The Center for Independent Documentary

We are pleased to announce a call to independent documentary filmmakers who would like to participate in a weeklong seminar and retreat in southern Vermont.

Sunday August 3rd-August 10th
Tree Frog Farm, Guilford Vermont

The Center for Independent Documentary (CID) and the Kopkind Center are sponsoring this week-long retreat limited to ten filmmakers along with special invited guests at Treefrog Farm in Guilford Vermont from August 3rd (Sunday is the travel day) to Sunday, August 10th. The theme for the morning seminars is:

Telling the Story: This is a unique opportunity to share a week of viewing and discussion with your peers on the style, content, and structure of your film. Humor, archival footage, point of view…all things story related are up for discussion. We are also interested in discussions around sensationalism, controversy, reenactments, stars! When do we go too far- or do we not go far enough in our documentary and non-fiction film work?

Kopkind/CID retreat seminars are organized by Susi Walsh, Executive Director of CID and John Scagliotti, Emmy Award-winning documentary producer and the creator of the public television series, In the Life, now about to begin its 15th season of monthly hour-long programs on news and culture about the gay community. Also joining us will be Fred Simon. As an independent producer of documentaries for PBS, Simon’s films have won awards from the American Film Festival, the Athens Film Festival, and are currently in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In addition, he is an Assistant Professor of film/video production at Clark University. Guest speakers will also join us during the week.

Closer to the end of the Seminar Week, Kopkind will present its 2nd Annual Grassroots Film Festival in the Organ Barn (Aug 7-9 open to the public); the filmmaker(s) will also lead the next morning seminar.

The costs for filmmakers participating for the week is $300 per person.

The cost includes: a single Cabin room for 7 nights (shared bathroom facilities), clean linens and towels, continental breakfasts, buffet lunches, and sit-down family style dinners, afternoon excursions to swimming holes and country outings, pick-up from Bus or Train station in Brattleboro Vermont, and programmed Morning Seminars. There is wireless internet availability. Besides personal items (cool nights in Vermont) participants are asked to bring 20-minutes of their media on DVD or VHS for evening “film slams” in the Organ Barn with late night discussions (optional hot tub discussions) afterwards on the deck. Participants will be responsible for their travel to Treefrog Farm in Guilford or to a public transportation pick up spot in Brattleboro, Vermont. (once you are registered, more information will be emailed to you including directions) Note: while afternoon excursions are planned, you can use this time if you wish as ‘free time’ or as Kopkind calls it - radical relaxation. All registered participants are expected to participate in the organized seminars and evening “film slams” and film festival presentations.

The following document is the result of informal discussions among approximately 30 Bay Area independent producers beginning in 2006 concerning the rapid technological and economic changes confronting the field. The group decided that the most urgent need was to establish a nation-wide network of independent producers and their organizations prepared to discuss these issues and advocate for policies which would help the field survive and flourish. To this end a list-serve, Indie-Coalition@yahoogroups.com, has been formed. We invite (and urge) all independent media makers and their supporters to participate in this dialogue and in the formation of policies which will allow us to play a vigorous role in the digital age.

I. A CALL FOR AN INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS’ VOICE IN THE DIGITAL DEBATE

1. We are in the midst of a communications revolution which threatens the fragile ecology of independent production, while offering unprecedented opportunities for public interest media.

2. Digital delivery is overturning long-established patterns for the funding, rights, distribution and hence revenues of independent work, often with deleterious impacts on their producers.

3. Powerful governmental and corporate forces are making decisions which will shape the future internet age with little reference to the sustainability of independent production.

4. Independent producers themselves are uninformed about the long-term implications of these rapid changes and unorganized to offer any alternatives to them.

5. They lack a vigorous grassroots advocacy network to keep them up-to-date, allow them to articulate and aggregate their own interests and policies and to lobby broadcasters, funders, internet content providers and a potentially more sympathetic Congress.

6. This is a proposal to activate just such a nation-wide coalition to insure that independent producers can survive and thus cultivate more democratic and diverse media in the internet age. Independent production may be the cutting edge to carve out an open, well funded civic or “public interest” sector in the otherwise commercial marketplace of the internet.

II. WHY THE SURVIVAL OF INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION IS ESSENTIAL IN THE INTERNET AGE

1. Has free, user generated content (UGC) completely superceded the need for compensated, professional, independent production as an essential element of public interest dialogue in the internet age? Or does independent production remain a primary source of diverse voices and views for our civic life? Is there still a vital public interest in its sustainability?

2. Even among experienced supporters of “public interest” media, there has been a tendency to confuse the raw quantity of UGC with the quality of that content and the contexts in which it appears. As a result content and content-producers are consistently under-valued and under-funded while scarce funds are diverted to often ill-conceived, pre-mature “new media” projects.

3. UGC and social networking offer promising opportunities for the circulation and discussion of content. However, independent producers have a key role to play providing the journalistically sound, policy–oriented programs as well as the artful, personal visions which can serve as catalysts for the larger social conversations necessary to revitalize our democracy.

4.There are no technological fixes. Radio, television, cable, DVD were all touted as solutions to the problem of media diversity and serious public interest debate in this country. Each has failed, as the internet will fail, unless public broadcasting, Congress and foundations supply a consistent and substantial source of funds for producing alternative, high quality, non-commercial content, the kind which individual producers create.

5. Why should under-represented voices and views have to rely on cost-free, amateur expression while mainstream corporate interests can spend millions of dollars disseminating their ideas? As Blake observed: “One law for the lion and the lamb is tyranny.”

6. The internet, while it connects millions of people around the world instantaneously, tends, because of its increasing commercialization, to position its users as consumers not citizens. UGC is hence a necessary but insufficient instrument for generating consensus and mobilizing users behind concrete action. Independent production with its organic links to particular causes and constituencies can act as a link between a wider public and social activism. This is true whether productions are shown in schoolrooms, union halls, house parties or embedded in relevant internet sites.

7. The reinvention of a sustainable model for the production of independent public service and arts content on the internet is obviously one of the great unresolved issues of the internet age.

III. THE CRISIS FACING INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION

1. The sustainability of public service, independent production is threatened today by two mutually reinforcing trends: the loss of ancillary, revenue-generating rights and cutbacks in funding from traditional sources for non-commercial media.

2. Digital convergence has been predicted for a decade. The distribution of media content by terrestrial and cable telecast and by DVD rentals and sales are inevitably and rapidly merging in a single delivery platform, the internet. But this has given birth to the misguided inference that digital convergence inevitably leads to a convergence of digital rights as well.

3. Major funders of independent production like public television or HBO are increasingly demanding all digital rights: web-casting, streaming and downloading, both domestic and international. Yet they are paying independent producers no more for these rights than when they simply wanted domestic broadcast and cablecast rights.

4. The Writers and Directors Guilds and Hollywood have also begun to grapple with the question of a fair distribution of revenues from ancillary, specifically digital rights. Independent producers, however, lack the strong organizations to set guidelines or negotiate an equitable share of these rights with funding sources like PBS and HBO and content aggregators such as i-Tunes, Amazon Unbox, Jaman, Indiepix, Reframe, etc.

5. Independents have a particular need for ancillary rights revenues. DVD and international sales revenues are critical to sustain them through the lengthy, largely un-funded development stage characteristic of most American independent production.

IV. GETTING ORGANIZED…

1. Independent production will only become sustainable in the internet age if independent producers inform themselves, articulate policies, organize and lobby before the relevant agencies and organizations. They will need to form alliances with other internet content producers, independent producers’ academic, journalistic and industry supporters and, above all, the formidable grassroots constituencies their programs serve.

2. As a first step, we propose inviting independent producers and their organizations to participate in a vital policy discussion of the issues facing the field as a result of the digital revolution. This discussion will help independent producers identify and prioritize critical issues at the same time it will mobilize producer interest nationally. Additionally, preliminary contact with key foundations and funder/presenters such as ITVS will lay the groundwork for a collegial rather than adversarial relationship as we move forward.

3. This dialogue will guide in the creation of a policy agenda. Issues addressed by such an agenda might include: the division of internet rights, digital rights management and licensing, two-tier pricing for the educational and home markets, more open access to major internet portals, industry-wide standards for digital royalties, net neutrality, increased funding for independent production and legislation with an impact on the sustainability of such production.

5. A Liaison or Organizing Committee consisting of representatives of any interested media arts center, media advocacy organization or internet-based independent producer group will be formed when it comes time to draw up and implement this policy agenda.

6. These representatives will perform the necessary functions to mobilize their particular networks: keeping their constituents informed and active, organizing outreach to potential outside supporters, initiating press coverage, appearing at various conferences and board meetings, making individual contact with network, ICPs and foundation officers, and, if necessary, lobbying Congress. Funds will be raised for a paid organizer to coordinate the network’s activities.

7. Beyond these initially identified activities and flexible organizational structure, the long-term shape, scope and direction of this coalition will evolve in response to the needs of the independent producer community.

8. A yahoo group has been formed where this nation-wide conversation of independent producers can occur. To join the discussion simply send a message to: Indie-Coalition-subscribe@yahoogroup.com. Names and e-mail addresses will be kept in strict confidence.

