWIRE 304 Hudson Street, 6th floor New York, NY   10013 USA Telephone: 212.463.8724   Fax: 212.463.8376 Email: indiewire@indiewire.com Kids, Snapping To Attention - Wendy Ewald Puts Cameras in Their Hands and a Spark in Their Lives - by Jo Ann Lewis http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/washpost020302.cfm This Washington Post article reports on a museum exhibition tracing the work of Wendy Ewald. More about life than art, this retrospective surveys the career of a pioneering documentary photographer who gave cameras to small groups of disadvantaged children in the United States and developing nations to learn what they were thinking and to encourage them to express themselves. She taught them to look at their own lives, their families, their communities, and to write about and photograph them. She also encouraged them to tap into their dreams and fantasies, and in dirt-poor places like Appalachia and Chiapas, Mexico, she struck creative gold. Making Video with Brazilian Indians - by Patricia Aufderheide http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/auf1.shtml Video is a highly prized tool for cultural renewal and communication among Brazil's indigenous groups. About 250,000 Indians — 0.2 percent of Brazil's population — live dispersed among 200 societies, in which 170 languages are represented. They are scattered across vast regions of a country the size of the continental United States. The Video in the Villages project of the Centro de Trabalho Indigenista (CTI) is the major organization working with Brazilian Indians to register their image and culture on videotape. Because the project both makes videotapes and provides technical assistance to Indians to make their own, the work demonstrates the different challenges of making video about and with indigenous peoples who see an instrumental and political utility in it. They are not ethnographic videos, either. Although anthropologists have an active role in working with Indians who document their experience on video, there is no pretense of ethnographic or social scientific method. These videos have an activist, political rationale, and a familiar, didactic documentary format. They are intended to explain to as large as possible, often non-Indian audiences why video is a useful tool for Indian cultural survival. Why should indigenous groups use video at all? The equipment is expensive and subject to breakage, it requires bulky monitors to be seen, and the tapes easily break or decay. Vincent Carelli argues that the costs involved are far outweighed by the gains, which he measures by the group's ability to define and defend itself culturally and politically before the national society. He argues that seeing both oneself and related groups' culture on video has a power unique to the form and only recently accessible in terms of technology. For Carelli, video's utility is measured against only one standard: whether it becomes part of the process of cultural survival. For him this is "the process of realizing the projects of the leadership for the survival of the groups, control of their territory; the process of affirmation, so young people can resolve the question of identity in a satisfactory, integrated way; the process of getting territory demarcated [legally recognizing Indian land rights]." Nonviolence for a Change What is nonviolence? How do we measure effectiveness? What is democracy? Is property damage violent? Should all direct action be nonviolent? This 25-minute video addresses these questions in an energetic and accessible manner. As images of violent protest distract attention from the reasons for protest, it is all the more important for people to consider how they confront authority. This video looks at three campaigners, from very different backgrounds and with different experiences, exploring their visions of nonviolence: Alison Matthias recently graduated and now works for the campaigning organisation People and Planet. She has been put off large-scale demonstrations by the images of violence that she has seen in the media. Martin Shaw is a full time activist involved in a wide range of social change issues. He helped to organise the protest against the World Bank and the IMF in Prague. He doubts the effectiveness of violent protests in the long term. Ellen Moxley is a peace campaigner. She was part of the Trident Ploughshares action that openly caused £80,000 of damage to the nuclear missile programme. After five months in prison she was found not guilty. The video was produced by JustUs Productions on behalf of the Turning The Tide Programme of Quaker Peace and Social Witness. Its production has been financially supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Cyril Cordon Trust, 1970 Trust and others. Contact Information: JustUs Productions Friends Meeting House St Giles Oxford, OX1 3LW U.K. Telephone: +44 207 663 1064   Email: kiris@quaker.org.uk justus@gn.apc.org Real World Or 'Reality' Shows? - by Pat Mitchell http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/washpost10.16.01.cfm This October 2001 Washington Post article addresses the need for documentary perspective on issues of critical importance to peace and understanding. Just as the line between entertainment and news has been blurred, the past month has proven that there is no longer a clear dividing line between international and domestic issues. In this increasingly interdependent world, our fate as a nation will depend to a larger extent than ever before on our interaction with the rest of the world. We will not succeed without citizens who care about, know about and understand what is going on beyond our borders. That's where the media have a role to play, a big role. Telling Living Stories - A conversation with producer Jonathan Stack - by John Frankfurt http://www.capturemag.com/preview/index.cgi?content=stack In 1991, Jonathan Stack, an independent documentary film producer, began his own production company called Gabriel Films to specialize in social issue storytelling. Located in New York City, Gabriel Films specializes in documentary and educational programs with a political edge. Stack has managed to make this a lucrative affair. Since the start of his company, he has produced or co-produced 15 documentary and educational films and series that have been broadcast on PBS, A&E, Discovery Channel, Channel Four, and the BBC, not to mention Swedish, Australian, French, and German television. Notable Feature(s): Descriptions of Gabriel Films' projects, including notably, the 1998 award-winning film The Farm on prison life in Angola, the official state penitentiary in Louisiana; excellent research links re prison reform and alternatives. Contact Information: Jonathan Stack Gabriel Films 457 Washington 2nd Flr. New York, New York   10013 USA Telephone: 212.941.6200   Fax: 212.941.6203 Email: ava@gabrielfilms.com The beauty of the disregarded: an exhibition of documentary photography - by Suzie Mackenzie http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/guardianmay2003photography.cfm The Americans may not have invented photography; that honour went to the Europeans - to Joseph-Nicéphore Niepce in France, developed there by Louis Daguerre, and to William Henry Fox Talbot in England. But, as a major new exhibition, Cruel And Tender, at Tate Modern makes evident, for the large part of the 20th century, and particularly in the field of "documentary style" or "descriptive" photography, America - busily reinventing itself at the century's start - made the art peculiarly its own. The title for the exhibition comes from the critic Lincoln Kirstein's description of the influential realist photographer Walker Evans's style as "tender cruelty", an attempt to define Evans's apparently paradoxical relation to his subject - analytic yet involved, unemotional but still engaged. All photography is out to catch the identity of its subject, and in the 1930s America became Evans's subject, but an America not photographed, not seen before, with such a dispassionate eye. The Feel-Good Feel-Bad Movie - by A.O. Scott http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt032705.htm In this March 2005 New York Times article, A.O. Scott "raises some of the central ethical issues of documentary filmmaking, and indeed of any creative undertaking that seeks to confront large-scale human misery, environmental blight and the other catastrophes of our age. Is there, along with the obligation to tell the truth, an imperative to dispense hope or reassurance, or to angle the presentation of problems toward the discovery of solutions?" The First Year - Directed by Davis Guggenheim http://www.pbs.org/firstyear/ The First Year is an emotional journey of five beginning teachers in the Los Angeles public school system. The camera goes inside the classroom and uncovers the passion, frustration, determination and triumphs of America's real heroes - our teachers. This site was developed to provide support, resources and guidance for aspiring teachers. The first year teachers featured in the film share insights about their journey in their own words. Notable Feature(s): Resources; guidance on being a teacher; Outreach: How can a documentary film help inspire teachers? Contact Information: Jeffrey Eagle, Outreach Coordinator Teachers Documentary Project Telephone: 310.572.1332   Email: teachoutreach@aol.com The Witness - Jed Perl http://www.tnr.com/artnotes/perl071701.html http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,41344,00.html This July 2001 article in The New Republic discusses the documentary work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado in his examination of the migrations of marginalized and displaced persons over the past seven years in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas: "What makes Salgado unusual is that he gives us so much, not just the wars and the torn-apart communities, but also a sense that life is, however tenuously, sustained." The "Migrations" collection provides a portrait of what Salgado calls "the reorganization of the human family." Notable Feature(s): Time.com photo essay by Richard Lacayo on Salgado's work: "Outcast -- Displaced People of the World." Using Grassroots Documentary Films for Political Change: Outreach Tips for Nonprofits and Activist Organizations - by David Whiteman http://www.mediarights.org/news/article.php?art_id=00012 David Whiteman teaches political science and film studies at the University of South Carolina. His primary interest is the role of activist organizations in the planning, production, and distribution of film and video, and he is currently engaged in a research project funded by the MacArthur Foundation on the political impact of documentary film. Contact Information: David Whiteman University of South Carolina Department of Government and International Studies Columbia, SC   29208 USA Email: whiteman@sc.edu Video Activism: Those With Eyes Shall See: The Satya Interview with Ronit Avni http://www.satyamag.com/aug02/avni.html An interview with Ronit Avni, a program associate of Witness, a human rights organization that helps activists document the abuses they witness with video cameras. Catherine Clyne conducted the interview in August, 2002. Notable Feature(s): Satya, an alternative news and opinion publication focused on social justice, the environment, vegetarianism, and animal advocacy. Contact Information: Satya 539 1st Street Brooklyn, NY   11215 USA Telephone: 718.832.9557   Fax: 718.832.9558 Email: satya@satyamag.com Where Violence Reigned, Camera Has Compassion - by JUAN FORERO http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nytimes041905.htm This New York Times article about the documentary "La Sierra" featuring paramilitaries in Colombia "...shows that people here can dream, that they can love, that they can feel, that they are like any other person," said Yasmin Garcia, 18, who had a son with Mr. Florez. "Just because they have guns doesn't mean they are just evil." The Rev. Jaime Bravo, the Catholic priest in the village, said that he hoped the film would "show how this society is and hopefully touch the hearts of those in power so they do something about this." "Our problem," he said, "is that poverty does not have a voice." This documentary gives it one. Why Fund Media - by Karen Hirsch http://www.fundfilm.org/for_grant/for_grant_article1.htm http://www.cof.org/ From the Council on Foundations comes this ground-breaking report on the potential social change impact of activist video, documentary radio, and documentary outreach associated with such enterprises. There is little doubt that media—film, television, radio and the Internet—are the central communication tools of our time. An average American adult views nearly sixty films a year, listens to the radio sixty hours per month, spends roughly ten hours a week on the Web, and watches television more than four hours a day. Combined that comes to about four full months a year. Yet despite the degree to which media shapes our daily lives, culture, politics and society, most foundations do not fund it. Why? After all, the business of disseminating ideas is essential to the philanthropic community, and every foundation has communication goals. The report includes seven case studies of effective programs told from dual perspectives: foundations supporting the work and the mediamakers behind the vision. Contact Information: Council on Foundations 1828 L Street, NW Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202.466.6512   Email: webmaster@cof.org A Way of Seeing - The Work of Robert Coles: A Bibliographic Essay by Scott London http://www.scottlondon.com/articles/coles.html Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist, professor at Harvard University, and author of more than fifty books. He is best known for his explorations of children's lives and books that explore their moral, political, and spiritual sensibilities. He is also known as an eloquent spokesman for voluntary and community service. Coles describes himself variously as a doctor, child psychiatrist, oral historian, social anthropologist, teacher, friend, storyteller, busybody, and nuisance. Interviewers, journalists, and reviewers often seize on the apparent contradictions -- he is a physician without a conventional practice who teaches college literature; a psychiatrist who rejects much of the language of his field; and a Harvard academic who spends much of his time volunteering in ghetto schools.... Coles refers to the method behind his explorations of children's lives as "documentary child psychiatry." Across Borders Media http://www.acrossborders.com Across Borders Media is an organization of digital production pioneers, with over a quarter century of experience in all facets of electronic media. The company produces television programs, promotional and educational videos aimed at making a difference in the world. Entertainment is a crucial part of the group's unfolding mission. When something is entertaining, it doesn't mean it's a waste of time. On the contrary, it means the viewer is fully engaged. And the more viewers are engaged with a story, the more they open their minds to what it has to offer. Across Borders Media believes that television, when used to its potential, can be a trigger for social, environmental, and corporate change. Notable Feature(s): Excellent collection of links. Contact Information: Bill Weaver, President Across Borders Media 301-2250 Oak Bay Avenue Victoria, British Columbia Canada V8R 1G5 Telephone: 250.386.3182   Fax: 250.386.3183 Email: info@acrossborders.com Active Voice (AV) http://www.activevoice.net/index.html Active Voice is a team of strategic communication specialists who put powerful media to work for personal and institutional change in communities, workplaces, and campuses across America. Through its practical guides, hands-on workshops, stimulating events and key partnerships nationwide, Active Voice moves people from thought to action. By highlighting compelling personal stories and perspectives seldom found in mainstream media, AV offers a much-needed outlet to people across America to speak out, listen up, and take the initiative for positive change. The seeds of Active Voice (AV) were planted at P.O.V., PBS's ongoing series of independent "point-of-view" nonfiction films. In 1993 then P.O.V. Executive Producer Ellen Schneider developed a model for leveraging the powerful human dimension of these award-winning films. Over the next four years, with support from Ford Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, she joined forces with media strategists, diversity trainers and facilitators to refine a sustainable model for linking social issue documentaries with community and national organizations. This team launched the Television Race Initiative (TRI), which used programs about race, culture and identity as a framework for community problem solving around issues of domestic race relations. TRI evolved into Active Voice in 2001. A full-service organization, AV maintains close ties with P.O.V. and other PBS programs, while expanding into additional venues, such as cable, theatrical releases and non-broadcast distribution. Notable Feature(s): Recent AV projects include projects about immigration, criminal justice, sustainable development, health policy and other subjects; publications: video modules, Web content, film discussion guides, educational toolkits, and other resources to transform concerned citizens into active ones. Contact Information: Ellen Schneider 2601 Mariposa Street 3rd floor San Francisco, CA   94110 U.S.A. Telephone: 415.553.2841   Fax: 415.553.2848 Email: info@activevoice.net Aerial Productions http://www.aerial-productions.com/ Aerial Productions was founded by filmmaker Gayle Ferraro in 1997. Since its inception the company has sought to bring personal accounts of extraordinary stories to the film circuit and to develop a unique distribution process that creates a forum for community involvement. Gayle Ferraro is the filmmakers and founder of Aerial Productions. Ferraro finished filming her third documentary, "GANGES: River to Heaven," in the winter of 2003. Shot in Varanasi, India, on the Ganges, the film examines how the city, its hospices, burning grounds, and river make up the holiest way of life through death. In 2002, Ferraro completed "Anonymously Yours," her second film. She and her small crew traveled to Myanmar (formerly Burma) to delve into the uncharted world of sex trafficking in the region. The dangerous endeavor has resulted in the unprecedented access of documentary film views into the personal stories of young prostitutes. Ferraro’s first film, "Sixteen Decisions" (released in 2000) focuses on the courageous efforts of impoverished Bangladeshi women endeavoring to overcome poverty through microentrerprise. The debut film garnered critical praise and attention and it continues to build an audience. Contact Information: Colleen Barry, Director of Distribution Aerial Productions U.S.A. Telephone: 617.492.4222   Fax: 617.492.2113 Email: info@aerial-productions.com akaKurdistan http://www.akakurdistan.com/ With no central library, historical archive, or place for safekeeping, thousands of images documenting the history of Kurdistan have been lost. This Web site offers the possibility of reclaiming at least some of that cultural heritage. In addition, it provides community-building opportunities for site visitors to submit photos and tell stories, all contributing to the rich collective memory. Notable Feature(s): Information on Susan Meiselas's bookKurdistan - In the Shadow of History; more about Magnum photographer Meiselas, including a bio. Contact Information: Susan Meiselas Email: susan@akaKURDISTAN.com Alter-Ciné Foundation http://www.sextans.com/altercine/index2.html The Alter-Ciné Foundation was created in the memory of Canadian filmmaker, Yvan Patry, who passed away on October 14, 1999. Patry was a cofounder of the production company Alter Ciné and directed numerous documentaries and current affairs programs in Africa, Latin America and Asia: "...documentaries should go against the tide," he said, "they should bear witness and spur us to action." Patry’s documentaries have contributed to tearing down walls of silence, denouncing injustice and barbarism, and giving voice to victims of horror. The Alter-Ciné Foundation is inspired by this ethics. The foundation offers a yearly grant to young film and videomakers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to enable them to study or complete training in cinema, or to direct a documentary film on the theme of rights and freedoms, including social and economic rights, women’s rights, the right to culture and artistic creation. The foundation particularly supports documentary films that dare to go against the tide, that take the side of the defenceless and question common assumptions by giving a voice to the voiceless, enriching our understanding of the world and helping us reflect on the possibility of changing the world from a perspective of peace, justice, equality and respect for differences. Notable Feature(s): Information on the documentary production grants. Contact Information: Alter-Ciné Foundation 5371 avenue de l'Esplanade Montréal (Québec   H2T 2Z8 Canada Telephone: 514.273.7136   Fax: 514.273.8280 Email: altercine@ca.tc Alter-Cine Foundation http://www.sextans.com/altercine/index2.html The Alter-Cine Foundation was created in the memory of Canadian filmmaker, Yvan Patry, who passed away on October 14, 1999. Patry was a cofounder of the production company Alter Ciné and directed numerous documentaries and current affairs programs in Africa, Latin America and Asia: "...documentaries should go against the tide," he said, "they should bear witness and spur us to action." Patry’s documentaries have contributed to tearing down walls of silence, denouncing injustice and barbarism, and giving voice to victims of horror. The Alter-Cine Foundation is inspired by this ethics. The foundation offers a yearly grant to young film and video makers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to enable them to study or complete training in cinema, or to direct a documentary film on the theme of rights and freedoms, including social and economic rights, women’s rights, the right to culture and artistic creation. The foundation particularly supports documentary films that dare to go against the tide, that take the side of the defenceless and question common assumptions by giving a voice to the voiceless, enriching our understanding of the world and helping us reflect on the possibility of changing the world from a perspective of peace, justice, equality and respect for differences. Notable Feature(s): Information on the documentary production grants. Contact Information: Alter-Cine Foundation 5371 avenue de l’Esplanade Montreal (Quebec)   H2T 2Z8 Canada Telephone: 514.273.7136   Fax: 514.273.8280 Email: altercine@ca.tc American Memory - historical collections from the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections, including the iconic photographs of the rural and urban poor by Lange, Shahn, Rothstein, Wolcott, Evans, Delano, and others produced for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) - Office of Information - of the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the 1930s and 40s under the direction of Roy Stryker. Notable Feature(s): Access to LOC's Global Gateway to world culture and resources. Contact Information: The Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave, SE Washington, DC   20540 USA Telephone: 202.707.5000   American Radioworks (AWR) http://www.americanradioworks.org/ http://www.mpr.org/ AWR is the national documentary journalism on the radio and the Internet. ARW is public radio's largest documentary production unit; it creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports for the public radio system and the Internet. ARW is based at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul with staff journalists in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, C.A., and Durham, N.C. Extensive online documentaries accompany all ARW radio projects, providing background, original photography, interactive elements and streaming audio of the radio documentaries. AWR documentaries report on wide range of international and domestic issues, including international human rights, science and health, race relations, and American history and culture. Notable Feature(s): Documentaries index. Contact Information: Minnesota Public Radio 45 East Seventh Street St. Paul, MN   55101 USA Telephone: 651.290.1212   Email: mail@americanradioworks.org American RadioWorks - the Documentary Project of Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News http://www.americanradioworks.org/ AMERICAN RADIOWORKS® is the documentary project of Minnesota Public Radio and NPR NewsSM. ARW is public radio's largest documentary production unit; it creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports for the public radio system and the Internet. ARW is based at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul and also has staff journalists based in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, C.A., and Durham, N.C. ARW produces documentaries and series projects for news magazines on National Public Radio, including All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Extensive online documentaries accompany all ARW radio projects, providing background, original photography, interactive elements and streaming audio of the radio documentaries. ARW represents a sustained effort at explanatory and investigative journalism. Principal themes include: Public affairs documentaries on major social and economic issues Investigative reporting Documentaries that explore significant social and cultural subjects through stories with strong narrative threads "Living History," an ongoing effort to document the 20th century American experience through the lives of those who witnessed it. Notable Feature(s): Documentaries Index of works on America, health, history, justice, and the world: human rights, corporate concerns, cultural artifacts, racial division, HIV/AIDS, nonprofit organizations, prison diaries, animal welfare, and more. Contact Information: Stephen Smith, Managing Editor Minnesota Public Radio 45 East 7th Street St. Paul, MN   55101 USA Telephone: 651.290.1212   Fax: 651.290.1224 Email: ssmith@mpr.org Anand Patwardhan http://www.patwardhan.com/ Anand Patwardhan, has been making political documentaries for nearly three decades pursuing diverse and controversial issues that are at the crux of social and political life in India. Many of his films were at one time or another banned by state television channels in India and became the subject of litigation by Patwardhan who successfully challenged the censorship rulings in court. Patwardhan received a B.A. in English Literature from Bombay University in 1970 and earned a Master's degree in Communications from McGill University in 1982. Patwardhan has been an activist ever since he was a student, having participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement; being a volunteer in Caesar Chavez United Farm Worker's Union; working in Kishore Bharati, a rural development and education project in central India; and participating in the Bihar anticorruption movement in 1974-75 and in the civil liberties and democratic rights movement during and after the 1975-77 Emergency. Since then, he has been active in movements for housing rights of the urban poor, for communal harmony, the environment, and movements against the Narmada Dam, against unjust, unsustainable development, and against nuclear testing in South Asia. His most recent work, filmed over three tumultuous years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the United States, is WAR & PEACE, an epic documentary journey of peace activism in the face of global militarism and war. Notable Feature(s): Anand Patwardhan's Keynote Address to the 2004 AFI/SilverDocs Documentary Film Festival; Netting the Conscience, an article on "Fishing in the Sea of Greed," a documentary that spans several years in the life of the South Asian fisher-peoples movement of protest, and traces the story from coast to coast, dwelling on the courageous battles that dispossessed and marginalised communities have fought against the State and private enterprise, in western India, South India, and Bangladesh; Storming the Reality Asylum, an overview of Patwardhan's career by John Akomfrah. Contact Information: First Run/Icarus Films 32 Court Street, 21st Floor Brooklyn, NY   11201 U.S.A. Telephone: 718.488.8900   Fax: 718.488.8642 Email: anandpat@vsnl.com Arthur Dong http://www.deepfocusproductions.com. Arthur Dong has launched an online study guide in conjunction with his award-winning documentary "Licensed to Kill," a look at anti-gay crimes in America. The guide, which he developed with a group of university scholars, is designed for use in a variety of contexts such as community organizing, diversity training sessions, and relevant academic courses. The guide explores the themes raised in the film, including religion, heterosexism, youth and the police; profiles the seven criminals featured in the film; and includes a resource area of community groups and links. Audience Engagement - Outreach Stategies http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/res_audience.html http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/index.html From the Center for Social Media, a collection of articles, books, case studies, and links for community outreach to improve the impact of documentary and other media aimed at social change. Contact Information: Center for Social Media School of Communication American University4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, D.C.   20016-8080 U.S.A. Telephone: 202.885.3107   Fax: 202.885.1309 Email: socialmedia@american.edu Best Documentary http://www.ifilm.com/ioma/category/1,3244,11,00.html? Award-winning online movies for best documentary on various subjects of social concern. Contact Information: IFILM 1024 N. Orange Drive Hollywood, CA   90038 Telephone: 323.308.3456   Email: info@ifilm.com Big Mouth Productions, Inc. http://www.bigmouthproductions.com/ http://www.mediarights.org/ Big Mouth Productions was founded in 1997 by Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur to produce provocative and engaging social-issue documentaries and to provide production services for U.S. and international clients. Since its inception, Big Mouth has produced five feature-length documentaries that cover topics ranging from the criminal justice system to alternative healing, and has worked with numerous clients in the production of film and video work. Big Mouth Productions believes that broadcast and film festival screenings are just the beginning of a film's life. The firm is committed to educational and grassroots distribution in addition to television broadcast and theatrical release. Its films are distributed by New Day Films, Filmaker's Library, California Newsreel and Wellspring Media. Additionally, we organize outreach campaigns to ensure that our videos Big Mouth Productions are seen by the people and communities that they are meant to reach. Recognizing the need for a space where filmmakers and organizers can share information about their work, the founders of Big Mouth Productions launched MediaRights.org in July 2000. MediaRights.org is a nonprofit organization and Web site dedicated to fostering greater awareness of social-issue documentaries, advocacy videos, and the work of activist organizations around the United States. Notable Feature(s): Profiles of finished work and documentaries in production, including Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Journey to the West, and Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America. Contact Information: Big Mouth Productions, Inc. 104 West 14th Street 4th Fl. New York, NY   10011 USA Telephone: 646.230.6228   Fax: 646.230.6388 Email: info@bigmouthproductions.com Book Wars - a documentary by Jason Rosette http://www.camerado.com/reader.html Leading up to the political by beginning with the personal, Jason Rosette chronicles the experiences of used-book sellers on the streets of Manhattan. With more candor than confession, he explains in poetic voice-over that isn't just an affectation how he went from NYU student to bookseller to filmmaker and presents compassionate but unsentimental portraits of his colleagues, who also speak eloquently for themselves. The largely chronological documentary ranges through the 90s, ultimately showing the effects of Mayor Giuliani's "quality of life" campaign on book vending and on the filmmaker. Rosette's humility and vision make the idea that there's something noble about selling used literature to pedestrians both persuasive and inspiring: it provides a public service and lets the provider earn money without becoming enslaved by capitalism. Contact Information: CAMERADO Attn: Jason Rosette 51 MacDougal Street #129 New York, NY   10012 USA Email: camerado@camerado Bringing E-Solutions to India http://www.icommag.com/april-page-18.html http://www.crews-control.com/ Bridging the technological divide among remote rural areas and major metropolitan meccas is a challenge that hasn't escaped the high-tech wizards at Hewlett-Packard (HP). Information gaps in weather reports and crop pricing, for example, keep farmers in these far-flung agricultural areas, such as Kuppam, India, out of the world trade loop. Creating an i-Community in these areas is the goal of HP, in the effort to elevate their standard of living in a fair market environment. Contact Information: Andrea Keating, CEO Crews Control Suite 120 12510 Prosperity Drive Silver Spring, MD   20904 USA Telephone: 301.625.3200   Fax: 301.625.2588 Email: info@crews-control.com Bullfrog Films http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/ Over the last 28 years, Bullfrog Films has become the leading US publisher of independently-produced, environmental videos, that point the way to living healthily, happily, and with greater concern for the other inhabitants of this planet, and for its descendants. Bullfrog Films is the oldest and largest publisher of videos and films about the environment in the United States. Founded in 1973 it has been honored with a retrospective screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and with a special award from Medikinale International in Parma, Italy. Bullfrog Films defines "environment" broadly and its collection includes programs on ecology, energy, agriculture, genetics, marine biology, sustainable development, community regeneration, economics, ethics, and conflict resolution. Styles range from animation to drama and from personal essay to investigative documentary. There are programs suitable for all ages from pre-kindergarten through adult. Notable Feature(s): On-line catalog for searching for more than 500 titles in over 15 subject areas on the environment, globalization, earth science, indigenous peoples, human rights, the developing world, biotechnology, women's studies and the performing arts; Activists' Page of resources about social justice, including the important film, Another World is Possible, which introduces the goals and opportunities provided by the World Social Forum, and specifically those presented at the forum held in January, 2002, in Sao Paolo, at which 51,000 people gathered to discuss what is wrong with the world and how to change it. Contact Information: Bullfrog Films 372 Dautrich Road Reading, PA   19606 USA Telephone: 610.779.8226   Fax: 610.370.1978 Email: video@bullfrogfilms.com Burmaissues.org http://www.burmaissues.org/En/Home.php Burma Issues, a project of the Peace Way Foundation, was established in Thailand in 1990 to focus on the Burmese people's suffering and dissatisfaction under Burma's present military regime. Since 2002, the parent organization has operated as a nonprofit devoted to its nonpartisan vision of nonviolent resistance and of popular participation in Burma by advocating genuine respect for international human rights standards on all sides of Burma's conflicts, and by encouraging and supporting a nonviolent grassroots movement for human rights and social justice within Burma. The aim of the organization is to participate in building up a movement of the marginalized people that is capable of carrying out the long-term struggle necessary to bring a true and lasting peace with justice to Burma. To realize these aims the organization has defined and developed its activities according to three basic categories: Grassroots organizing : Mobilizing under-represented people to develop the courage and confidence they need to express their concerns and ideas, and to participate effectively in the decision-making processes, which affect their lives. Information for action : Supporting activities inside and outside Burma by supplying and helping to develop information, especially as it relates to oppression, human rights and peace. Campaigns for peace : Advocating, publicizing and participating in international dialogue and actions concerning human rights and peace in Burma. Notable Feature(s): Publications; Multimedia; Links. Contact Information: The Peace Way Foundation 1/11 Soi Piphat 2 Convent Road, Silom Bangkok 10500 Thailand Telephone: 66 (0)2 234 6674   Fax: 66 (0)2 631 0133 Email: durham@mozart.inet.co.th California Newsreel http://www.newsreel.org/ California Newsreel is the site for educational videos on African American life and history, race relations and diversity training, African cinema, Media and Society, labor studies, campus life and much more. Founded in 1968, California Newsreel is the oldest and most notable non-profit documentary production and distribution center in the nation. Newsreel has played a leading role in placing culturally diverse, intellectually demanding film and video in colleges, schools, and public libraries across the United States. Notable Feature(s): On-line facilitator guides and transcripts for use when viewing films and videos; links to other organizations and resources; articles. Contact Information: California Newsreel 149 Ninth St. San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Telephone: 415.621.6196   Fax: 415.621.6522 Email: contact@newsreel.org Cause & Effect Cause & Effect is a half-hour, weekly, prime-time, documentary television series featuring high-profile celebrity guests and behind-the-scenes heroes telling the story of how their "Cause" is making a positive "Effect" in the world. Cause & Effect's audience makes the world a better place by simply watching the show. C&E will donate 10% of each episode's licensing fee to the Cause. A big star pulls in a large audience, which leads to higher ad rates, leading to higher licensing fees, and thus a larger donation to each cause. Notable Feature(s): Forthcoming: chat rooms, volunteer opportunities, Cause-related merchandise, interactive quizzes, prizes, scholarships, archived interviews and Cause updates. Contact Information: Cause & Effect Whitney Springer Productions 5254 Melrose Avenue Design Building - Suite 105 Los Angeles, CA   90038-3145 USA Telephone: 323.960.4019   Fax: 323.960.4073 Email: WSP1@concentric.net Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) http://cds.aas.duke.edu/ The Center for Documentary Studies, founded in 1989 at Duke University, stands at a crossroads where the university meets the larger community. The Center is dedicated to a new vision of documentary work, one that connects the documentary process to education and community building. Duke University's CDS is a resource center for documentary education at all levels using photography, oral history, and written narrative. The site offers curriculum ideas and projects for literacy through photography. CDS sponsors the Bridges Programs to connect diverse peoples and communities through photography, creative writing, oral history, narrative, biography, and video as tools for education and community building. Contact Information: Center for Documentary Studies 1317 W. Pettigrew St. Durham, NC   27705 USA Telephone: 919.660.3663   Fax: 919.681.7600 Email: wtower@acpub.duke.edu Centro de Mujeres Comunicadoras Mayas http://www.interconnection.org/cmcm/ El Centro de Mujeres Comunicadoras Mayas es una organización no lucrativa. Sus actividades serán determinadas por mujeres indigenas que participen, y coordinadas por un comité directivo. El C.M.C.M. funciona como centro para mujeres unir y comunicarse, primero para proponer nuestras definiciones y clarificar propositos. Segundo, desarollamos habilidades en la tecnología de las comunicaciones para facilitar la mejor representación en el mundo de los medios de comunicación. Como herramientas, video y fotografía serán utilizados para investigación y reflexión. Los grupos de trabajo contarán con fotografía, video, uso de computadora e internet. The Center for Mayan Women Communicators is a non-profit organization. Its activities are determined by the indigenous women who participate and coordinated by a directive committee. The CMCM functions primarily as a center for women to unite and communicate, first among themselves for purposes of self-definition and clarity of purpose, and secondly, to develop skills in communications technology to enable better representation in the world and in the media. Video and photography are often used as tools for research, reflection and organization. Workshops are offered in skills of video, photography, computer use and Internet communication. Notable Feature(s): Classes: make a documentary with a Mayan co-producer... 3 week experience; producir un documentale con coproductora Maya.... experiencia de 3 semanas. Contact Information: Centro de Mujeres Comunicadoras Mayas Lago Atitlan, Sololá Guatemala Email: cmcm@rds.org.gt Chiapas Media Project (CMP) http://www.chiapasmediaproject.org/ http://www.chiapasmediaproject.org/html/projects.html The Chiapas Media Project (CMP) began in 1997 with a series of consultations with indigenous community leaders throughout the state of Chiapas, Mexico. At each of these meetings, the leadership explained the importance of information in their struggles for human rights, democracy, land reform, and respect for indigenous rights. The Chiapas region, located near the southern border of Mexico, is mostly an area of subsistence farming with a large native population. It has been the stage of armed conflict between guerillas and the government and indigenous rights have been at the center of these conflicts. During the planning stage the community leaders emphasized their desire to document their struggle toward political and economic development. Video seemed a perfect technology to give faces and voices to that struggle. The originality of the project was that it moved away from the creation of passive documentaries and turned instead toward the creation of a local workforce competent in technology and able to become active producers of information. In February 1998, the first cameras and editing equipment were delivered to the population, and a group of six local inhabitants received instruction in basic camera usage. Within a little more than one year, more than 100 young people were trained in video and computer technology. Remarkably, the project also sponsored the first women's video and computer workshop for six women from four communities. Because the culture is strongly patriarchal and women do not usually have access to education, much less modern technology, the Chiapas Project represents genuine innovation by which opportunity for learning is available to all along with empowering women to assume new and prominent roles within the community. Notable Feature(s): Reports on CMP initiatives and successes; related videos that offer a unique, firsthand perspective on the lives and struggles of indigenous communities in Chiapas. Contact Information: The Chiapas Media Project 4834 N. Springfield Chicago, Illinois   60625 USA Telephone: 773.583.7728   Fax: 773.583.7738 Email: cmp@vida.com promedia@laneta.apc.org Claudia Andujar wins 2000 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize http://www.lannan.org/CF/andujar.htm Claudia Andujar was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1931, and spent her childhood in Romania and Hungary. In 1956 she immigrated to Brazil. A photography project documenting the way of life of the Carajá Indians in Central Brazil led Ms. Andujar to a career in photojournalism. In the early 1970's she met a group of Yanomami Indians in the Amazon Basin of Northern Brazil. Intrigued by their way of life, she gave up her career as a photojournalist to embark on an in-depth photographic essay on the Yanomami. She received a two-year fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for this endeavor.During the fellowship Ms. Andujar was witness to one of the most significant cultural dislocations to occur in Yanomami history, when the government began construction of a transcontinental highway in Northern Brazil. Villages were razed to pave roads, and the Yanomami suffered a devastating measles epidemic. Ms. Andujar temporarily gave up photography to help establish health outposts for the Yanomami....Throughout the years Ms. Andujar has used her photographs to celebrate the rich culture of the Yanomami people. Her photographs have given the outside world a glimpse into the complex spiritual and magical world of the Yanomami. In 1998, she published the book Yanomami: The House, The Forest, The Invisible featuring eighty-five of her photographs. Her work has been shown internationally, in both solo and group exhibitions. Contact Information: Lannan Foundation 313 Read Street Santa Fe, NM   87501-2628 USA Telephone: 505.986.8160   Fax: 505.986.8195 Email: jo@lannan.org Cross-Cultural Film Guide - Films from Africa, Asia and Latin America at The American University - by Patricia Aufderheide http://www.library.american.edu/subject/media/aufderheide/aufderhe.html This is a guide to films that can permit people who may not have much experience with different cultural perspectives to see the world differently, as a result of experiencing an artwork in a mass medium. The guide provides short background sketches on each film, its director and production history, its production context, and its relevance to teaching. Most of the selections are feature films and they come from Africa, Asia and Latin America, mostly from areas where national cinema production is overshadowed by the powerful international cinema/TV industries of the U.S., India and Egypt. In some cases, films from these international centers, as well as from areas where entertainment movie production also flourishes (such as Brazil and Argentina), are included. These are typically authorial films made as an expression of cultural identity by filmmakers who see their mandate not only to provide entertainment but also to provoke thought. Contact Information: Patricia Aufderheide The American University School of Communications 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC   20016 USA