From: Ariella Ben-Dov (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jan 26 2009 - 11:12:24 PST
Announcing the 2009 Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival
The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running, premiere
showcase for international documentaries in the US, encompassing a broad
spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental
nonfiction. The Festival takes place each November at the American Museum of
Natural History and a selection of these films are chosen for the annual
Mead Traveling Festival - which tours to museums and universities around the
country and world.
This year the Mead Traveling Festival is proud to feature eight films from
our recent 2008 Festival: The programs are available for rental now through
April 2010. Films include: UMBRELLA tracks the life of an umbrella from
factory to market, filmmaker Du Haibin shows how the lives of farmers in
rural China have changed since the economic reforms instituted by Deng
Xiaoping in 1978. BOMB HARVEST is a riveting story of one man's mission to
rid the Laotian countryside of bombs left by the US government from the
Vietnam War. STONE PASTURES follows Himalayan goat and yak herders as they
spend a year preparing pashmina wool for sale. See a complete list below.
Thanks for your time!
Full information is on our web site at:
http://amnh.org/programs/mead/traveling/
If you have questions, need more information, or are interested in booking,
please contact:
Natalie Tschechaniuk
Mead Traveling Festival Coordinator
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024 USA
(t) 212.313.7341 (f) 212.769.5329 (e) email suppressed
www.amnh.org/mead
2009 Mead Traveling Festival:
Program 1: BOMB HARVEST
Kim Mordaunt · 2007 · 88 min. · Laos/Australia
From 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped a planeload of cluster bombs
onto Laos every eight minutes, day and night. Many of these bombs still
litter the Laotian landscape and remain live. Filmmaker Kim Mordaunt and
producer Sylvia Wilczynski follow Australian Explosive Ordnance Disposal
(EOD) technician Laith Stevens as he trains young Laotians to become
certified bomb technicians themselves. As these young technicians learn
their new trade, we meet the villagers haunted by the effects of this
illegal war and encounter the new economy that prizes UXO for its scrap
metal value.
Program 2: THE LOST COLONY (De Verloren Kolonie)
Astrid Bussink · 2008 · 72 min. · Abkhazia/The Netherlands
The Sukhum Primate Center in Abkhazia, the oldest primate research
laboratory in the world, is crumbling. This once prominent facility has been
hailed for its strides in medical research and space exploration. Founded
in the 1920s, the institute now strives for relevance amid Abkhazia's
struggle for independence from Georgia, dwindling funds, and the loss of a
large portion of its animals to a modern lab in neighboring Russia. On the
cusp of its 80th anniversary, filmmaker Astrid Bussink visits the lab as it
prepares for a conference designed to drum up support in the scientific
community. Now, with recently renewed fighting between Georgia and Russia
over Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence, Bussink's ironic take on
this seemingly hopeless situation becomes prescient.
Program 3: PEACE WITH SEALS (Mír s Tuleni)
Miloslav Novák · 2007 · 58 min. · Italy/Czech Republic
Monk seal specialist Emanuele Coppola and director Miloslav Novák are on the
hunt for any trace of a real, live Mediterranean monk seal. Conversations
with marine biologists and philosophers as well as the beachgoers on the
Mediterranean shores who have supplanted the seals lead them to believe that
the only monk seals left are those preserved in Coppola's extensive
collection of archival footage. Presented as a wistful documentary fable,
the film might well stand as a warning sign for more ominous things to come.
with DON'T LET IT ALL UNRAVEL
Sarah Cox · 2006 · 1 min. · Ireland
A short animated tale about the environment.
Program 4: RIVER OF NO RETURN
Darlene Johnson · 2008 · 52 min. ·Australia
Frances Djulibing wants to become a movie star. As a child growing up in the
remote community of Nangalala in Australia's Northern Territory, Frances
recalls idolizing Marilyn Monroe for her "sweet voice." When she is cast in
the film Ten Canoes, the 42-year old takes it as a sign of things to come
and begins to cultivate her acting career. Her desire to leave her community
and study acting at the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts in
Queensland conflicts with her desire to stay in Nangalala and help raise her
grandchildren the way she was raised, steeped in cultural traditions. River
of No Return is a story of transformation as Frances learns to navigate two
oppositional worlds, the ancient life of her people, the Yolngu, and the
modern world of balanda, or white culture.
Program 5: STONE PASTURES
Donagh Coleman · 2008 · 65 min. · Finland, Ireland, UK/Himalayas
Director Donagh Coleman uses the Himalayas as a backdrop to follow a family
of goat and yak herders as they spend a year preparing pashmina wool for
market. Their livelihood depends on the income from the wool, and every
member of the family, from young children to grandparents, helps with the
painstaking process of nurturing the baby goats, sheering their bellies,
separating the wool one strand at a time, and finally weaving blankets. The
family struggles to send two boys to school. They successfully drop their
inquisitive seven-year-old Kunsang at boarding school far from home, but
fourteen-year-old Padma finds his way back to the grueling work and the
family he loves.
Program 6: TODAY THE HAWK TAKES ONE CHICK
Jane Gillooly · 2007 · 72 min. · Swaziland/U.S.
The Lubombo region of Swaziland suffers from the world's highest prevalence
of HIV and a life expectancy that has dropped to 32 years. In this small,
landlocked country in southern Africa, a generation of parents has died,
leaving the grandparents in charge of the children as well as responsible
for retaining the threads of the fraying traditional life. Presented without
an overt narrative structure or narration, the film's drama emerges from the
steady accumulation of details that tell a greater story of family in a
world dictated by AIDS.
Program 7: UMBRELLA (San)
Du Haibin · 2007 · 93 min. · China
An umbrella that is carried across a wheat field in central China or the
rainy streets of Shanghai is made in a factory in Guangdong and sold
wholesale farther up the coast in Zhejiang Province. Tracking the life of an
umbrella from factory to market, filmmaker Du Haibin shows how the lives of
farmers in rural China have changed since the economic reforms instituted by
Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Haibin is part of the Sixth Generation of Chinese
filmmaking, which has proven unafraid to confront China's dictatorial
policies in the wake of Tiananmen Square. He shows us factory workers,
soldiers, students, merchants, and hold-out farmers as they scramble for
livelihoods and respect in the rush toward modernization and the
glorification of wealth over traditional ideals.
Full descriptions can be found on the 2008 Mead Festival website
http://www.amnh.org/mead/traveling.
The 2009 Mead Traveling Festival is available for rental January 2009
April 2010. Price is $300 per program or rent all seven programs for $1,800.
More information can be found on our website,
http://www.amnh.org/mead/traveling.
Ariella Ben-Dov Artistic and Festival Director of the Mead is available to
present the Traveling Festival programs at your venue. Please email Natalie
Tschechaniuk for more information about the costs associated with an
in-person presentation.
Natalie Tschechaniuk
Mead Traveling Festival Coordinator
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024 USA
(t) 212.313.7341 (f) 212.769.5329 (e) email suppressed
www.amnh.org/mead
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.