Entertainment lawyers Sandy Forman and Mary Landergan will be hosting a lunch discussion on the Massachusetts Film Tax Credit law open to producers and filmmakers. The event will be held at the offices of the law firm of Rich May on May 8, 2008, at noon time at 176 Federal Street, Boston. Gerald May, Jr., a Rich May attorney with extensive tax law experience counseling clients in the non-profit and for-profit sectors, will give a presentation on the current film tax credit law in Massachusetts followed by a Q & A session. Food and beverage will be provided.

If you are planning to attend, please RSVP to Joanne Walsh, jwalsh@richmaylaw.com.

“The religious-environmental movement is potentially key to dealing with the greatest problem humans have ever faced, and it has never been captured with more breadth and force than in RENEWAL. I hope this movie is screened in church basements and synagogue halls across the country, and that it moves many more people of faith off the fence and into action.”
– Bill McKibben,
Environmentalist & author of
The End of Nature

RENEWAL is the first feature-length documentary to capture the vitality and diversity of America’s religious-environmental movement. Made up of eight individual stories, RENEWAL captures the efforts of men, women and children who from within their Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim traditions, are finding ways to become caretakers of the Earth.

Here’s how to order the DVD:

If you are a home user, congregation, community action group, religious or environmental organization, you can purchase single DVDs or Multi-Packs which offer substantial savings!

Place your order at: http://www.renewalproject.net/dvd.

If you are an educational institution or library:

Place your order at: http://www.renewalproject.net/dvd/groups.

RENEWAL shows a multi-faith commitment to the planet that speaks to faith-based and secular environmental groups. Building upon the message of the film, the RENEWAL Project is uniting people whose passion and moral commitment are making a difference in this time of grave ecological threats. To learn more, visit: www.renewalproject.net.

To connect with the people and organizations that are already using RENEWAL, log into our social networking site at: www.renewalproject.ning.com.

This blog entry was posted by Susi Walsh

In 1981, America was still awakening to some of the horrors of the war in Vietnam. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) had not yet been widely acknowledged, much less understood. The alarmingly high incidence of PTSD among Vietnam veterans was largely unknown by the general public, unacknowledged by the government, and denied by many others. When Frank: A Vietnam Veteran was broadcast nationally in 1981, it became the first widely seen non-fiction film that unblinkingly explored how the war and ensuing PTSD had devastated a life. While widely applauded when broadcast on PBS, Frank at the same time caused a loud and angry protest - some PBS stations decided it unfairly portrayed the contributions of those who fought, and refused to broadcast it. Others felt differently, that the film was a plea for understanding and help for veterans like Frank.

In the film, Frank relives with rare candor and intimacy the full and raw horror of his year in Vietnam; and then, with surprising vulnerability, reveals his experience of a 10 year battle to live with what he had done, what he had experienced, and what he saw during the war.

Why screen it in 2008? More than 25 years has passed, and yet the story has relevance to a new generation of returning soldiers. In 2004, the first ever war-time study of the mental health of combat troops appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. That study showed that almost 2 out of every 10 US troops who faced combat in Iraq might suffer serious symptoms of depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. By 2006, in a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, 35% of Iraq war veterans were reported to have accessed mental health care services during their first year home. At the fifth year anniversary of the Iraq war, war and recovery should once again be at the top of our concerns as budgets (the funding of mental health services for veterans) and lives are on the line.

In 1980, I had the good fortune to be hired to work on the post-production of Frank: A Vietnam Veteran and its subsequent release (as well as the outreach efforts that accompanied its broadcast). When it was broadcast nationally on public television as a Veterans Day special in 1981, PBS stations around the country staffed their phone banks ( usually used for pledge drives) with combat veterans and counselors from Vet Centers. At the completion of the broadcast, viewers (in particular veterans and their families) who wanted to talk or to get help were invited to call in. Over 9,000 calls from veterans and their families were logged that night seeking and finding help. The filmmaker- Fred Simon, his co-producer -Vince Canzoneri, the videographer - Mark Abbate along with Executive Producer Peter McGee and I were in the studio at WGBH the night of the broadcast to help with the phone in. In that moment when the broadcast was complete and the phones all started ringing, I found an inspiration that has lasted me twenty-seven years. That experience showed me the power and potential of film and television to make a real contribution to effect positive social change.

This will be the first public screening of this film in 20 years. I hope that you’ll be able to join us for this event (which will be a benefit for Women in Film and Video New England). Tickets are available at the box office or through the Women in Film and Video website.

FRANK: A VIETNAM VETERAN will be screened :

March 29, 2008 at 12 noon

The Brattle Theater, Cambridge, MA

phone 617-876-9637

This is a fundraising event for Women and Film New Engalnd - tickets will be $15 and can be purchased online at www.brattlefilm.org
Here are some reviews of the film from its broadcast:

“…as Frank gropes, with astonishing candor, to explain what happened to him, the effect is undeniably powerful.”- John J. O’Connor THE NEW YORK TIMES (November 11, 1981)

Named by Marvin Kitman in Newsday as one of the Ten Best Shows on television in 1981, he wrote
“…a searing and devastating commentary about the insanity of war and what it does to man and the survivors”.