Telephone: 202.885.2060   Fax: 202.885.2019 Email: paufder@american.edu Docs-in-progress http://www.docsinprogress.com The Docs-in-progress.com Web site intends to support documentary filmmakers the world over with technical and networking information. Founded by Elaine Charnov, director of the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, Paul Power, Managing Editor of The Independent Film & Video Monthly, and Pegi Vail, documentary filmmaker, and a founding boardmember and curator for Stories at The Moth, the enterprise will feature detailed production resources on a country by country basis, a weekly webzine devoted to documentary production, and a section devoted to a curated catalogue of streamed documentary works-in-progress for international buyers. Contact Information: Email: info@docs-in-progress.com Documenta http://www.documenta.de/data/english/index.html Through what he called "documenta," Arnold Bode, a painter and academy professor from Kassel, who in 1955 made the attempt to reestablish Germany as a partner of discourse to the rest of the world, and to reconnect it with international art by organizing a "Presentation of the Art of the 20th Century". In 1972, "General Secretary" Harald Szeemann fronted a new concept of the exhibition´s organisation. An international jury, authorized by the board of directors of the documenta company, selects a new artistic director for each exhibition. In 1997, Catherine David was the first woman to be chosen for this position. Each documenta bears the very personal imprint of its curator´s ideas and personal concepts, thereby becoming not only a forum for current tendencies in contemporary art, but also an opportunity for the realisation of innovative and standard-setting new exhibition concepts. Each documenta, in its own way, steers the international discourse onto new pathways. During the past 4 decades, the documenta has established itself as an institution that has gone far beyond simply presenting whatever is currently to be seen. Every 5 years, the discussion within the international art community is comprised in Kassel´s "Museum of 100 Days". The examinative discourse and the dynamics of the discussion focussing on the respective concept of the documenta (and its curator) mirrors society´s expectations of art. Contact Information: Documenta Friedrichsplatz 18 D 34117 Kassel Germany Telephone: ++49-0180-5115611   Email: info@documenta.de Documentaries Make a Difference http://www.mediarights.org/index.php MediaRights.org members share what they've learned from doing outreach campaigns for their social issue documentaries. Contact Information: MediaRights.org 104 W. 14th St., 4th floor New York, NY   10011 USA Documentaries on Africa and Africans http://www.africafilmtv.com/pages/filmography/documentaries.htm http://www.africafilmtv.com This excellent directory provides film descriptions and addresses of distributors. Contact Information: Email: info@africafilmtv.com Documentary Box http://www.city.yamagata.yamagata.jp/yidff/docbox/docbox-e.html http://www.city.yamagata.yamagata.jp/yidff/home-e.html Documentary Box is a journal devoted to covering recent trends in making and thinking about documentaries. Four issues are published every two years in both hard copy and internet versions in conjunction with the biennial YIDFF. Notable Feature(s): Excellent links resource for documentary news, programs, festival schedules, developments, and research around the world. Contact Information: Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Tokyo ID Kawadacho Bldg. 3fl. 7-6 Kawadacho Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 162-0054 Japan Telephone: 81.3.5362.0672   Fax: 81.3.5362.0670 Email: mail@tokyo.yidff.jp Documentation Center of Cambodia http://www.dccam.org http://www.dccam.org/Publication/Monographs/Stiled%20Lives.pdf DC-Cam has two main objectives. The first is to record and preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future generations. The second is to compile and organize information that can serve as potential evidence in a legal accounting for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. These objectives represent our promotion of memory and justice, both of which are critical foundations for the rule of law and genuine national reconciliation in Cambodia. To accomplish these objectives, DC-Cam carries out ongoing research to compile and analyze primary documentary materials collected through various means (including fact-finding missions abroad), attempting to understand how they fit into the overall historical context of the Khmer Rouge period. A society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of its own history. Toward this end, DC-Cam is working to reconstruct Cambodia’s modern history, much of which has been obscured by the flames of war and genocide. DC-Cam's quest for memory and justice has more to do with the future than with the past. It is about the struggle for truth in the face of an overwhelming power that virtually destroyed our society, a power that continues in more subtle ways to threaten our aspirations for a peaceful future. The violence of that power shattered Cambodian society and scattered the Cambodian people across the planet in a terrible diaspora. But no matter how far or near to the homeland, and whether they are survivors or the new generation born after the overthrow of Pol Pot, all Cambodians still suffer from a profound sense of dislocation. This dislocation is rooted in a loss deeper than material deprivation or personal bereavement. It is a loss that can never be recovered, and thus full healing of the wounds of genocide will require that something new be built to take the place of that which has been lost. By reconstructing a historical narrative of what happened to Cambodia, and by striving for justice where that is an appropriate remedy, we aim to lay a foundation upon which all Cambodians can find firm footing in moving toward a better future. Since its inception, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has been at the forefront of documenting the myriad crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam was founded after the U.S. Congress passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in April 1994, which was signed into law by President Clinton. That legislation established the Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigations in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in July 1994, which was charged with investigating the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979). Notable Feature(s): Full text and photographs of the DC-Cam book Stilled Lives: Photographs from the Cambodian Genocide. Every Cambodian family, from that of the king to that of the poorest peasant, has had at least one member who died or simply disappeared during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. Nearly two million people were executed, starved or worked to death, and the legacy of the genocide is still with Cambodia's families today. The country resembles one vast, broken family and healing it will take generations. This book is not about the victims. Through photographs and the recollections of perpetrators and their families, it tells of those who brought great tragedy on us all. Their pictures and words teach us the importance of recognizing the humanity common to all of us, of the need to respect every human being's rights regardless of their crimes and regardless of our differences. They show the strength of the human spirit which is capable of enduring so much. These are the stories of thirty-five men and sixteen women who joined the Khmer Rouge revolution. Most of them were recruits in their early- to mid-20s, and all were either conscripted by their village chiefs or volunteered. Contact Information: Youk Chhang, director Documentation Center of Cambodia P.O. Box 1110 Phnom Penh Cambodia Telephone: +855 (23) 211-875   Fax: +855 (23) 210-358 Email: dccam@online.com.kh DocuSeek Film and Video Center http://www.docuseek.com/ DocuSeek is a search site for independent documentary, social issue, and educational videos. DocuSeek allows one to search simultaneously several leading film distributors' complete collections, representing the highest quality documentary and instructional media, films and videos available. Notable Feature(s): Directory of sites that review film and video; contact information for the principal distributors of social and environmental documentaries. Contact Information: Email: webster@docuseek.com Doing Documentary Work - by Robert Coles http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/doingdocumentarywork.htm Robert Coles, the famed child psychiatrist and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard, is also a founding member of the Center of Documentary Studies at Duke University. This Web site presents the first chapter of his insightful book on documentary: its roles, methods, intentions, themes, possibilities, and constraints. The book is based on a series of lectures delivered at The New York Public Library. It utilizes the documentaries of writers, photographers, and others to show how their prose and pictures are influenced by the observer's frame of reference. Coles examines literary documentaries: James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier; photographs by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange; and personal portraits of poet William Carlos Williams; Robert Moses, one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s; Erik H. Erikson, biographer of Gandhi and Martin Luther; and others. Contact Information: The Washington Post 1150 15th St. NW Washington, DC   20071 USA Email: webpost@washpost.com DOXA - documentary film & video festival http://www.vcn.bc.ca/doxa/welcome.htm http://www.vcn.bc.ca/doxa/program.htm DOXA is an international documentary film and video festival celebrating community, the end of the millennium and the human spirit. The festival will consist of critical programs that examine the history of documentary film and video as well as present new works that expand our thinking about the documentary genre. Notable Feature(s): Detailed program notes and analysis of documentary intentions and possibilities for changing social conditions of and attitudes toward marginalized populations and individuals; films described provide models for documentary work in regions throughout the world. Contact Information: Kris Anderson - Festival Coordinator DOXA 301-1638 East 3rd Avenue Vancouver, BC   V5N 1G9 Canada Telephone: 604.515.5605   Fax: 604.255.2452 Email: doxa@vcn.bc.ca kris@axionet.com Drik - Images for Change http://www.drik.net/ Drik is part of a worldwide network of organizations campaigning for human rights and social change through photography, information technology and media activism. In 1989 a small group of people set up a picture agency in the unlikely location of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Named Drik, the Sanskrit word for vision, the agency set out to represent a group of media professionals that other agencies did not cater for, practitioners living and working in the majority world. In the years that have followed, many others from Asia, Africa and Latin America have joined the original group. All of them share a common vision; one that sees the majority world, not as fodder for disaster reporting, but as a vibrant source of human energy and a challenge to an exploitative global economic system. Having pioneered the introduction of email into Bangladesh, Drik continues to take the lead in new media, through not only the launch of the nation's first webzine Meghbarta, the web portal Orientation, and the country's human rights portal Banglarights, but also through its broadband direct satellite link. Drik's social commitment is central to its work ethos. While its professional team making up the library, darkroom, studio, gallery and publication, multimedia and Internet departments provides state of the art media products for an international clientele, it also provides support for its network of creative individuals around the world who challenge western media hegemony. Its training programmes range from providing education for working class children to training the region's brightest young photojournalists through Pathshala, its education wing, where top professionals from Magnum, National Geographic, Time, Contact Press Images and other leading media organisations make up the visiting faculty. Notable Feature(s): From 2002 an ART Asia Pacific article images for change by Antonia Carver, tracing the early history and growing success of its social change work and business model; resources on Drik's human rights work, AIDS, work with working class people, Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in Asia, and the Drik Partnership, which is a professional media development partnership between five international media groups. The partnership includes: Sørvis Kommunikasjon in Risør, Norway; Drik in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Samso in Harare, Zimbabwe; Business Times Group in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Uganda Home Pages in Kampala, Uganda. The partnership was founded in Risør, Norway in January 2001 and was approved as a partner of the Norwegian exchange programme, Fredskorpset in June 2001. Fredskorpset is an "exchange for development" programme, established by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Drik Partnership was the first partner to send out and receive young professionals and participants in Fredskorpset in June 2001. Drik Partnership's foundation is based on ideas from the Norwegian partner-Sørvis. For several years, Sørvis has worked to include images and other journalistic expressions from the majority world in the Scandinavian media. It is named after Drik in Bangladesh - an independent and innovative business enterprise, that is a model organisation in media development under limited resources and limited media freedom. The African partners are professional media organisations respected for their endurance and creativity in unstable economical and political conditions. The Drik Partnership exchanges will run for the next 3-5 years. Each year, 8-12 young professional participants will be exchanged between the partner organisations. The participants will be placed in demanding learning environments and new and challenging social settings. Contact Information: DRIK House 58 Road 15A (New) Dhanmondi Residential Area Dhaka, 1209 Bangladesh Telephone: 880-2 9120125   Fax: 880-2 9115044 Email: office@drik.net dropping knowledge http://www.droppingknowledge.org/presentation_01.php http://www.droppingknowledge.org/ dropping knowledge is an initiative based in Berlin and San Fransisco that believes asking questions improves the world. dropping knowledge is a fully independent, sustainable nonprofit organization committed to open, inclusive debate; an international community of users who are constantly refining, expanding and prioritizing content; a tool that allows the user to draw on the wisdom of other users to create and refine new ideas and practices. "dropping knowledge" means dropping the assumption that we know all the answers. It means questioning the conventional wisdom. It means figuring out which questions are the most important to ask, sharing answers and then challenging those answers. The project calls the practice of asking questions and sharing wisdom, dropping knowledge. However one defines knowledge, by dropping it freely to others, we all gain wisdom to improve the world. dropping knowledge is an educational resource and online network that connects people around the globe seeking to exchange ideas and solutions to the most pressing issues of our day. dropping knowledge believes that as our challenges become global, so must our communications and actions. Our activities create collective wisdom for social change. A unique combination of interactive and audio-visual technology allows the user to engage a web archive of content from a wide variety of individuals and organizations. Notable Feature(s): A "living library" will grow out of a global meeting in 2006 where 112 leading, invited thinkers and practitioners will answer critical questions posed by dropping knowledge's site visitors. Through sustainable interaction between technology and human participation, the living library offers a globally accessible and globally managed forum of inspiration. This powerful portal will offer facilities for adding comments, alternative answers, new questions, new voices of future round table events, and links to other knowledge sources in numerous languages. The living library is positioned for sustainable and exponential growth. It will amplify the thought-provoking nature of dropping knowledge and its content. A core feature of the living library will be its inclusion and user-rated prioritization of thousands of links to references around the world. All web links will be rated by dropping knowledge users, so that the most relevant to the most users will rise in the hierarchy. This will allow the "wisdom of crowds" to determine which links are the most accessible, and the most helpful. Under the watchful eye of acclaimed director Ralf Schmerberg, dropping knowledge will create a feature-length film based on the table of free voices event. The film will be distributed world-wide for theatrical release, for television, and in a variety of digital formats for individual, educational and community use. The central element of the film will be the participants dropping their knowledge for the audience. Recorded answers will be edited for the feature-length film which will show the set up of the table, the arrival of the participants, and the collective response to the questions. Contact Information: dropping knowledge Swinemünderstr. 121 10435 Berlin Germany Telephone: 49 (0) 30 28 48 97 1   Fax: 49 (0) 30 28 38 83 5 Email: nadine@droppingknowledge.org EBS International Documentary Festival http://www.ebsdoc.co.kr/2005_fall/eng_temp/board_news_01.html?table=news_ko&mode=read&no=30 http://www.eidf.org Documentary film festival gamble pays off again By Park Soo-mee JoongAng Daily 2005.08.30 It was an unparalleled risk the company took. Months before the EBS International Documentary Festival began, its organizer, Paul Jeongkie Kim, was close to airing an apology to its audience. The festival caused sensation in Korea last year for canceling 80 percent of the station's daily programs in order to broadcast documentaries for 17 hours a day, all week. It was a radical decision for an organization that was originally established to provide educational programming for adults and high school students. The consequences of a failure could have harmed the company’s relationship with its advertisers and upset its main audience. Luckily the festival received enough applause from viewers and critics last year to hold a second annual event. Sandra Ruch, the director of the International Documentary Association dubbed the EBS festival as "one of the most innovative new festivals in the world." One local newspaper described it as "a cultural experiment." The festival, which opened on Monday, titled “Peace and Life in Asia” is being shown on EBS TV while selected works are being shown at E-Space, a performance hall located at EBS headquarters in southern Seoul. “We wanted to stress the importance of documentaries as a statement on the social conditions of our world," Mr. Kim says. “We thought the company should provide an alternative to the increasingly commercial content of Korean television programs.” The festival began as a way to enhance the quality of increasingly commercial content on Korean television, and was inspired by producers who believed that a good documentary could change a person’s life and the world as well. Of the 98 world documentaries being shown this year, the focus is on social justice and freedom in Southeast Asia. The festival's "Best of the Best" section features an impressive program of contemporary documentaries, including “Shape of the Moon,” this year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance. The film documents the religious conflict within an Indonesian family where the mother is Christian and the children are Muslim. The opening film by Yoon Jung-Hyun, “Another Land for Survival, Mae Sot” chronicles the life of Burmese refugees in the Mae Sot camp. “Checkpoint” involves military checkpoints in the West Bank. .... "In a sense, the festival reveals a Korean way of doing a business,” Mr. Kim says. “We weren’t sure about the outcome, but we started anyway. If we had thought about the outcome so carefully, we wouldn’t have done it.” Contact Information: EBS International Documentary Festival 463, Dogok2-Dong Gangnam-Gu Seoul 135-854 Korea Telephone: 82-2-526-2122~3   Fax: 82-2-526-2059 Email: eidf@ebs.co.kr Educational Video Center (EVC) http://www.evc.org/ The Educational Video Center (EVC) is a nonprofit, media arts center that teaches documentary video production and media analysis to youth, educators, and community organizers. EVC's mission is dedicated to the creative and community-based use of video and multi-media as a means to develop the literary, research, public speaking and work preparation skills of at-risk youth, Notable Feature(s): Programs for high school students, for parents, for community orgainzers, teacher development and more; publications on media education; links; Screening Room and tape catalog. Contact Information: Steve Goodman, Executive Director Educational Video Center 120 W 30th Street, 7th Floor New York, NY   10001 USA Telephone: 212.465.9366   Fax: 212.465.9369 Email: goodman_steve99@hotmail.com Electric Shadows http://www.itvs.org/electricshadows/eShadowsF.html http://www.itvs.org/index.htm The Independent Television Service (ITVS) announces the commissioning of FACE TO FACE and CIRCLE OF STORIES through the Electric Shadows initiative, a pilot project bringing independently produced, innovative, interactive projects to the Web. Unique in American public television, the Independent Television Service (ITVS) was established by Congress to fund and present programs that "involve creative risks and address the needs of underserved audiences, especially children and minorities," while granting artistic control to independent producers. ITVS presents critically acclaimed, award-winning documentaries, dramas, series and television spots. Technically innovative, these two new content-rich projects are in keeping with ITVS's mission to give voice to underserved communities and foster cross-cultural understanding. FACE TO FACE launches at www.itvs.org/facetoface on August 29, 2002. CIRCLE OF STORIES launches at www.pbs.org/circleofstories on October 1, 2002. Electric Shadows' first call for applications was themed "Cultural Storytelling," referring to the stories, and means of conveying stories, that are specific to a particular group, defined in terms of ethnicity, geography, or any shared experience. FACE TO FACE, by Rob Mikuriya, connects the experiences of Japanese Americans in the early 1940s with those of Arab Americans today through a series of personal stories told through audio, photos and Flash animation. FACE TO FACE presents themes of anger, fear, hatred, confusion, loyalty and trust, and ultimately explores the question of what it means to be an American with the face of the enemy. The project will employ interactive storytelling. The user can select words and phrases from one person's story that will lead him or her to another story, creating a collage of stories containing similar themes and experiences. CIRCLE OF STORIES, by Jilann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson, brings to life the vibrant art of Native American storytelling. The site is being produced in collaboration with Melissa Nelson, executive director of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American organization dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures. Contact Information: Independent Television Service (ITVS) 501 York Street San Francisco, CA   94110 USA Telephone: 415.356.8383   Fax: 415.356.8391 Email: itvs@itvs.org FiftyCrows International Fund for Documentary Photography http://www.fiftycrows.org/ The International Fund for Documentary Photography (formerly managed by Mother Jones) was founded in 1989 to support socially concerned photographers throughout the world who spend much of their own time and resources, often at great personal risk, to record stories that are being overlooked, particularly by mainstream corporate-run media. The IFDP's annual competitive grants program provides photographers with financial resources and encouragement, helping them to complete their long-term, in-depth essays. By partnering with its grant recipients, the IFDP will help to increase exposure for this important work through exhibition, publication and online press. In its twelve-year history, the IFDP has awarded $397,000 to 62 photographers from 28 countries. FiftyCrows Foundation is a non-profit educational membership-based organization located in San Francisco, California. Its mission is to use photographic narratives of global events to raise awareness about social, political and environmental situations leading to a better understanding of our common humanity. Through the sharing of accurate and timely images, FiftyCrows enables dialogue, collaborative problem-solving, and creative response with the goal of encouraging compassionate understanding and social justice. FiftyCrows pursues its mission through programs including IFDP, FiftyCrows Gallery in San Francisco, FiftyCrows TV, and its comprehensive Web site. Contact Information: FiftyCrows Foundation 1074 Folsom Street San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Telephone: 415.551.0091   Email: photofund@fiftycrows.org info@fiftycrows.org Film About Despair in South Africa, and School That Offers Hope http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt070205.cfm This New York Times article tells the story of a documentary that was honored in May 2005 as best humanitarian film at the MountainFilm festival in Telluride, Colorado. It is a raw but inspiring journey into the lives of teenagers ravaged by abuse, crime and AIDS. All were recruited by Ashoka Fellow Jacqueline Maarohanye, a fiercely devoted teacher known as "Mama Jackey" who set up the school in 1999. Although some students board there, most come from their own schools around Johannesburg for after-hours and Saturday programs that combine academics, culture, sports, peer counseling, therapeutic dramatizations of the teenagers' own lives and outings to a maximum-security prison. Film for Transparency 2003 http://www.transparency.org/film/index.html Transparency International´s second Film Festival -Film for Transparency- will take place in Seoul, Korea, in May 2003. TI is the world´s leading NGO devoted to curbing corruption worldwide. Film is an important medium for stimulating debate and action, and Transparency International would like to invite filmmakers from around the world to contribute to the fight for transparency in governance and against corruption. By offering them a forum for their work, TI hopes to encourage filmmakers to address the various themes that surround this issue, including bribery, abuse of public trust, access to information and transparency in governance. It also hopes to encourage filmmakers just starting their careers to add their voices to the ranks of those who work against corruption. Contact Information: Mr. Adam Bradley or Ms. Sarah Tyler Film Festival Coordinator, Transparency International Otto-Suhr Allee 97/99 D-10585 Berlin Germany Telephone: +420 776 814 691   Email: abradley@transparency.org Filmakers Library http://www.filmakers.com/ Filmakers Library offers a vast collection of award-winning documentary films and videos for rent or sale to universities, schools, museums, businesses and community groups. Primarily for educational or research use, the materials focus on many subjects, e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, women's studies and multicultural issues, Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, development issues, native Americans, the environment and science, health, disability, aging, labor, criminal justice, child welfare and gender issues. The topics are relevant to social change issues and provide, even in thumbnail sketch form, a model of documentary work that can transform communities and lives for the better. Included in the global collection are productions from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Channel 4, England, KCTS, and independent producers from all over the world. Notable Feature(s): Powerful search engine for finding films and videos of interest. Contact Information: Filmakers Library 124 East 40th Street New York, NY   10016 USA Telephone: 212-808-4980   Fax: 212-808-4983 Email: info@filmakers.com Four Docs http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/ http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/about/about.html New from British television Channel Four, FourDocs is the place to upload or download four-minute documentaries. Anyone with a story to tell or an opinion to voice can submit their film to FourDocs. A brand new Web site launched in August 2005 aims to be the place to watch and upload four-minute documentaries. This initiative represents the first time a major broadcaster has opened up such an opportunity to everyone, for free: make your film and upload it; it's as simple as that. Notable Feature(s): Frequently Asked Questions; guides on how to plan, shoot, edit and compress a fact-based documentary; Media Rights's background article on the genesis of FourDocs and the growing democratization of documentary filmmaking. Contact Information: Patrick Uden, executive producer FourDocs Email: fourdocs@channel4.com Frederick Wiseman - documentary filmmaker http://www.zipporah.com/genrev.html http://pages.emerson.edu/organizations/fas/latent_image/issues/1994-05/wiseman.htm " . . Wiseman's work is preoccupied with what one could call spirit. With an intensity usually found only in fiction, Wiseman examines the moral and spiritual life of an institution, revealing the way people are mauled, pounded into shape, ignored, or even ennobled by passing through or working in one of these places; that is, the way people react to authority." --David Denby, The New York Review. Notable Feature(s): An indieWire interview with Wiseman; Ford Foundation article on "Domestic Violence"; DoubleTake magazine interview; Yale Law article on Wiseman's work. Contact Information: Zipporah Films One Richdale Avenue Unit #4 Cambridge, MA   02140 USA Telephone: 617.576.3603   Fax: 617.864.8006 Email: info@zipporah.com George Eastman House - International Museum of Photography and Film http://www.eastman.org/ http://www.eastman.org/home.htm George Eastman House, an independent nonprofit museum, is an educational institution that tells the story of photography and motion pictures -- media that have changed and continue to change our perception of the world. Notable Feature(s): Comprehensive collections of photographic and motion picture film resources and documents; exhibition and research materials; "Ask the Curator"; special collection of links and archives related to history, technology, and preservation of photography and film. Contact Information: George Eastman House 900 East Avenue Rochester, NY   14607 USA Telephone: 716.271.3361   Email: Librarian: becky@geh.org Global Film Initiative http://globalfilm.org/index.html In an ever closer world, it is increasingly clear that Americans want and need more information about the rest of the world and the rest of the world needs to know that America both cares about its issues and respects its concerns. Despite the increasing availability of non-fiction sources of information - journalism, documentary filmmaking, non-fiction writing, etc. - ideas and information still seem best communicated in the form of a story, particularly for younger people. Movies dominated 20th century culture and the cinematic form remains the most globally understood medium for telling a story to the widest audience. As the medium develops in the 21st century, film has also become the most adventurous of media, displaying an ability to find new forms of cross-cultural discourse and challenging approaches to social and political issues. Contact Information: The Global Film Initiative 200 Varick Street Suite 500A New York, NY   10014 USA Telephone: 212.206.7790   Fax: 212.206.6828 Email: info@globalfilm.org Global Uprising http://www.globaluprising.net/ http://youthactivism.org/ Global Uprising is growing to give more and more people a way to get document their voices heard and their stories shared. There's a growing new global movement for justice today, and it's largely driven by a new generation of activists. Young people from the U.S. and around the world are standing up for peace, the environment, and for social justice - and they're demanding to be heard. Global Uprising documents this new youth movement through compelling first-person narratives, interviews with both new and seasoned activists, poster art, poetry, and striking black and white photographs. Issues addressed include globalization and economic inequity, racism and women's rights, police brutality, media control, sweatshop labor and fair trade, the prison industrial complex, and the criminalization of youth, old-growth forest destruction, and biotechnology. Notable Feature(s): An example from just after September 11, 2001: Poetry and the News: Reflections on Being Muslim, American and Human by Eboo Patel; youth activism links; possibilities of telling one's own story. Contact Information: Linda Wolf and Neva Welton Daughters-Sisters Project and youthactivism.org PO Box 4492 Rolling Bay, WA   98061 U.S.A. Telephone: 206.842.3000   Email: youthact@youthactivism.org Héctor López: An Ashoka Fellow By placing cameras in the hands of some of Chile's most marginalized populations, Héctor López is using "social photography" to document their everyday realities and to identify and confront the social ills which pervade their lives. A strong believer in the power of the image as an instrument for social change, López has begun to develop a network of "social photographers" in impoverished urban areas in Chile. By providing citizens with free cameras, film, and processing, and by hosting workshops, discussion groups, and exhibitions, López has enabled communities to record their own histories and to communicate them to a broader audience that would otherwise be unaware or apathetic. In this way, the photographers begin to appreciate the value of their experiences and to become engaged participants in the struggle for social change in Chile. The photographs allow those behind the camera, as well as those viewing the images, to perceive their daily existence from a new perspective. The exhibits, in turn, create a new forum for dialogue about issues facing the community, and an opportunity for developing solutions from the local constituents. In addition, Héctor López has established an "Image Bank" that serves as a documentation and resource center of social photography. This "Bank" – the first of its kind in Chile – not only preserves the images generated by the project, but also allows citizens to use those images for research, dissemination, and the overall advancement of social photography. Contact Information: Email: FSS@ashoka.org Honor, Remembrance and Worry - A Photo Essay by John D. Moyers http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=85078 http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=85097 John Moyers's documentary portrait of World War II veterans captures their memories, thoughts, and faces at the 2004 opening ceremony of the WW II monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Human Rights Watch International Film Festival http://www.hrw.org/hrw/iff/ The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is the world's leading showcase for distinguished fiction, documentary, and animated films and videos that incorporate human rights themes. The Festival presents works that give a human face and personal viewpoints, to threats against political and individual freedom. Notable Feature(s): Complete archive (including descriptions, synopses, contact info, and distributors) of all festival films: by filmmaker and by country. Contact Information: Bruni Burres / Heather Harding Human Rights Watch International Film Festival 350 Fifth Avenue 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Telephone: 212.290.4700   i-Contact Video Network http://www.gifford.co.uk/i-contact/ i-Contact is a non-profit initiative set up to provide support for those using video for positive social change. The group includes progressive, alternative and independent video makers and activists. Although based in the UK (Bristol) the group wants to cooperate and work with individuals and groups all over the world. Its Web site contains guides on how to use video and the media, articles about the media, and an E-mail list intended to support video makers working in the domain of human rights, environmentalism and community video. Contact Information: i-Contact Video Network c/o 76 Mina Rd. St Werburghs Bristol   BS2 9TX England Telephone: +44 (0)11714 0188   Email: i-contact@videonetwork.org Ignacio Aguero http://www.frif.com/cat97/k-o/_00_chil.html Aguero's film 100 CHILDREN WAITING FOR A TRAIN poetically tells the story of a group of Chilean children who discover a larger reality - and a different world - through the cinema. Contact Information: First Run/Icarus Films 153 Waverly Place New York, New York   10014 USA Telephone: 212.727.1711   Fax: 212.989.7649 Email: info@frif.com Images of Child Labor http://www.childlaborphotoproject.org/index.html Child Labor and the Global Village: Photography for Social Change is a team of 11 photographers who will be photographing child workers around the globe. By photographing individual children in their worlds - their families, communities, countries - the initiative hopes to see behind the child labor label. Child labor is the result of a complex set of factors: poverty; lack of schools; poor health care; war; and many others. Solutions must meet the needs of individual children and those children must be known individually. This Tides Center project originated in the heart and mind of Los Angeles photographer Julia Dean. Drawing inspiration from the Farm Security Administration photojournalists of the 1930s and 1940s, Dean assembled three nationally known photo editors to help her select an international team of 11 talented photojournalists. The team also recruited a director of photography and two writers. Notable Feature(s): Individual stories and accompanying photographs, for example, the one on Brick Makers in Peru, Ernesto Bazan, photographer; Child Labor FAQs and links. Contact Information: Julia Dean c/o The Tides Center The Presidio PO Box 29907 San Francisco, CA   94129-0907 U.S.A. Telephone: 415.561.6300   Fax: 415.561.6301 Email: julia@juliadean.com Images, Reality, and the Curse of History http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Peress/peress-con0.html An interview with Gilles Peress - Magnum photographer. Contact Information: Email: site-mgr@globetrotter.berkeley.edu Independent Lens - PBS http://www.pbs.org/independents/ http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ PBS traditionally has broadcast a great deal of documentary and PBS has a proud history of distributing independent film and video. It is the aim of this Web site to highlight and provide information on upcoming and previously broadcast PBS programs that were achieved as a result of independent filmmaker initiatives and contributions. In addition, the site hopes to connect producers to additional sources of information that can aid in the development, production, distribution or promotion of their independent projects. Notable Feature(s): Information on funding opportunities, PBS submission procedures, production guidelines, film festivals, Web resources; film and video production notes and clips; searchable database of programs. Contact Information: Public Broadcasting Service 1320 Braddock Place Alexandria, Virginia   22314 USA Telephone: 703.739.5000   Independent Television Service (ITVS) http://www.itvs.org/ The Independent Television Service (ITVS) brings to local, national, and international audiences high-quality, content-rich programs created by a diverse body of independent producers. ITVS programs take creative risks, explore complex issues, and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television. ITVS programming reflects voices and visions of underrepresented communities and addresses the needs of underserved audiences, particularly minorities and children. ITVS holds the following values as essential to carrying out the organization's work: Freedom of expression is a human right; A free press and public access to information are foundations of democracy; An open society allows unpopular and minority views to be publicly aired; A civilized society seeks economic and social justice; A just society seeks participation from those without power, prominence, or wealth; A free nation allows all citizens forums in which they can tell their own stories and express their own opinions. Notable Feature(s): Schedule and descriptions of current shows. Contact Information: Independent Television Service (ITVS) 501 York Street San Francisco, CA   94110 USA Telephone: 415.356.8383   Fax: 415.356.8391 Email: itvs@itvs.org Indivisible http://www.indivisible.org/ http://cds.aas.duke.edu/ http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/ Indivisible is a national documentary project exploring community life in America today. Through photographs and recorded voices, Indivisible focuses on the real-life stories of struggle and change in twelve communities—from Delray Beach, Florida, to Ithaca, New York; from the North Pacific Coast of Alaska to Chicago's Southwest side; from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Yaak Valley, Montana. In these places people are patrolling streets, building homes, reviving towns, protecting ecosystems, and otherwise finding ways to improve their lives and surroundings. Their compelling experiences, captured through the creative lens and on audiotape, provide the content for Indivisible, presented in a traveling museum exhibition, a touring free postcard exhibit, a book, and this Web site. The project also includes a guide for educators, a booklet for documenting community change, and major research archives. Indivisible is a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Notable Feature(s): A book on the project, Local Heroes Changing America: the book provides a permanent record of Americans engaged in public life at the end of the twentieth century; Indivisible news. Contact Information: Elana Hadler, Project Coordinator Center for Documentary Studies Box 90802 Durham, NC   27708-0802 USA Telephone: 919.660.3663   Fax: 919.681.7600 Email: ehadler@duke.edu Indivisible: Stories of American Community http://www.indivisible.org/faq.htm http://cds.aas.duke.edu/ Indivisible is a national documentary project exploring community life in America today. Through photographs and recorded voices, Indivisible focuses on the real-life stories of struggle and change in twelve communities—from Delray Beach, Florida, to Ithaca, New York; from the North Pacific Coast of Alaska to Chicago's Southwest side; from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Yaak Valley, Montana. In these places people are patrolling streets, building homes, reviving towns, protecting ecosystems, and otherwise finding ways to improve their lives and surroundings. Their compelling experiences, captured through the creative lens and on audiotape, provide the content for Indivisible, presented in a traveling museum exhibition, a touring free postcard exhibit, a book, and this Web site. The project also includes a guide for educators, a booklet for documenting community change, and major research archives. Indivisible is a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Notable Feature(s): Putting Documentary To Work - A Guide for Communities, Artists, and Activists. Contact Information: Center for Documentary Studies Box 90802 Durham, NC   27708-0802 USA Telephone: 919.660.3663   Fax: 919.681.7600 Email: ehadler@duke.edu Institute of Documentary Film http://web.docuinter.net/ http://web.docuinter.net/?w=homepage&lang=eng The Institute of Documentary Film is a nonprofit training, promotion, and networking centre based in Prague, Czech Republic, focused on the support of the East European creative documentary film and its wider promotion. Notable Feature(s): Excellent collection of links to documentary organizations and enterprises throughout the world; archived news and interviews and features about documentary work and filmmakers; the Documentary Map of Europe where one can find out all about a country's festivals, institutions, producers, grants and funds or film education. Contact Information: Institute of Documentary Film Skolska 12 110 00 Praha 1 Czech Republic Telephone: +420 224 214 858   Fax: +420 224 214 858 Email: idf@docuinter.net International Documentary http://www.documentary.org/magazine/magazine.html http://www.documentary.org/index.html This leading organization and its magazine offer a wealth of global resources, information and contacts for those working in the documentary field. Contact Information: International Documentary Association 1551 S. Robertson Blvd. Suite 201 Los Angeles, CA   90035-4257 USA Telephone: 310.284.8422   Fax: 310.785.9334 Email: ida@artnet.net International Film Seminars (IFS) Robert Flaherty Film Seminar http://www.flahertyseminar.org/ifs_home.htm http://www.flahertyseminar.org/rffs_home.htm International Film Seminars, Inc. (IFS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the proposition that independent media can illuminate the human spirit. Its mission is to foster exploration, dialogue, and introspection about the art and craft of all forms of the moving image. IFS was chartered in the state of Vermont but is based in New York City. It was established in 1960 to present the annual Robert Flaherty Film Seminar which was started five years earlier by the Robert Flaherty Foundation.The seminar remains the central and defining activity of IFS. Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) was the creator of such classic poetic documentary films as Nanook of the North, Moana, Man of Aran, and Louisiana Story. The seminars began in 1955 before the era of film schools when Flaherty's widow, Frances, and brother, David, convened a group of filmmakers, critics, curators, musicians, and other film enthusiasts at the Flaherty farm in Vermont. For more than 40 years the Flaherty Seminar has been firmly established as a one-of-a-kind institution that seeks to encourage artists to explore further and further into the potential of the moving image. From its intimate beginnings, the Seminar has evolved into a unique forum that brings together more than 100 participants, including American and international media artists, critics, scholars, curators, librarians, and students. Notable Feature(s): Writings on the seminar series; information on the new program of International Film Residencies. Contact Information: International Film Seminars 198 Broadway, Suite #1206 New York, NY   10038 USA Telephone: 212.608.3224   Fax: 212.608.3242 Email: ifs@flahertyseminar.org It's a Matter of Having Confidence in Simplicity An interview with Danish documentary filmmaker Jørgen Leth by Mette Hjort and Ib Bondebjerg http://www.dfi.dk/sitemod/moduler/index_english.asp?pid=13690 http://www.dfi.dk/sitemod/moduler/index_english.asp?pid=190 An extensive interview in which Leth describes his attitudes, aesthetic motives, mentors, and working methods, including his use of poetic, anthropological, and other appproaches, the concept of narrative in art and life, and more. Notable Feature(s): Archived collection of DFI articles on films, including many on documentary work. Contact Information: Danish Film Institute 55 Gothersgade DK-1123 Copenhagen K Denmark Telephone: +45 33 74 34 00   Fax: +45 33 74 34 01 Email: dfi@dfi.dk Janet Jarman - photojournalist http://www.janetjarman.com/mainflash.html This site presents an extensive portfolio of award-winning work documenting news, culture, the environment, and social conditions and change in communities around the world. Contact Information: Janet Jarman Mexico Email: janet@janetjarman.com João Ripper: An Ashoka Fellow Ripper is a photojournalist and author of over 25,000 photographs of the life and work of the Brazilian laborer. He is now creating the Brazilian Laborer's Documentation Center, which will not only act as an archive of visual documentation but will produce dossiers for syndicates, the press and NGOs on matters concerning the Brazilian worker and human rights in general. "As our work here gains recognition, people begin to see the laborer as a person, not as a brute who goes on strike. We manage to capture what's beautiful in worker's movements," Ripper says. The Center for Documentation and Images of the Worker, its five main associates and numerous collaborators, who include photographers and historians, are expanding the unique archive and making it available to such "clients" as labor and human rights organizations and their publications. Amnesty International has used photos from the Center's archive in denouncing torture and murder of rural workers in Brazil. The Center's photos, slides and accompanying records portray the lives and struggles of Brazilian laborers throughout this century but principally during the past ten years as labor organizations grew, challenged military rule, demanded demoracy and gained political strength. Unions furnish written or taped materials to enhance the Center's visual archive. Besides its primary function of documentation, Ripper says he perceives that the Center increasingly serves an educational function. Contact Information: Email: FSS@ashoka.org Jonathan Stack - Gabriel Films Gabriel Films is an independent documentary film company that specializes in social issue storytelling. It was founded by Jonathan Stack in 1991. One of Gabriel's best-known works is The Farm: Angola USA about prison conditions at Louisiana's state penitentiary. Notable Feature(s): Read a film review of TheFarm directed by Stack and Elizabeth Garbus; more on the film. Contact Information: Jonathan Stack Gabriel Films 457 Washington 2nd Flr. New York, NY   10013 USA Telephone: 212.941.6200   Fax: 212.941.6203 José Ancán: An Ashoka Fellow Several of José Ancán's activities in recent years have drawn on his background in the field of art. He has presented a collection of Mapuche art in a "National Encounter of Art and Culture." He has produced award-winning videos on Mapuche ceremony, traditional medicine and daily life for television airing and university use. Ancán is attempting to transform the Chilean educational system into an effective agent for addressing the needs of indigenous people and, more generally, for instilling respect for people of varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. A member and vigorous protector of the Mapuche people and their culture, José Ancán is persuaded that Chile's school system, with certain much-needed reforms, can be transformed into a vitally important instrument for addressing the needs and problems of indigenous people and for generating throughout the country a better appreciation of the value and contributions of people of varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Ancán also believes that the key obstacle to the needed reforms is the absence of appropriate, carefully developed and well-tested materials presenting the ideas and cultural practices of indigenous groups. Accordingly, he is engaged in a carefully conceived and pioneering effort to develop, test and refine the needed materials and to prepare them for use in schools throughout the country. Contact Information: Email: FSS@ashoka.org Kids Behind Bars - 2002 Amnesty International UK award winner http://www.nolieproductions.com/pages/618625/index.htm http://www.truevisiontv.com/company.html "Kids Behind Bars," a Brian Woods and Kate Blewett production of True Vision (London), along with John Maier and Shannon Walbran of No Lie Productions (Rio) has won the 2002 Amnesty International UK award for Television Documentary of the Year. The documentary tells the stories of children hidden away in jails and juvenile detention centers around the world. Whether they are crammed into overcrowded cells in the Philippines, isolated in a remote part of the former Soviet Union or beaten by guards in Brazil, this film argues for a more constructive response to the challenge of juvenile crime. John Maier shot the Brazil portion of "Kids Behind Bars" by tracking two young crack addicts through the notorious São Paulo prison system for a year. No Lie Productions is a Rio de Janeiro-based media company focusing on social issues. It offers complete media coverage: directing and shooting documentaries and news features, researching and writing articles, and taking photographs on compelling and complex problems and their solutions. Part of its work is aimed at non-governmental organizations (NGOs), documenting their work as examples for others. Notable Feature(s): Recent Walbran documentary: "Cultures of Love and Forgiveness," which portrays 43 people from 13 countries talking about how they define love and forgiveness in their own ways. Contact Information: Shannon Walbran Cape Town South Africa Email: shannon_walbran@yahoo.com Kids with Cameras (KWC) http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/ By teaching the art and skills of photography, Kids with Cameras empowers children growing up in difficult circumstances and allows them to appreciate the beauty and dignity of their own expression. The organization sends exceptional photographers to communities around the world to lead the workshops, which emphasize artistic excellence and individualized attention, and which encourage a holistic approach to art and education. KWC presents the kids' photos to the world through exhibits, books, and film. Kids with Cameras works beyond photography to strengthen the children's general education as well as their communities, linking with other organizations to work most effectively. Armed with self-respect, discipline and creativity, Kids with Cameras joins kids to a global community that values them as artists, individuals, and citizens. Notable Feature(s): Projects in Calcutta, Haiti, Jerusalem, and Cairo. Contact Information: Kids with Cameras 341 Lafayette Street Suite 4407 New York, NY   10012 USA Telephone: 646.722.8404   Email: info@kids-with-cameras.org LEARNING IN A HARSH LAND: SCENES FROM AFGHANISTAN'S SCHOOLS - A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Jason Eskenazi: 1/10/03 http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/articles/eav011003.shtml http://www.eurasianet.org When they pledged themselves to a democratic course after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Afghanistan's interim leaders overturned the radical Islamic movement's ban on educating girls. Afghan education has made noticeable strides in the 14 months since the Taliban's ouster, with help from international donors and protection from the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, the capital. Nonetheless, donations so far have not effected a robust educational system. As Jason Eskenazi's images show in this photo essay, the challenges of providing an education to Afghanistan's young people remain formidable. Notable Feature(s): Central Eurasia Project is an initiative of Open Society Institute founded by George Soros. Contact Information: Justin Burke EurasiaNet Telephone: 212.548.0392   Email: jburke@eurasianet.org Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Agee and Evans' Great Experiment http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_5.html It was in 1936 that James Agee and Walker Evans, on assignment for Fortune magazine, drove into rural Alabama and entered the world of three families of white tenant farmers. And it was in this same year that Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his second term as president, his New Deal having won the resounding support of American voters. Fortune was not unique in its concern for the tenant farmer; Roosevelt himself appointed a Committee on Farm Tenancy to investigate the situation of this segment of the nation's farming population. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the attempt of a photographer and a journalist to describe accurately the lives of three families of tenant farmers in rural Alabama in 1936, is, in the same sense as Roosevelt's New Deal, an experiment addressing the challenges of social responsibility and the salvaging of human dignity in the midst of the Great Depression. Both Agee and Evans' book and Roosevelt's New Deal, characterized by a humanist perspective, a willingness to experiment with new structural forms, and a deep self-consciousness of their objectives, invite evaluation. Links from Alinari Online Museum and Resources http://www.alinari.com/link/link_eng.htm A Web directory of galleries, archives and organizations with photographic materials, services, technologies, and other products. Listen Up! http://www.pbs.org/merrow/trt/about/about.html Listen Up! is a project of Learning Matters, Inc. which produces The Merrow Report, PBS and NPR's premier documentary series on youth and learning. Since January, 1999, Listen Up! has engaged more than 1,000 youth from diverse backgrounds in the researching, writing, production, editing and distribution of their own media. By creating these messages, Listen Up! producers are learning important life and communication skills. They are portraying themselves and their peers in a positive light, on their own terms, and in their own voices. Notable Feature(s): Newsletters reporting on youth productions and many different opportunities for social activism and telling one's story. Contact Information: Austin Haeberle Listen Up! 6 E. 32nd St., 8th Floor New York, NY   10016 USA Telephone: 212.725.7000   Email: info@listenup.org Making Television Matter http://www.benton.org/MakingTelevisionMatter/ This report (free online in pdf format) from the Benton Foundation shows how documentaries can engage and mobilize communities. The report contains case studies, helpful tips and cautionary tales from independents, broadcast stations, and nonprofit organizations. Contact Information: Benton Foundation 1625 K Street, NW Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.638.5770   Fax: 202.638.5771 Email: benton@benton.org MediaRights.org http://www.mediarights.org/ MediaRights.org's mission is to make social issue documentaries and advocacy videos more widely available for educational use, via a community site for media makers, activists, educators and librarians. As the influence of media rapidly expands, MediaRights wants to encourage people working for social change and environmental protection to access its growing power to further their work. At the Web site media professionals can draw on the experiences of frontline activists and discover timely stories often overlooked in mainstream media. Activists can further their campaigns by teaming up with filmmakers to make advocacy videos or publicize their work. Notable Feature(s): Media That Matters Online Film Festival; Quick search database of documentary films by title, description, distributor. Contact Information: MediaRights.org 104 W. 14th Street 4th Floor New York, NY   10011 USA Telephone: 646.230.6288   Fax: 646.230.6328 Email: info@mediarights.org Mountain Voices http://www.mountainvoices.org/ http://www.panos.org.uk/ This Web site presents interviews with over 300 people who live in mountain and highland regions round the world. Their testimonies offer a personal perspective on change and development. The project is part of Panos Institute's Oral Testimony Programme, which aims to amplify the voices of those at the heart of development: people who are disadvantaged by poverty, gender, lack of education and other inequalities. Collections have been gathered from communities in the Himalaya (India and Nepal); the Andes (Peru); the Sierra Norte (Mexico); Mount Elgon (Kenya); the highlands of Ethiopia and Lesotho; southwest and northeast China; the Sudety mountains (Poland); and the Karakorum mountains of Pakistan. Notable Feature(s): Transcripts of interviews, grouped by location. Contact Information: Oral Testimony Programme Panos Institute 9 White Lion Street London N1 9PD U.K. Email: info@mountainvoices.org Moving Images Video Project http://www.movingimages.org/ Moving Images Video Project produces and distributes television documentaries about war and peace, the environment, and social justice. Founded in 1987 to increase understanding in the United States of political and social issues in Central America, Moving Images later expanded to address the AIDS epidemic, labor rights and childcare, international relations in the post cold-war era, and the implications of new genetic technologies. Many of these programs have aired on PBS television stations across North America and are widely distributed to schools, libraries, and community organizations. Notable Feature(s): Awards and broadcasts of Moving Images' productions. Contact Information: Mark Dworkin Moving Images Video Project 2408 East Valley Street Seattle, WA   98112 U.S.A. Telephone: 360.341.1269   Email: video@whidbey.com Museum of the Person http://www.museudapessoa.com.br http://200.186.91.71/ Ashoka Fellow Karen Worcman is an historian and the director of the Museau da Pessoa (Museum of the Person), a virtual museum in Brazil. The museum aims to document, preserve, integrate, and transform into information life stories of any and every person in society as well as to promote social change by reinforcing individual and community identity and self-esteem. Founded in Sao Paulo in 1991, the Museum of the Person holds approximately 6,000 life stories and more than 5,000 digital photographs collected during projects, in recording studios set up in public places, or sent to the museum via the Internet. Since it was founded, the Museum of the Person has aimed to create a virtual network of life stories as a way to democratize history. Creating a digital archive of a group's culture provides the opportunity for research and a new awareness of the world. Beyond allowing for a more democratic perspective of history, the formation of this kind of digital collection can serve as a reference for development policies for, and interaction with, communities. This is because the collected narratives represent values and expectations of communities or individuals who do not normally have a "voice" in western society. Experiences like the project conducted by the citizen sector organization Save The Children in Somalia serve as an example (La Fond). Interviews with Somali women uncovered the reasons why the women do not let their children participate in the official vaccination program, and the project showed how important oral memory can be as a way of hearing and understanding the values of individuals and groups. Museum of the Person projects have repeatedly proven the strong social impact of preserving the histories of anonymous persons and fragmented groups. Notable Feature(s): Worcman's article "Digital Division is Cultural Exclusion. But Is Digital Inclusion Cultural Inclusion?"; Memory, the Internet and Social Change by Paul Thompson; Brazil's Museum of the Person by Thom Gillespie; Life Stories. Contact Information: Karen Worcman, Founder and Director Museum of the Person Instituto Museu da Pessoa.Net Rua Delfina, 342 - Vila Madalena CEP 05443-010, São Paulo - SP Brasil Telephone: 55 11 3814-4912   Email: Karen@museudapessoa.com.br museu@museudapessoa.net Music on Film Festival http://www.radio.cz/en/article/71669 http://www.moffom.org/ Based in Prague, the Music on Film—Film on Music festival (MOFFOM) is an innovative celebration of the special relationship between music and film through screening of documentary films and other events. The festival is globally diverse in terms of the types and genres of music that are featured. Africa and the Islamic world are represented, as well as cinema from Brazil and other places. One example of MOFFOM's interest in addressing social problems by looking at music on film was its screening of "The Rock Star and the Mullahs"—a UK/Pakistan coproduction 2003—which is a probing look at a genuine clash of the civilizations"—within one Islamic society. Balancing humor, pathos and provocation, the film demonstrates the stuggle that is so evident Pakistan. Salman Ahmad, lead singer of Pakistan"s leading rock group, Junoon ("the U2 of Asia"), travels to the troubled region of Peshawar where the local government has banned all music, and asks, "Why can't spirituality be expressed in pop song? Who are the mullahs to say it is forbidden?" The Rock Star and the Mullahs cleverly use the debate between Ahmad's moderate but charismatic presence and rousing music and the hard-line fundamentalism of his clerical opponents as a basis to examine the larger battle of definitions and rhetoric raging within Islam today. Contact Information: John Caulkins, founder Music on Film Štěpánská 61 116 02 Praha 1 Czech Republic Telephone: +420 296 236 509   Fax: +420 296 236 510 Email: info@moffom.org National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) http://www.namac.org/ NAMAC is a nonprofit association composed of diverse member organizations who are dedicated to encouraging film, video, audio and online/multimedia arts, and to promoting the cultural contributions of individual media artists. Included in NAMAC goals is the desire to ncourage media arts that are rooted in local communities, as well as those which are global in outlook. In addition, NAMAC wants to integrate media into all levels of education and advocate for media literacy as an educational goal. Notable Feature(s): On-line Support for Independent Media; Member Directory; MAIN (Media Arts Information Network); links to advocacy, funding, conferences, management practices, community building and other resources. Contact Information: The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture 346 - 9th Street San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Telephone: 415.431.1391   Fax: 415.431-1392 Email: namac@namac.org National Film Board of Canada: Challenge for Change http://www.nfb.ca/FMT/E/seri/C/ChallforChangnouve.html http://www.nfb.ca/FMT/E/cate/S/Social_Issues.html The mission of Challenge for Change, begun in 1967, was to "promote citizen participation in the solution of social problems." Notable Feature(s): Lists and thumbnail descriptions of the series of documentary films made since inception of the program; English and French versions of catalogues; links to Canadian and non-Canadian festivals . Contact Information: National Film Board of Canada International program 3155 Cote de Liesse Road Saint-Laurent, Québec   H4N 2N4 Canada Telephone: 514.283.9439   Fax: 514.496.1895 Email: j.a.roberts@nfb.ca New Day Films http://www.newday.com/ In a world turning more and more to prepackaged, commercially produced programs, New Day Films offers independently produced films and videos that educate and inspire. New Day Films is a collective of more than 50 filmmakers from across the United States representing over 100 films, a true cooperative and democratically run organization dedicated to bringing high quality social issue media before the public. Notable Feature(s): Background history and philosophy of the innovative film distribution cooperative; detailed descriptions of an extensive catalog of social change documentary films and filmmakers: e.g., Robert Richter, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, David Yanofsky, Esther Cassidy, Gabriela Quirós, Andy Wilson, Lisa Merton. Contact Information: New Day Films 22-D Hollywood Avenue Ho-ho-kus, New Jersey   07423 USA Telephone: 201.652.6590   Fax: 201.652.1973 Email: curator@newday.com Off the Books! - a documentary film on corporate responsibility, the environment, and human rights http://www.offthebooks.org/ "Off the Books! Environment & Human Rights" is a 30-minute film by attorney Sanford Lewis that describes the potential and limits of an enforceable, disclosure-based strategy for corporate accountability. Picking up on public attention generated by the Enron scandal, the documentary film provokes discussion of broad issues regarding corporate disclosure of public health, social and environmental issues. It calls for better enforcement and clearer reporting standards from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Contact Information: Sanford Lewis, Attorney Strategic Counsel on Corporate Accountability PO Box 79225 Waverly, MA   02479 USA Email: gnproject@earthlink.net On Films: Matters of Fact - by Stanley Kauffmann http://www.tnr.com/magazines/tnr/archive/0799/070599/kauffmann070599.html Kauffmann discusses (and applauds) documentary and the role of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in bringing these important voices to our attention. Contact Information: Stanley Kauffmann THE NEW REPUBLIC 1220 19th Street Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202-331-7494   Fax: 202-223-0566 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival http://www.oneworld.cz/ow/2004/en/news/ http://www.clovekvtisni.cz/english/ One World exists to expose abuses, encourage dignity, inspire solidarity and foster mutual understanding between cultures. Organized by the People in Need, One World presents high-quality documentaries that take a concerned and often critical look at the present-day world and its transformations. One World believes that the power of documentary film resides as much in the means of expression as in the content and message of a particular film. The festival strives to provide an inside look, while fully accepting that there are no simple answers. One World comprises an international competition of documentary films and videos, retrospectives, workshops, meeting of festival organizers, panel debates, concerts, photo and poster exhibitions, and other events aiming to attract a broader audience. Approximately 150 feature-length and short documentaries from countries