Help us kickoff the International Student Documentary Competition 2010 with a screening of past winners!

SHOUTBACK
looking back and moving forward

Friday, March 5th
1104 S. Wabash Ave
Chicago, IL 60605

Reception : 6.00pm, Rm 407
Screening : 6.30pm – 8.00pm, Rm 402

Columbia College alum Michael Latchney writes:

I hope that the year is off to a great start. I am currently working with Kartemquin Films to promote the 15th anniversary of the classic film Hoop Dreams. I wanted to give you a heads up on two events surrounding this grand occasion. The first event is Oct. 16th at 7pm, at 1512 S. Pulaski Rd Chicago IL 60623. This event is free and open to the public. The second event is right in your backyard, Oct. 26 at 7pm, at CCC Film Row. This event is organized by IFP and Kartemquin. Both events are based around community organizing and outreach. Maybe you guys could post these dates on your web site. It is guaranteed to be a good time to watch a classic documentary and network.

You heard it here first, folks. That information for these special 15th anniversary screenings again is:

October 16, 7PM
1512 S. Pulaski Rd
Chicago, IL 60623

Oct. 26, 7PM
1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605

Admission is free.

Join us for a discussion with directors and producers from the Kartemquin series, The New Americans. To celebrate the rebroadcasting of the groundbreaking series, They’ve agreed to share some of their knowledge with us on the Viva Documentary Forums.

Visit the forum thread and leave questions here.

The series will air as part of Global Voices on Sundays beginning July 5th and is also available for download on iTunes for $1.99 as part of iTunes’ Independence Day promotion. Other select documentaries from “Global Voices” series will be available on iTunes this summer on the PBS Indies Channel.

Synopsis:

Shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, this film breaks the silence surrounding the tens of thousands of women and girls who have been kidnapped, raped and sexually tortured in that country’s intractable civil war. The filmmaker, herself a survivor of gang rape, talks with activists, peacekeepers, physicians and with the rapists themselves. She travels to remote villages to meet rape survivors who have been shamed and abandoned, providing a piercing, intimate look into the horror, struggle and ultimate grace of their lives.

The filmmaker, Lisa F. Jackson will be in attendance at a Human Rights Watch International Film Festival on Thursday, June 18th at 5:30 in the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago. Here are the details:

Benefit Screening and Reception
Thursday, June 18, 2009
5:30 PM
Museum of Contemporary Art
(220 East Chicago Avenue, Education Center Entrance)

Featuring a screening of
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Winner of the Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2008

With special guest Lisa F. Jackson, director
STUDENT – ticket(s) at $25 each

SNAPSHOTS
Rare Cinematic Shorts, Out-takes and Commercial Work by
THE MAYSLES BROTHERS
A special program curated for STOP SMILING

STOP SMILING presents a selection of work by the documentary pioneers
behind Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens and Salesman. This one-night-only
program of Direct Cinema portraits and explorations will span both the
myriad subjects that have caught the attention of the Maysles’ lens, as
well as the five prolific decades since the brothers’ first film.

Taken out of the context of longer works, these excerpts become
self-contained narratives and singular artworks. Farm workers in
revolutionary Cuba move from shack to chic, Truman Capote introduces
Kansan friends to New York’s Fifth Avenue, and Marlon Brando flirts his
way through a spree of female interviewers, all through the Maysles’
poetic eye.

The program will also include selections from the Maysles’ impressive body
of commercial work, which they undertook in order to finance their feature
films. These commercials extend the conversation about cinema beyond the
screen, which masks the process and cost of production, to create simple,
poetic snapshots of everyday consumers. These clips exhibit the same
empathy, technique and care apparent in all Maysles films, and stand in
stark contrast to the exhaustedly produced, focus-group-oriented
television ads one sees today.

Many of the shorts, out-takes and commercials in this special program have
never before been screened in Chicago, and rarely even around the world.

Read an excerpt from the STOP SMILING interview with Albert Maysles, from
the Documentary Issue here.

Receive a copy of the STOP SMILING Documentary Issue at the screening with
a $5 donation.

++

SNAPSHOTS
Curated by Beth Capper and STOP SMILING
This screening was made possible by Maysles Films Inc.

Tuesday, May 12, 7:00 p.m.
at the STOP SMILING Storefront
1371 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL

Program run-time: approx. 1 hour

Timothy Tamisiea will represent the Viva Doc this Thursday with the only documentary to be accepted into Big Screen 13. Timmy was kind enough to share a rough cut with us at the end of last semester and, just like in real life, everyone there was touched by little Luke Casey. Come show support for this MFA Doc 1 and make sure to cast your vote for the Doc Side!

BOB SEGER ROCKS
Luke Casey appears to be a normal 12 year-old. He loves Curious
George, throwing football with his friends, playing the drums and
listening to his hero, Bob Seger. It’s hard to believe that Luke was
born with hydrocephalus, a condition where the fluid gets trapped in
the skull. With his brain being crushed, Luke’s parents were told he
wouldn’t survive past 6 months. Luke’s loving, strong family and an
his incredible courage has helped him beat the odds. Although he has
undergone 23 brain surgeries, suffers hemoplasia (a weakness in the
left side of his body) and is legally blind, Luke still touches the
lives of everyone who meets him.

Big Screen 13, Thursday, April 23 at 7 pm, Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor