“Our task is to make thinkers out of fighters and fighters out of thinkers.”
– General Gordon Baker, Revolutionary educator
Join us on Monday June 10, from 6:30-8:30 pm, for the third in a series of workshops on the relationship between media and movement building. In this session, we will screen several short films by workshop participants, and then have a discussion about how they collaborated with organizations, movements, and other artists to produce their work. Many of us are working on media projects where the goal is pushing forward a social struggle, and we look forward to sharing a space of creative exchange and support. We also hope to look ahead and plan how we can all do more of this work in the future.
The five filmmakers who will be screening work on June 10th are:
Manauvaskar Kublall – CRE Stories – “Seen in the Classroom”
CRE, or Culturally Responsive Education, seeks to achieve equity in our public schools by ensuring students of color and those with other diverse identities see themselves reflected and respected in the curriculum – in every class, every grade, every day. In CRE Stories’ first episode “Seen in the Classroom”, Aaron Harris shares his experiences as a teacher of color, and how race and ethnicity inform the role educators play in their students’ lives.
Richard Barber – Brownsville, TX Bus Depot, August 7 – “Part 1: Sergio”
In response to punitive and inhumane immigration policies, Sergio and his friends in Brownsville, Texas try “to right the wrong”. Calling themselves Team Brownsville, they go every day to the Matamoras/Brownsville port of entry to help families waiting to claim asylum in the US, and go every night to the bus station to help asylum seekers who have been dropped there by ICE after being released from detention.
Michael Jacobsohn – “The Passage”
Artists Hugo Munoz and James Garland paint a 16 foot mural that depicts the landing of Syrian refugees on the island of Lesbos, Greece.
John Richie – Shell Shocked (excerpt)
Shell Shocked is about youth and gun violence in New Orleans from the perspective of youth. It delves into how environment contributes to gun violence. Prior to airing on PBS America Reframed in 2015, the filmmakers partnered with youth organizations in New Orleans to produce over 80 community screenings, resulting in an increase in volunteers in youth programs across the New Orleans metro area.
Patrick G. Lee – “Unspoken”
In this film, we follow six queer and trans Asian Americans as they grapple with their queerness and what family acceptance might look like. The film explores the challenges of talking with immigrant parents about queerness, gender identity, and sexuality.
MEDIA MAKERS FOR A NEW WORLD is in the opening stages of an effort to develop and cultivate relationships between socially conscious media makers and communicators of all stripes, with local leaders and activists in a vibrant social movement, The New York State Poor People’s Campaign. Using screenings, discussions and a collaborative media project, the workshop will present and explore collaborative relationships between activists and media makers. We will identify obstacles that may prevent us from working well together, and by getting to know and trust one another we will try to bridge those gulfs. We welcome local leaders and activists, as well as all types of media workers.
Our first workshop was an introductory session where activists and media makers came together to share experiences related to working on media projects as part of broader social movement organizing efforts. The centerpiece of the second session was a sneak preview screening of the 30-minute documentary film Empire State Rumblings. The film follows activists in the New York State Poor People’s Campaign as they organize over 40 Days of Action to push for a moral revival in America and launch a national social movement to end poverty. A discussion with the filmmakers followed, which included two of the film’s protagonists who joined via video from Albany and Buffalo.
The Poor People’s Campaign is a national movement chaired by Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center in New York, and Rev. William Barber of Repairers of the Breach in North Carolina. The Campaign is organized on a state by state basis.