spanning the globe are presented each year, with screenings followed by discussions with festival guests. Human rights documentaries play an absolutely key role in today's world. They provide a certain window on other cultures, societies, and other people's problems. In the contemporary globalized world it is categorically important for us to learn to understand each other, to know that injustice is happening somewhere. Festivals such as One World provide an excellent opportunity for such communication, which is the first step toward bringing about some changes. Diane Weyermann (USA) Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Notable Feature(s): Complete listing of current (and archived) festival films, including docs for kids. Contact Information: People in Need - Czech TV Foundation Sokolská 18 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic Telephone: +420 226 200 434   Email: mail@oneworld.cz OneWorld TV http://www.oneworld.net/tv OneWorld has launched a new television channel on the net - OneWorld TV. It will showcase each week outstanding documentaries on global issues, starting with COLOMBIA: DRYING THE WATERS. This is a film with unique access to the guerrilla camps of FARC in Colombia, where young men and women in battle fatigues prepare their weapons as they debate the rights and wrongs of a brutal civil war that is tearing Colombian society apart. Such films are finding it increasingly hard to get shown by traditional broadcasters, and OneWorld TV aims to open up a new opportunity for filmmakers with life and death stories to tell to webcast them to the public worldwide. Notable Feature(s): If your organization has a library of outstanding films you would like digitised and showcased on the channel, please write to OneWorld TV. Each film will be shown with an on-screen banner linking it to your site. Contact Information: Peter Armstrong Email: peter@oneworld.net Organic Chaos Productions (OCP) http://www.eco-action.org/action/orchaos.html OCP videotapes actions and campaigns around such issues as environmental protection, social justice, human rights, animal rights, squatting and antifascism - both in the Netherlands and abroad. The group publishes a videozine called Organic Chaos News (OCN), which it shows in community and youth centers, film centers and benefit concerts and other places throughout Europe. OCP sees video activists as people who use video as a tactical tool to publicize such issues as social (in)justice and environmental conservation. In the hands of a video activist, a camcorder can become a powerful political tool. Filming at actions generally helps reduce police violence, for example. Editing equipment can become a basis for drawing up a political agenda, a video projector a means to create social awareness. Contact Information: Organic Chaos Productions P.O. Box 780 6130 AT Sittard The Netherlands Telephone: +46-4524803   Fax: +46-4516460 Email: ramp@antenna.nl P.O.V. http://www.pbs.org/pov/ http://www.pbs.org/pov/specialsites/index.html P.O.V. is public television's annual award-winning showcase for independent non-fiction films. The series is produced by American Documentary, Inc. POV challenges the notion of television as a one-way medium by creating a laboratory environment designed to maximize television's potential and pioneer innovative broadcast-related projects: encouraging audience feedback via toll-free hotlines, e-mail and letters. Talking Back:Video letters to P.O.V. is an innovative segment in which viewers videotape their responses to P.O.V. programs. P.O.V. Interactive seeks to explore the potential of the World Wide Web as a medium that encourages dialogue and participation long after a show is broadcast. Thus the general public is invited to share personal stories and perspectives. High Impact Television (HITV) campaigns are designed to build new audiences, broaden public debate and, when possible, foster community engagement activities around issues represented in select programs. Through strategic, creative partnerships with non-profit organizations and public television stations, HITV helps to expand the role and value of independent story-telling in public life. Another P.O.V. project is Television Race Initiative, a multi-year effort in which diverse, character-driven, high-profile public television broadcasts create a spine for community dialogue and problem-solving activities around the issue of race relations. Notable Feature(s): Printable viewer's guide of programs; submission guidelines for point-of-view videos; special interactive sites for expressing one's views. Contact Information: Ellen Schneider, Executive Director American Documentary, Inc./P.O.V. 220 West 19th Street 11th Floor New York, NY   10011 USA Telephone: 212.989.8121   Fax: 212.989.8230 Email: connect@pov.org P.O.V.'s Borders http://www.pbs.org/pov/borders/stories In the tradition of PBS's P.O.V. series of innovative storytelling on television, there is now P.O.V.'s Web-only, on-line interactive version that pushes the traditional documentary into the digital future. The series Borders is about migration. It's about life changes, border crossings. A border can be a boundary between countries, or a point in your life: leaving home, growing older, a new job, a new town, or any other point in your life where you cross from one thing to another. Notable Feature(s): Every week, the site will feature: new episodes of the interactive drama, Leaving Elsa; Featured Guests; Snapshots; Games, Webcams, Video Diaries. Peace in a Country at War - Columbia This is a 60-minute documentary film on the tragedy of displacement and the hope of reconstruction and peace building in the middle of a war. The documentary uses the methodology of dialogue to show images of those that suffer the war cut against the thoughts and opinions of those that make the war. It is one of the components of a "peace building kit" to be used as a tool for reflection and learning about peace building, conflict resolution, and the use of dialogue. Contact Information: Adelaida Trujillo Email: citurnas@unete.com Pedro Susz: An Ashoka Fellow Susz founded Bolivia's first film archive, and he is taking cinematic images from it into classrooms, where he uses film to train young people to think analytically and to be critical consumers of audiovisual materials. The educational aspect of Pedro's work has evolved from his establishment, in 1976, of the audiovisual archive, which he envisioned as a means to provide the population with access to their historical past. In the Bolivian Cinemateca, Susz has archived approximately 69,000 films from the past 50 to 75 years. These include documentaries on historical events, dances, ceremonies, music, and another footage that demonstrates the country's rich cultural heritage. The Cinemateca is part of the Ministry of Culture, having been recognized in 1991 by the state. Each afternoon it shows national films for a very small fee; more than 1.5 million Bolivians have attended. Interspersed with the national films are films from other countries, focusing on the Andean region but also including historical films of other regions. Pedro has shown more than 2,700 films, representing 48 countries, including all the countries of South America. Bolivian cinema, on the other hand, has reached 23 other countries through the Cinemateca. Pedro's work is promoting an understanding of Bolivia abroad that departs from the prejudicial image of the country as only a producer of drugs and state coups. After fifteen years of work, Pedro succeeded in helping to create a National Law of Cinema, approved in December 1990. Bolivia is one of the few countries in Latin America with such legislation. In addition to systematizing movie production in Bolivia and requiring the state to offer low-interest loans for the production of videos, the law opens new possibilities for Pedro's work to expand. For example, laws require that the state set aside space on state channels for educational programs each day, and on channels which reach all of the country's schools and extend as far as Peru and Argentina. It also allows access to educational television from schools, changing the way in which teachers use video and film to enhance classroom learning. Contact Information: Email: FSS@ashoka.org Peoples Video Network http://www.peoplesvideo.org/ PVN in their own words: "We are a group of media activists with more than 50 public access shows across the country and hundreds of videos documenting the struggle. We have sent correspondents to the Lacondon Jungle, Russia, Cuba, Korea, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and Iraq. We produce and edit videos about issues the corporate media will not touch. Our goal is to break the information blockade of big business media." Notable Feature(s): A comprehensive, international catalog of video documentaries, interviews and other materials on social change and challenges. Contact Information: Peoples Video Network 39 West 14th St., #206 New York, NY   10011 USA Telephone: 212.633.6646   Email: pvnnyc@peoplesvideo.org PhotoVoice http://www.photovoice.org/ Founded in September 1999 by Anna Blackman and Tiffany Fairey, PhotoVoice is an international nonprofit organisation, based in London, U.K with a US representative in Boston, Massachusetts. The organization was established to correct the lack of information and resources bringing together the worlds of photography, mainstream media and development. The founding aim was to satisfy the need for an organisation dedicated to participatory photography that gave voice to people in need...that would allow them to represent themselves and raise awareness of their situations to people around the world. Accordingly, PhotoVoice specialises in photographic training for marginalised groups of people around the world. Working alongside both international NGOs and local groups, PhotoVoice provides in the field training in photography and documentary skills for those whose views are marginalised within society. Projects to date include work with refugees, streetchildren, children in need and women living with HIV. PhotoVoice help these groups to raise awareness of their lives through photography and to generate an income though their new skills. Notable Feature(s): Projects in Congo, Nepal, UK, and Vietnam. United States contact info: Marjorie Victor PhotoVoice US Representative Telephone: 617.868.1516 StreetVisionUSA@hotmail.com Contact Information: Anna Blackman Telephone: 44 (0)7980 758928   Email: anna@photovoice.org Photovoice - Social Change through Photography http://www.photovoice.com/index.html Photovoice blends a grassroots approach to photography and social action. It provides cameras not to health specialists, policy makers, or professionals, but to people with least access to those who make decisions affecting their lives. From the villages of rural China to the homeless shelter of Ann Arbor, Michigan, people have used photovoice to amplify their visions and experience. Photovoice has three goals. It enables people to record and reflect their community's strengths and problems. It promotes dialogue about important issues through group discussion and photographs. Finally, it engages policymakers. It follows the premise that, as Caroline C. Wang explains, "What experts think is important may not match what people at the grassroots think is important." Photovoice enables us to gain "the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of the people who lead lives that are different from those traditionally in control of the means for imaging the world." As such, this approach to participatory appraisal values the knowledge put forth by people as a vital source of expertise. It confronts a fundamental problem of community assessment: what professionals, researchers, specialists, and outsiders think is important may completely fail to match what the community thinks is important. Most significant, the images produced and the issues discussed and framed by people may stimulate policy and social change. Photovoice is a methodology to reach, inform, and organize community members, enabling them to prioritize their concerns and discuss problems and solutions. Photovoice goes beyond the conventional role of community assessment by inviting people to promote their own and their community's well-being. Notable Feature(s): An extensive collection of article abstracts by Caroline Wang, Assistant Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at the School of Public Health, University of Michigan, on the photovoice method and community-based health work with the concept and practice; photo projects. Contact Information: Caroline Wang Assistant Professor of Health Behavior & Health Education 109 South Observatory M5039 SPH 2 Ann Arbor, MI   48109-2029 USA Telephone: 734.936.9854   Fax: 734.763.7379 Email: wangc@umich.edu PictureMumbai http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/12_1/gcinews5.html PictureMumbai was part of a series of documentary initiatives of the Getty Conservation Institute to engage young people with their communities by building consciousness and recognizing their relationship to the values inherent in a community's built environment. Through this body of work they have perhaps unwittingly yet unerringly distilled the essence of life in this city and offered every Mumbaiite the power to embrace the familiar. The sights, sounds, and smells of Mumbai are faithfully embedded within the graphic beauty of each black and white image; freeze frames that would serve to change the perspective, give pause for reflection, and provide the bedrock on which to anchor our identities. It has been a cathartic experience for all of us who have been involved in bringing this project to fruition. The process as powerful as the product. Anil Rao, Project Manager The GCI project began with Picture L.A. An exhibition of Picture L.A. opened at Los Angeles City Hall on December 6, 1994, accompanied by a book and a video. Its success led the GCI to do similar projects in Cape Town, Mexico City, Mumbai/Bombay, and Paris. Salzburg and Delaware followed independently. Notable Feature(s): Other cities in the series: Paris, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Cape Town, and Salzburg. Contact Information: The Getty Center 1200 Getty Center Drive Los Angeles, CA   90049-1679 USA Telephone: 310.440.7300   Email: info@getty.edu Productions B'alba - Documentary Films from Central America and Mexico http://www3.sympatico.ca/medavis/balbae.html Profiles of the Twelve Indivisible Community Sites http://cds.aas.duke.edu/docprojects/indivisible/ss.html This is the companion Web site to "Community Stories" from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Radio Diaries http://www.radiodiaries.org/ http://www.radiodiaries.org/teenagediaries.html Radio Diaries, Inc. is committed to producing a new kind of oral history. The organization works with people to document their own lives for public radio; teenagers, the elderly, workers, prison inmates and people in the forgotten corners of America. It trains diarists to be radio reporters and gives each one a tape recorder for three months to a year. Participants conduct interviews, keep an audio journal, and record the sounds of daily life - usually collecting over 20 hours of raw tape. RD, Inc. collaborates with each reporter, editing the material into radio documentaries for National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Its mission is to find extraordinary stories in ordinary places and to preserve those voices for generations to come. Notable Feature(s): The diaries themselves; an opportunity for teenagers to produce their own radio diaries. Contact Information: Joe Richman, Producer Radio Diaries, Inc. 169 Avenue A, Suite 13 New York, NY   10009 U.S.A. Email: info@radiodiaries.org Reaping the Golden Harvest: Pare Lorentz, Poet and Fimmaker http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/lorentz/front.html During the second half of the 1930s, the United States Government embarked on a unique project, a public relations campaign to keep the American people informed about the New Deal and the necessity of its programs. Under the direction of the Resettlement Administration, the Government first sponsored radio and photography campaigns to document environmental and social conditions that were plaguing the country. The goal of the Resettlement Administration was the relocation of impoverished farm families and poor city families. It also focused on the prevention of unprofitable farming techniques and improper land use, as well as the preservation of natural resources. The filmmaker Pare Lorentz played a prominent role. In Lorentz, the RA found a perfect match to its purposes. Lorentz was a passionate patriot and a staunch supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal. He believed that the American people had a right to expect the American government to provide them with information. And he also believed that the government should take advantage of the film medium to present the public with more truthful information than he felt they were receiving from the commercial media. His somewhat revolutionary use of the documentary format inspired other groups in the 1930's as to the usefulness the film media in transmitting social and political messages. In 1939 the American Institute of Planners commissioned a film to be released at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The result was The City, a film about the historic importance of rural, small town life in America, the evils of the city dwelling that had developed as America industrialized and the possibility of reclaiming the "good life" through suburban housing initiatives. RESOURCES FOR ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA: Distribution of Social Documentaries http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/res_distribution.html Valuable research and reports (by Pat Aufderheide and others) on the state of documentary production and distribution in the United States and around the world. Notable Feature(s): In the Battle for Reality: US Documentaries for Social Change; The Current State of the International Marketplace for Documentary Films; Maximizing Distribution. Contact Information: Center for Social Media School of Communication: Mary Graydon Center Room 300 American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC   20036-8017 USA Telephone: 202.885.3107   Fax: 202.885.2019 Email: socialmedia@american.edu RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW - a PBS series http://www.pbs.org/righthere/ Using a new and innovative premise for a national television series created by Ellen Schneider, executive producer, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW features video diaries created by ordinary men and women from around the country, who tell their stories in their own words and pictures. Although the situations vary widely, all the diarists have a natural gift for narrative and begin their stories on the brink of events likely to change the course of their lives. The diarists are given small format video cameras and an intensive tutorial in how to use them; each is then teamed with an experienced producer, who functions as an around-the-clock partner and guide, offering technical, creative, and moral support. The resulting videotape, sometimes as long as 100 hours, is shot primarily by the diarists and edited into an hour-long narrative–an intimate, unembellished, first person account of what each was thinking, feeling, and experiencing as events unfolded. While diarists and producers work in close collaboration, in the end it is the diarist whose voice prevails. "The video diary model is a departure and an innovation for American television," says series executive editor Steve Atlas. "By making diarists full partners in the editorial process, we break with a long-standing broadcast convention where the subjects are expected to reveal their most intimate moments and then go home to watch the results on television. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, by contrast, requires a leap of faith on the part of the producers as well as the subjects. We made that leap, and we think it pays off." Notable Feature(s): An Interact feature that allows you to submit a "Right Here, Right Now" digital video about work or decisions that have changed your life; discussion area and ongoing discussions about the project. Contact Information: Email: righthere@pov.org Robert Richter http://www.newday.com/filmmakers/Robert_Richter.html Robert Richter's work has been telecast in national prime time on PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, TBS, Discovery and on many major overseas television outlets. His most recent film is Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins, the example of one person's effort to change American foreign policy, narrated by Susan Sarandon. In the 1980s and early 1990s Richter produced a ground-breaking series on controversial government and business policies that affect people in developing countries. Other works focus on tropical rainforests; export of harmful pesticides from countries where they are banned to markets without safety restrictions; developing countries' debt problems. Notable Feature(s): Description of Hungry For Profit, a provocative investigation of the link between world hunger and the global agribusiness system, filmed in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Contact Information: Richter Productions 330 West 42nd Street New York, NY   10036 USA Telephone: 212.947.1395   Fax: 212.643.1208 Email: RRProd@aol.com Sérgio Bloch is an independent documentary filmmaker from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He directed the following video documentaries: "Pirituba Futebol Clube" (1994), about the Brazilian Landless Peasants' Movement; "Ambiente, Coisa e Tal" (1993), which focuses on the environmental conditions in a Rio de Janeiro's "favela" (slum or shanty town); and "Quem é Você?" (1995), in which people from all over the world talk about the image they have of places, peoples and cultures that they have never visited. Bloch's latest film, "Donkey without a Tail," follows people who make a living by picking through trash on the streets of Rio de Janeiro in search of recyclable material. This 16mm documentary was screened at the following festivals: International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA, The Netherlands); Bilan du Film Ethnographique (France); Int'l Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Films (Germany); Palm Springs Int'l Short Film (U.S.A.); Amascultura – Encontros Int'l de Cinema Documental (Portugal); It's All True – Int'l Documentary Filmfestival (Brazil); and the Mumbai Festival of Animation and Documentary Film (India), in which it won an award for Best First Film. Contact Information: International Documentary Association c/o Membership office 1551 S. Robertson Blvd., Suite 201 Los Angeles, CA   90035-4257 USA Telephone: 310.284.8422   Fax: 310.785.9334 Email: ida@artnet.net Sebastião Salgado's Photographs of the Landless in Brazil http://www.nytimes.com/specials/salgado/home/ "I came to Brazil to photograph a story about the peasants fighting not to come to the cities, because this for me is one of the last resistance movements in the world."   – Sebastião Salgado Silvia Mejia: An Ashoka Fellow Silvia Mejia is training young communications graduates and other motivated professionals to become transformers," who use the video camera creatively as an empowerment tool for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups." Mejia has worked with video cameras for the past 25 years and has witnessed their power in changing people's attitudes about themselves. She is working towards breaking down stereotypes seen on television, and the common belief that television is only for celebrities and "important" people. With her technical skills, she has created a program in which she trains a strategically selected group of social workers, communications students, teachers and psychologists to use video cameras to help disadvantaged groups overcome problems of low self-esteem which prevent them from being productive members of society. Those whom she trains will in turn train others in the implementation of video as a transforming tool. Those who do consider entering the field of social development have mostly worked in the area of social documentaries, and have not used their capacities with video equipment to address the social, psychological, and creative requirements of the neediest sectors. Mejia is encouraging these students to become-transformers, utilizing television and images as a true instrument of change. While many non-governmental organizations have incorporated video cameras to document the social problems and successes of their clientele, in Mejia's model the importance of the camera work is not the end-product, but rather the therapeutic process of filming itself, which transforms the self-image and self-esteem of its subjects, allowing them to deepen their understanding of themselves and unlocking their creative capacity. Prisoners, sexual workers, street children, abused women, HIV patients, and other marginalized groups not only get filmed, but also do the filming. They often come to learn that they have certain skills in managing the camera equipment or conducting interviews, and become interested in pursuing further activities with the camera. Many of these subjects will eventually receive training to replicate their experiences with other disadvantaged groups, providing them with the opportunity to help others, while simultaneously increasing their own self-esteem. Contact Information: Email: FSS@ashoka.org Simunye Media Dialogue Project - South Africa This project was born out of the conflict between Africa National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party supporters. Members of both sides produced a video analyzing the conflict. The video was shown to the leadership of both sides of the community. Discussion centered on to what extent, and how, this type of intervention brings about peaceful change. The process structured the conflict resolution and started building relationships between the parties. Contact Information: Wiseman Ndebele Email: ashokas@sn.apc.org Soros Documentary Fund (SDF) http://www.soros.org/sdf/object.htm The Soros Documentary Fund (SDF) began as a program of the Open Society Institute NY and then bagan a move in 2001 to the Sundance Institute. SDF supports the production and distribution of documentary films and videos dealing with human rights, social justice, civil liberties, and freedom of expression issues. Funding priority is given to projects addressing contemporary issues. The goal of the program is to raise public consciousness about human rights abuses and restrictions of civil liberties, to give voice to the diverse speech that is crucial to an open society, and to engage citizens in debate about these issues. SDF has supported a wide range of projects focusing on issues from the trafficking of women and children in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia; to rape as a war crime, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa; censorship and repression in Belarus; the death penalty debate; the global problem of sweatshop exploitation; human rights violations against Roma and many others. Notable Feature(s): Thumbnail profiles of documentaries that have been funded in the past: grantees are from over 16 countries in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the United States; complete application guidelines; comprehensive collection of links to distributors, film festival sites, theaters, and funders. Contact Information: Telephone: 212.548.0181   Fax: 212.548.4677 Email: Dweyermann@sorosny.org Sound Portraits and StoryCorps http://www.soundportraits.org/ http://storycorps.net/ Established as a nonprofit organization in 1994 by MacArthur Fellow David Isay, Sound Portraits Productions is an independent production company dedicated to telling stories that bring neglected American voices to a national audience. Whether on the radio, in print, or on the Web, Sound Portraits is committed to producing innovative works of lasting educational, cultural, and artistic value. Sound Portraits's radio documentaries (broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition) are audio profiles of men and women surviving in the margins. Told with care and dignity, the work depicts the lives of Americans living in communities often neglected or misunderstood. Sound Portraits frequently collaborates with people living in these hard-to-access corners of America, giving them tape recorders and microphones and helping them tell their own stories. Sound Portraits is known not just for its cutting-edge radio documentaries but also for its innovative approaches to disseminating ideas, sparking discussion, and broadening the national debate on such issues as poverty, juvenile justice, prison, and race. After broadcast, their documentaries live on through extensive education outreach in classrooms across the country. In 1997, Sound Portraits was awarded funding from the MacArthur Foundation to bring the documentary Ghetto Life 101 into thousands of classrooms in collaboration with the national education outreach organization Facing History and Ourselves. This was just the beginning of an effort to make Sound Portraits work available as a learning tool, a mission that has grown with the company. StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record each others' stories in sound. Its goal is to help you interview your grandmother, your uncle, the lady who's worked at the luncheonette down the block for as long as you can remember, indeed, anyone whose story you want to hear and preserve. To start, StoryCorps will be building soundproof recording booths across the country, called StoryBooths. One can use these StoryBooths to record broadcast-quality interviews with the help of a trained facilitator. The first StoryBooths opened in New York City's Grand Central Terminal on October 23, 2003, and the oral historian Studs Terkel gave a rousing speech. Since StoryCorps wants to make sure your story lives on for generations to come, it will also add your interview to the StoryCorps Archive, housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which the organizers hope will become nothing less than an oral history of America. StoryCorps, in spirit and in scope, is modeled after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral-history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded. These recordings remain the single most important collection of American voices gathered to date. One aim is that StoryCorps will build and expand on that work, becoming a WPA for the 21st Century. Notable Feature(s): Extensive archive of print and radio documentary material, including Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones, a Buffalo, NY, photographer whose work has created a searing portrait of life on the city's West side over three decades of transition. His haunting portraits depict an often overlooked aspect of the country's social history: the lived experience of working-class communities whose cultural expression and everyday struggles rarely make the day's headlines or wind their way into the chapters of history; Sound Portraits Youth Program, including Youth Portraits, a collection of stories of young adults, prisoners at Rikers Island with short documentaries about their lives; Smithsonian June 2004 article on StoryCorps, "Hear Here" by David Taylor. Contact Information: Dave Isay, Sound Portraits Productions 176 Grand Street 3rd Floor New York, NY   10013 U.S.A. Telephone: 212.941.8517   Fax: 212.941.9562 Email: matthew@soundportraits.org Studs Terkel http://www.studsterkel.org/ Studs Terkel's multifaceted life has produced an equally rich and varied legacy of research materials. After graduating from University of Chicago's Law School in 1934, Terkel pursued acting and appeared on stage, in radio, and in the movies. He has been a playwright, a radio news commentator, a sportscaster, and a film narrator, and has worked as a jazz columnist, a disc jockey, and a music festival host. He even served briefly as a civil service employee but is best known as a radio network personality and as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books. His award winning books are based on his extensive conversations with Americans from all walks of life that chronicle the profound and often tumultuous changes in our nation during the twentieth century. Robert Coles salutes Studs Terkel as "our foremost documentarian, our leading student of American variousness." For Coles, Terkel is a twentieth-century Henry Mayhew, the mid-eighteenth-century British journalist whose social observation brought London workers and the poor to life. Notable Feature(s): Review of My American Century, 45 or so of the best interviews or conversations from his eight previous books or "oral journals" as he calls them. "My American Century" also includes the Terkel introductions for each book, which give us a helpful overview of the primary focus of each one. These range from "Division Street," published in 1967, through "Coming of Age," a national bestseller in 1995. Three of the most absorbing and powerful are "The Good War," about World War II, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985, "Hard Times" (1970), about the Depression, and "Working" (1972), in which people discuss what they do for a living. A special bonus is one introduction Terkel wrote for the fiftieth anniversary of "The Grapes of Wrath." Interview by Kira Albin NPR's Morning Edition recording about Working: "People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do." Terkel interviewed more than 130 people around the country about their jobs. Contact Information: Chicago History Museum Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, Illinois   60614-6071 U.S.A. Telephone: 312.642.4600   Fax: 312.266.2077 Sundance Institute http://institute.sundance.org Sundance Institute has a long history of supporting documentary filmmakers; building on that tradition, the Documentary Film Program was created in 2000 and expanded in 2001 to include the Sundance Documentary Fund, formerly the Soros Documentary Fund of the Open Society. The Sundance Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to and nurtures the growth of nonfiction filmmakers, encourages the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to a broader audience. It supports independent artists both domestically and internationally through the Sundance Documentary Program, the House of Docs at the Sundance Film Festival, the Documentary Composers Laboratory, and a variety of collaborative international documentary initiatives. Notable Feature(s): Sundance Documentary Fund. Contact Information: Diane Weyermann, Director of the Sundance Documentary Progra Sundance Institute 8530 Wilshire Blvd., 3rd Floor Los Angeles, CA   90211-3114 U.S.A Telephone: 310.360.1981   Fax: 310.360.1969 Email: sdf@sundance.org Television Race Initiative (TRI) http://www.pbs.org/pov/tvraceinitiative/what.html The Television Race Initiative (TRI) is a multi-year effort in which diverse, character-driven, high-profile television broadcasts create a spine for sustained community dialogue and problem solving around the issue of race relations. In partnership with national and community-based organizations, TRI uses storytelling-initially in the form of several public television broadcasts-to ‘break the ice' and encourage essential conversations that lead to constructive action. Television Race Initiative (TRI), a project of American Documentary, Inc., grew out of a "beyond outreach" community engagement model called High Impact Television (HITV). Created initially for AmDoc's signature PBS series, P.O.V., and more proactive than conventional "outreach," High Impact Television and TRI are collaborative media efforts that use broadcasts as tools to pursue measurable, ongoing outcomes. The Television Race Initiative (TRI) works with six public television stations around the U.S. to use national programming on a local level to build meaningful alliances with local organizations and to serve the particular interests of their own communities. Notable Feature(s): Links; documentary profiles, broadcast schedules, teachers' study guides, and more background materials for all TRI programs. Contact Information: Ellen Schneider, Executive Director Television Race Initiative National Office 2601 Mariposa Street 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA   94110 USA Telephone: 415.553.2841   Fax: 415.553.2848 Email: tvrace@pov.org Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) http://info.tve.org/index.cfm An independent, nonprofit organisation, the Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) aims to act as a catalyst for the production and distribution of films on environment, development, health and human rights issues. Based in the UK but with very much a global focus, TVE uses broadcast television and other audio-visual resources - including the internet and radio - as its key platforms. It works above all to promote informed debate, new policies and practical solutions to the growing challenges of human development in the twenty-first century. TVE has offices in London, Beijing, Tokyo, Colombo, Calcutta and Seoul. TVE works by acting as a bridge - or broker - between organisations which want to get an issue aired (United Nations agencies, and international NGOs such as WWF) and the global television industry. TVE's skill is to take the seemingly complex priorities of the agencies it works with and turn them into television programmes that will attract audiences worldwide: to take issues like child development, primary health, poverty or desertification, and translate them into mainstream TV programmes - drama, 'soaps' and children's programmes, as well as documentaries - that focus on the human stories involved in sustainable human development. Notable Feature(s): TVE's Video Resource Network allows one to access TVE films from local regional distribution centres around the world and helps to finance productions in their own countries; Earth Report; reports and documents on impact of globalization; City Life. Contact Information: TVE Prince Albert Rd London NW1 4RZ UK Telephone: +44 20 7586 5526   Fax: +44 20 7586 4866 Email: tve-uk@tve.org.uk The Changemakers Studio http://www.changemakers.net/studio/index.html The Changemakers Studio showcases, in a multimedia, documentary style, various features on the work of social entrepreneurs around the world. Contact Information: Ashoka/Changemakers 1700 North Moore Street Suite 2000 ATTN. Kris Herbst Arlington, VA   22209 USA Telephone: 703.527.8300   Fax: 703.527.8383 Email: kherbst@ashoka.org The Historical Significance of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_6.html The literary documentary by James Agee Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which includes, importantly, Walter Evans' photographs, provides considerable insight into the historic events of 1930s America through its examination of Southern sharecroppers. In addition to illuminating concrete historical phenomena, the work illuminates fundamental attitude changes. Notably, James Agee and Walker Evans' method of handling their subject matter shows both a rejection of Victorian and Progressive values, and the adoption of a fundamentally different approach to addressing social issues. Notable Feature(s): Many of Evans' "documentary style" photographs for the book can be viewed at the following Web site:http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~ds8s/walker/gallery.html More commentary and reaction on the book is available at http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~ds8s/walker/letus.html The Human Rights Video Project http://www.humanrightsproject.org/index.php http://dev.humanrightsproject.org/index.php The Human Rights Video Project is dedicated to increasing the public's awareness of human rights issues through the medium of documentary films. The program also aims to build a broad community of filmmakers, librarians, activists, teachers and other citizens interested in using independent video to effect social change in their communities. The Human Rights Video Project is a national library project created to increase the public's awareness of human rights issues through the medium of documentary films. To that end, the project has curated a collection of 12 documentary films on human rights issues. The project also encourages collaborations between public libraries and human rights advocacy organizations to present film screenings and discussion programs. The project was developed by National Video Resources in partnership with the American Library Association Public Programs Office. Major funding is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The Human Rights Video Project also provides resources for organizations that wish to create effective discussion programs around human rights issues through documentary film screenings. Five essays suggest how to use the Human Rights Video Collection to present programs on specific human rights issues. Notable Feature(s): Resources for thematic programming; the 12 films used in the project. Contact Information: Human Rights Video Project National Video Resources 73 Spring Street, Suite 403 New York, NY   10012 U.S.A. Telephone: 212.274.8080   Fax: 212.274.8081 Email: info@nvr.org The Importance of Disturbing Images - by Patt Blue http://www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.6254/content.content_view.htm The harrowing experience of seeing a newspaper reproduction of a "perfectly formed severed hand," hardly competes with the emotional moment of the photographer who witnessed it in reality, writes author Blue. One effect of such documentary reality is often the impulse to change something, e.g., one's understanding, one's attitude, one's priorities. The Mirror Project http://www.mirrorproject.org/index.htm Founded by Roberto Arévalo, the Mirror Project was created to teach video production in ways that would allow participants to express and reveal the quality of their lives. Its mission is to see people communicate with each other and the wider society through self-reflection and positive engagement with their families and communities. The Project produces videos based on everyday realities. The aim is to help individuals to discover and show what they themselves know rather than projecting preconceptions on them. The Mirror Project goes beyond video production and beyond the borders of the neighborhood. Project participants conduct workshops on youth issues, racism, and media methods. Held at universities, museums, and conferences, these workshops present a forum for diverse voices; and promote alternative, community-based media. These presentations also give Mirror participants an opportunity to develop confidence in their public speaking skills and to learn that they and their messages belong in academic and professional settings. Additionally, regional, national and international distribution of Mirror videos through video festivals, museums, and TV stations brings the ideas, concerns, creativity, and the example of the achievement of Mirror youth to thousands of other youths and adults. Notable Feature(s): Descriptions of Youth Productions; news; outreach and training services available. Contact Information: The Mirror Project P.O. Box 441486 Somerville, MA   02144 USA Telephone: 617.625.1690   Email: info@mirrorproject.org The Visionaries http://www.visionaries.org/ The Visionaries is a nonprofit television production organization dedicated to producing innovative programming about individuals and organizations working to create positive social change throughout the world. The nationally broadcast public television series seeks to discover the magic that occurs when one human being helps another. The Visionaries is not a typical television series. Through in-depth interviews with those actively engaged in providing medical care, feeding the hungry, educating children and adults, creating economic opportunity, and offering hope to people around the globe, The Visionaries provides an insightful look into the heart of an organization, exploring what makes it tick. Time and time again, The Visionaries shows that "ordinary" people are making a difference. The Visionaries has shot in 27 countries on 6 continents and 45 American cities. Also The Visionaries has announced the launch of the first U.S.-based media channel devoted entirely to telling the stories of philanthropic organizations online. Notable Feature(s): Articles on effective programs around the world and links to the organizations and individuals behind them; news; academic programs in philanthropy and media; Visionaries Internet Channel about organizations empowering communities and inviting submission of public service announcements from other organizations wanting to broadcast their news on the Internet. Contact Information: The Visionaries, Inc. 141 Wood Road Braintree, MA   02184 USA Telephone: 781.356.6804   Fax: 781.843.3665 Email: institute@visionaries.org Third World Newsreel http://www.twn.org/ http://www.twn.org/about.html Third World Newsreel (TWN) is an alternative media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation and dissemination of independent film and video by and about people of color. It supports the innovative work of diverse forms and genres made by artists who are intimately connected to their subjects through common bonds of ethnic/cultural heritage, class position, gender, sexual orientation and political identification. TWN promotes the self- representation of traditionally marginalized groups as well as the negotiated representation of those groups by artists who work in solidarity with them. Ultimately, whether documentary, experimental, narrative, traditional or non-traditional, the importance of the media promoted by the organization is its ability to effect social change, to encourage people to think critically about their lives and the lives of others, and to propel people into action. For 30 years, Third World Newsreel has been the foremost distributor of films and videos by People of Color in America and by Third World and Indigenous people throughout the world. Third World Newsreel distributes almost 300 films and videos from the African, Asian, Latino, Palestinian, and Native American diasporas. Notable Feature(s): Training and workshop collaborations; possibilities for fiscal sponsorship, production, technical and exhibition support for individual producers and cultural workers. Contact Information: Third World Newsreel 545 Eighth Avenue, 10th Floor New York, NY   10018 USA Telephone: 212.947.9277   Fax: 212.594.6417 Email: twn@twn.org This American Life (TAL) http://www.thislife.org/ This American Life host and producer Ira Glass started working in public radio in 1978 when he was 19, as an intern at National Public Radio's Washington Headquarters. Over the course of the next 17 years, he worked on nearly every NPR news show, and did nearly every production job they had: he was a tape cutter, desk assistant, newscast writer, editor, producer, reporter and substitute host. He moved to Chicago in 1989. From there, he did several documentary series about public schools and about race relations for NPR. One followed a group of sophomores at Lincoln Park High School over a span of three years. Another documented school reform at Taft High School for a year. Yet another tracked life at Washington Irving Elementary School for a year. This American Life went on the air in November of 1995. Notable Feature(s): The legendary audio documentary interviews are available online and can heard with (free download) ReadAudio player. All of the interviews since 1995 are archived at the site; special re:generator online interview with Glass on the social mission of radio documentary, The Necessity of Stories: "The most powerful thing you can hear and the only thing that ever persuades any of us in our own lives, is if you meet somebody whose story contradicts the thing you think you know." Contact Information: This American Life WBEZ Radio Navy Pier 848 East Grand Avenue Chicago, Illinois   60611 USA Email: web@thislife.org Time Lapse - Essay by Frank Viviano http://motherjones.com/mother_jones/JA98/viviano.html The site showcases a decade of social change through the eyes of award-winning Mother Jones photographers. Contact Information: Mother Jones 731 Market St. Suite 600 San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Email: webmaster@motherjones.com Training Package for Video Production http://www.idrc.ca/nayudamma/production_90e.html Video has become an important tool used by many groups in developing countries for popular education, information, and training. With portable video, groups can benefit from using this inexpensive and manageable medium to create their own material according to local cultural traditions and needs. SUCO is a Montreal-based development organization that now handles distribution of a specially designed training kit for using portable video. Originally produced by Vidéo Tiers-Monde with IDRC support in 1989, this self-training package includes a 43-minute video on all aspects of production and distribution, supported by three volumes (310 pages complete with illustrations and photos). The kit is designed to be used by a range of people who need to communicate, including professionals, amateurs, teachers, and students. The instructional material covers the language of audiovisual communication, the production process, and the technical aspects of production and distribution. The package is extremely well-designed and easy to use. Users have commented on the kit's clarity, simplicity, and completeness, as well as its usefulness as a resource that offers encouragement and instills confidence in trainees. The kit can be used in the classroom during training seminars or as a "teacher" for people who are learning to use video on their own. The training package was developed in Canada and Honduras and has been tested in Chile, Peru, and Zimbabwe. Contact Information: Sylvia Roy SUCO 3680, rue Jeanne-Mance, bureau 410 Montréal, Québec   H2X 2K5 CANADA Telephone: 514.982.6622   Fax: 514.982.6122 Email: sroy@web.net; sucovtm@web.net True Vision http://www.truevisiontv.com/ True Vision was formed in 1996 to make television that empowers the viewer. The company's aim is to bring to the audience stories that both entertain and inform, to produce work from UK and international documentary makers that gives a voice to the oppressed. Notable Feature(s): The site features still photo previews of True Vision productions, e.g., Old, an investigative documentary from Kate Blewett and Brian Woods (Eyes of a Child, Slavery and The Dying Rooms) that shows that being old and forgotten are tragic, undeniable realities for many people in Blair's Britain. Through a handful of characters we are given an insight into a grim future that could await any one of us... "[The] film should be required viewing." - BBC Radio Four's Front Row Contact Information: True Vision 49a Oxford Road South London W4 3DD UK Email: website@truevisiontv.com Undercurrents: U.K.-based alternative video news http://www.undercurrents.org/ According to the Guardian, "undercurrents is good news for British media. The alternative news service is produced on videocassettes and is available in mailorder or from independent bookshops. Dedicated to environmental and social justice issues, its philosophy is simple: place the Hi8 camcorder (best quality) in politically sensitive situations, give time for people not normally heard, show angles not normally seen, and continue filming even when the nice man with the badge puts his hand over the lens." Notable Feature(s): Training materials and archives. Contact Information: Undercurrent-alternative video news 16b Cherwell Street Oxford   OX4 1BG England Telephone: +44 (0)1865 203661   Fax: +44 (0)870 1316103 Email: underc@gn.apc.org UNFPA Documentary Wins Indigenous Film Award http://www.unfpa.org/modules/dispatch/issues99/nov99/indigenous.htm The documentary "Ahinam Chay" (Quechua for "This is the story."), presented by UNFPA's Peru office, won the First Official Prize for the Defence of Women's Dignity and Human Rights at the VI American Film and Video Festival of Indigenous People and Originating Nations, held in August, 1999, in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The UNFPA documentary shows scenes from a literacy project set up in the Peruvian highland region of Cuzco. Women learn to read and write, while reflecting on their reproductive and sexual health, gender roles, and their status within the family and community. This is the first time that a bilingual literacy method, using both Spanish and Quechua, the local language, has been used. The same method is being carried out in the Bolivian provinces of Chuquisaca and Potosí. The four-year project is being funded with $3 million from the United Nations Foundation, established by United States businessman, Ted Turner. Contact Information: United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 220 E. 42nd Street New York, NY   10017 USA Email: dungus@unfpa.org United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) http://www.unaff.org/2001/ Established in 1998 at Stanford University, UNAFF screens documentaries by international filmmakers dealing with UN topics such as human rights, environmental survival, women's issues, children, refugee protection, homelessness, racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace. UNAFF offers a unique opportunity to view films that are rarely screened for public audiences since they are often too political for commercial theatrical release, to become familiar with global problems, and to provide a better understanding of the means to address these problems. Contact Information: Jasmina Bojic, Founder and Executive Director UNAFF/UNAFF EP P.O. Box 19369 Stanford, CA   94309 USA Telephone: 650.725.0012   Fax: 650.725.0011 Email: info@unaff.org Video for Women's Voices - (SEWA) A festival of films by rural women was recently showcased in New Delhi. Trained by the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) of Ahmedabad, most of the women are poor and illiterate, and recognize video as a tool for empowerment – to document and highlight their issues and concerns. Video is an integral part of SEWA's activities: it is used for income-generation, occupational health, wage negotiations, legal interventions, teaching new skills and advocating for policy change. Contact Information: Mirai Chatterjee Email: sewa.mahila@gnahd.globalnet.ems.vsnl.net.in Video Volunteers http://www.creativevisions.org/videovols.htm http://www.creativevisions.org/index.htm VIDEO VOLUNTEERS is dedicated to spreading the use of video as a tool to alleviate poverty in the developing world. In the 1990s, a World Bank survey asked thousands of the poorest of the poor to identify the biggest hurdle to their advancement. Above even food and shelter, the number one problem cited was access to a "voice." The Video Volunteers project is about giving a voice not only to the voiceless but also to the people who fight for them. In 2003 Video Volunteers successfully piloted the program at the organizations of two Ashoka Fellows from India. VV made one promotional film for Akanksha, the Bombay slum children's supplementary education program. They also made an advocacy film for I-CARD, an Assamese citizen sector organization working to strengthen the cultural identity of the Mising tribe who live along the banks of the Brahmaputra. I-CARD was given video training and is now working on its own productions. Another project, Video SEWA, is India's most exciting grassroots video project: a cooperative of mostly illiterate women have shot, edited, and conceptualized nearly a hundred training and empowerment films for poor women in Gujarat. The goal of Video Volunteers is both to help citizen organizations communicate better and to share vital information both within and beyond their local communities. The videos will be streamed on One World TV, the leading Internet television station, which will become a hub for those using video in poverty alleviation. Notable Feature(s): Projects from Creative Visions Productions, a multimedia production company based in Los Angeles and London that specializes in projects with social or humanitarian relevance; GlobalTribeNet, the first global network of young social entrepreneurs. Contact Information: Kathy Eldon, Executive Producer Creative Visions 1223 Sunset Plaza Drive West Hollywood, CA   90069 U.S.A. Fax: 310.652.8020 Email: videovolunteers@yahoo.com Vincent Carelli - Video in the Villages / Brazil http://www.library.american.edu/subject/media/aufderheide/villages.html http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/filmfest/2001/villages.html This is a brief introduction to Vincent Carelli's innovative use of documentary with indigenous people in Brazil. The subject matter of these three short documentaries (Espirito da TV, Festa da Moca, Pemp) produced by the Centro de Trabalho Indigenista in conjunction with various indigenous groups in Brazil and directed by the Center's head, Vincent Carelli, is shaped by each indigenous group's way of using video. Contact Information: Vincent Carelli Projeto Video nas Aldeias Centro de Trabalho Indigenista Brazil Telephone: 202.387.3500   Fax: 202.234.6049 Email: steves@edf.org Visionaries With Their Eyes on the Truth http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb? Here are excerpts from a conversation between Janet Maslin, film reviewer for The New York Times, and leading documentarians about their work and "its liberating possibilities, its frustrations and its future." Contact Information: Peter Lenz The New York Times on the Web 1120 Avenue of the Americas Sixth Floor New York, NY   10036 Telephone: 212-579-8008   Email: peter@nytimes.com Voices from the Mountain: Personal Life Histories from Mt. Elgon - Edited by Masheti Masinjila and Okoth Okomo The purpose of this collection of 14 testimonies from Mount Elgon District in Kenya is to give a voice to people in a rural setting who are not often listened to, specifically women. Contact Information: Kenya Oral Literature Association (KOLA) KOLA c/o Department of Literature University of Nairobi P.O. Box 30197 NAIROBI Kenya Wendy Ewald http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Ewald/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june02/ewald/ Wendy Ewald is a writer, photographer, and teacher dedicated to social change and children's issues. Ewald has taught in Appalachia, Colombia, on Canadian Native reservations, and in Mexico and South Africa, as well as in various communities in the United States. Some of her work is featured at various Web sites. A number of the most interesting are listed here. Photo Realism - by Samantha Stainburn "It's to help them develop a sense of self-confidence," the 50-year-old photographer explains. "When kids make pictures of things, they give value to those things." ... Ewald, who has been producing pieces with her students for 30 years, never tells anyone exactly how to create an image. Instead, she asks questions designed to facilitate her collaborators' self-expression.... The steps involved in Ewald's art-making process, which she has officially titled "Literacy Through Photography," are straightforward. Typically, supported by grant money, she moves into a community for several months or longer, teaches her collaborators how to use cameras—mostly 35mm, with fixed-focus lenses—and shows them how to develop and print film. Then she guides participants through a series of assignments that hit close to home: "self-portrait," "family," "community," and "dreams." Before shooting the photos, students write about each theme; afterward, they pen pieces about what their images reveal. Creating a Visual Spanish Alphabet The Alphabet Project was created out of an interest to find ways that photographs could be used to teach language. It was designed for ESL classes at the elementary school level with an schedule of one half hour per day for each grade. Since all the students but one in the ESL classes at Bethesda Elementary School were Spanish speaking, the teachers decided to make a Spanish language alphabet. The students would then be able to explore the concepts in their own language and assign visual representation from their own culture. Eventually they would exhibit the alphabet in the school and share with English speaking students their language and culture. I Dreamed I Had a Girl in My Pocket Stories and Photographs by Wendy Ewald and the Children of Vichya, India. Wendy Ewald: Retratos y Suenos/Portraits and Dreams Photographs by Mexican Children. Children's education in visual literacy The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities and The Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley have established a comprehensive Web site spotlighting Wendy Ewald's work in this particular field. Secret Games with Children Wendy Ewald: Children and Photography BlackSelfWhiteSelf Wendy Ewald biography and project profile Notable Feature(s): NewsHour interview and portfolio of Ewald's collaborative work with children in India, the United States, the Middle East and Latin America. Wicklow Films http://www.wicklowfilms.com/ Wicklow Films is a documentary production company dedicated to making films about Inner Asia and the former Soviet Union. Founded by Taran Davies in 1994 to build a better understanding of remote cultures and little-understood conflicts, Wicklow Films has produced documentaries in Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan, including Mountain Men and Holy Wars, Afghan Stories, and The Land Beyond the River. Taran Davies founded Wicklow Films in 1994. He is a producer, director, cameraman and writer. Born in New York, Taran grew up in England and then attended Harvard University where he studied photography and video. Around the Sacred Sea, his first film, told the story of his five-month expedition riding horseback around Siberia's Lake Baikal. While on this journey he developed a fascination with Russia, its southern borderlands, and the many cultures and religions of the region, especially Islam. Taran has since made documentaries about the history of Islam, the roots of Jihad and the life of Muslims throughout much of the Islamic belt known to the Russians as "the Near Abroad". His film The Land Beyond the River, about his journey through Central Asia, was the first documentary shot entirely on Hi 8 to be broadcast nationwide by PBS. Notable Feature(s): Still and video clips from the various documentary works. Contact Information: Wicklow Films Taran Davies 270 Lafayette Street Room 1201 New York, NY   10012 U.S.A. Telephone: 212.965.9960   Fax: 212.965.5257 Email: tdavies@wicklowfilms.com WITNESS - See It. Film It. Change It. http://www.witness.org/ WITNESS is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns. Beyond providing video cameras and editing equipment, WITNESS is committed to facilitating exposure for its partners' issues on a global scale. The organization helps broker relationships with international media outlets, government officials, policymakers, activists, and the general public so that once a video is made, it can be used as a tool to advocate for change. The WITNESS Partner Network consists of human rights defenders and nongovernmental organizations working on a broad range of human rights issues, including civil, political, cultural, economic and social rights. Since its inception, WITNESS has partnered with over 250 organizations devoted to such issues as atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala, sexual abuse of women and girls during Sierra Leone's civil war, the plight of internally displaced persons in Burma, and sweatshops on U.S. soil. Notable Feature(s): Article on WITNESS's evolution and impact; Video in Action: WITNESS Case Studies; WITNESS Newsletters; video training initiatives, manuals, and other resources. Contact Information: Gillian Caldwell WITNESS 80 Hanson Place, 5th Floor Brooklyn, NY   11217 USA Telephone: 718.783.2000   Fax: 718.783.1593 Email: witness@witness.org Women's Caucus for Gender Justice http://www.iccwomen.org/ The Women's Caucus grew out of the work of a last minute organizing effort of a small group of women human rights activists at the February 1997 Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court at the U.N. These women realized that without an organized caucus, women's concerns would not be actively defended by the mainstream Human Rights NGOs or the NGO coalition monitoring the proceedings for the establishment of the ICC (the CICC), although it must be recognized that the latter played an important role in the creation of the caucus. Documentary work for social change is one element of the organization's programs. In cooperation with Witness.org the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice recently completed a video documentary to accompany their training manual for women's rights-related NGOs around the world. The video and manual explain how to use the International Criminal Court treaty as a tool to promote awareness of and prosecute gender crimes. Through the voices of women survivors of historic and on-going violence in both armed-conflict situations and peacetime, the video documents the inspiring struggle towards justice and the end of impunity for violence against women. WITNESS served as a liaison by connecting the Women's Caucus with an intern from WITNESS partner group, Ain O Salish Kendra, in Bangladesh. Witness also assisted in conceptualizing the video documentary, reviewing and providing feedback on the proposed script, logging footage, and offering guidance on locating archival footage. Notable Feature(s): Reports on Caucus activity and publications; regional news on women's human rights; links and bibliographies. Contact Information: Women's Caucus for Gender Justice P.O. Box 3541 Grand Central Post Office New York, NY   10163 USA Telephone: 212.697.7741   Fax: 212.949-.996 Email: iccwomen@igc.org Working Films http://www.workingfilms.org/index2.html Working Films opened full-time in February 2000. Its unique initiatives link filmmakers with community organizers to support social, economic and civil justice. Projects range from high profile national programs, including HBO and PBS broadcasts, to regional and local grassroots efforts. The goal is to create dynamic opportunities for independent media to address the issues of our times - in the classroom, in the workplace, and in our communities. Working Films is a community-based organization that supports filmmakers, organizers and educators. It works with filmmakers to use their work in coordinated grassroots community education and classroom projects; works with organizers to incorporate film and media into their grassroots campaigns; and works with educators to incorporate relevant independent media into their classroom instruction. Statewide efforts developed "on the ground" in North Carolina provide strategic pilots for national campaigns. Notable Feature(s): Article profiling the social change potential of documentary work that motivates Working Films. Contact Information: Robert West Working Films 602 South Fifth Avenue Wilmington, NC   28401 USA Telephone: 910.342.9000   Email: rwest@workingfilms.org World Population Film/Video Festival (WPFVF) http://www.wpfvf.com/ The Festival is an international competition for college and secondary students to encourage critical thought and self-expression regarding population growth, resource consumption, the environment, and our common global future. Notable Feature(s): Profiles of past winners and their videos; guidelines for submissions; extensive links to organizations working on population issues. Contact Information: Rawn Fulton, Director World Population Film/Video Festival 46 Fox Hill Road Bernardston, MA   01337 USA Telephone: 800.638.9464   Fax: 413.648.9204 Email: info@wpfvf.com WorldLinkTV http://www.worldlinktv.com/ http://www.itvs.org/about/worldlink.html WorldLink TV, a nonprofit television channel, offers independent, issue-driven programs from around the world. The first international, public affairs channel for Americans and the first to expose American independent work to international audiences, WorldLink TV provides 24-hour a day coverage of the environment, human rights, international security and global culture. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) mandated that DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) providers offer 4% of their channel capacity to qualified nonprofits for educational or informational programming by December 15, 1999. In response, ITVS joined with Internews Network, Inc. (a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that supports independent television stations around the world) to form Link Media. One of nine nonprofit groups formally awarded a television channel, Link Media launched WorldLink TV on December 15, 1999. Airing on DBS providers DirecTV and The Dish Network, WorldLink offers globally focused, viewer responsive programming - including current affairs stories, documentaries, narratives and music videos. Long-term programming goals include producing interactive talk shows, news and commentary, supported by web-based archives and multiple language tracks. Notable Feature(s): E-newsletter; extensive program descriptions of films and videos about issues of social concern; distribution information and linked opportunities for action and involvement. Contact Information: Link Media, Inc. P.0. Box 150188 San Rafael, CA   94915-0188 USA Telephone: 415.457.5222   Fax: 415.457.6810 Email: contact@WorldLinkTV.com Youth Media Distribution (YMDI) http://www.ymdi.org/index.php YMDI's mission is to improve the distribution of independent, youth-created film, video, radio, and new media. YMDi.org provides information and tools that are essential to increasing the visibility of media made by youth. Notable Feature(s): Links to many documentaries, producers, and organizations helping young people find and deliver their perspectives on social issues; toolkit for getting one's work out where it can be seen, evaluated, and making a difference; legal issues of distribution, marketing tips, case studies, and much more. Contact Information: Email: info@ymdi.org