“….probably the best program PBS will broadcast this year. It is one of those rare efforts awesome both in its integrity and in its success. ” Karl Vick, THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES November 11, 1981

To view an excerpt from the film:

http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/ES/Video/frank191.html

Frank: A Vietnam Veteran was a production of WGBH Boston and Fred Simon Productions

by Nancy D. Kates and Bennett L. Singer

The world lost a great American on February 1, with the death of longtime anti-war activist Ralph DiGia. Protesting against war is, unfortunately, a task that never ends. It is not glamorous, it pays next to nothing, and yet there are dyed-in-the-wool activists like DiGia who cheerfully persist, decade after decade—in his case for most of his 93 years. He faithfully went to his office at the War Resisters League every day, decades after “officially” retiring from the organization. The New York Times belatedly recognized his contributions in 2003, in an article subtitled: “As Wars Come and Go, Ralph Keeps Protesting.”

We met Ralph DiGia in the course of making our documentary on Bayard Rustin, his colleague from the War Resisters League. (Rustin came of age in the peace movement before finding greater fame as a key strategist of the civil rights movement.) Mr. DiGia did not, alas, make it into our film; his interview was left on the proverbial cutting-room floor. In truth, he was impossible to edit. He would tell stories that took 15 minutes, with nary a pause to breathe. But his stories were glorious—about being taken to a rally at the age of 12 to protest the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, about going to jail as a conscientious objector to World War II and then organizing a prisoners’ strike to protest segregation in the federal prison system, and about serving 30 days for his participation in a ground-breaking 1955 protest against nuclear war. DiGia was one of 28 people, including Rustin, Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement, and Rustin’s former employer, pacifist A.J. Muste, who were arrested in Central Park for refusing to participate in a civil defense drill. They argued—quite accurately—that hiding under a desk or cowering in a basement were completely inadequate defenses against a nuclear bomb. If you watch our film, there is the briefest glimpse of a young DiGia marching at this protest.

Already a peace activist, DiGia joined the War Resisters League in 1948, launching his 60 years of work with the organization. He was not discouraged by the movement’s intermittent success, nor did he waver from his dedication to the cause. He loved it, in fact—he said it kept him alive, working with young people in common cause. Like Bayard Rustin, DiGia had great fun being an activist. He seems to have embraced Emma Goldman’s philosophy that “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Despite his white hair and beard, DiGia was never old—he had an impish grin that revealed his youthful, upbeat attitude. We interviewed him on a sweltering New York summer day, about 90 blocks uptown from his apartment. Afterwards, exhausted ourselves, we offered to get him a cab home; it was over 90 degrees and humid, and Ralph was 86 at that point, though he seemed much younger. “I’m an activist,” he explained. “We don’t take cabs. I’ll take the subway.” They don’t make many like that anymore. Go in peace, Ralph DiGia.

–Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer are the co-producers of Brother Outsider: the Life of Bayard Rustin (www.rustin.org). The documentary premiered on PBS and is currently being broadcast on the LOGO cable channel.

Vermont’s glbt liberation Short Films Fest
Part of Vermont Pride: June 14, 2008
Sponsored by The Kopkind Colony

“{CineSlam]reaches back to the radical roots of liberation, to the joyously skewed visions of sex, love, culture and camp that lie outside the conventions of the straight world,”– Andrew Kopkind, 1993 (A Queer Nation)

CineSlam takes place in springtime in Vermont, (think green) — a one day ‘videovapalooza’-of-a-festival –  screening rousing shorts in a old barn on a farm in Guilford, Vermont

Saturday June 14th
A full day of screening sessions
with a number of filmmakers in attendance.
Money Prizes for filmmakers (Best Short and more see our website)
:  www.cineslam.com   and click Filmmakers Submissions page

Filmmakers can also apply to be part of the Kopkind Colony’s
“Retreat for Filmmakers at Tree Frog Farm”
Seminars on glbt shorts and new shorts distribution
June 11-15th
See website :  www.cineslam.com <http://www.cineslam.com/>   and click filmmakers retreat page

Underwritten by a grant from the Chessie Foundation
Programmed by John Scagliotti, creator of the first glbt TV series on PBS, In the Life.  Producer of Before Stonewall and After Stonewall,
Programmer of the VT Bear Film Festival every August
Administrator, Kopkind Colony
Email: john@afterstonewall.com <mailto:john@afterstonewall.com>

BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN will be cablecast on Season Five of the “Real Momentum” documentary series on Logo with two screenings coming up in February on Saturday Feb 16 at 7pm and Sunday February 17 at 2pm.  BROTHER OUTSIDER illuminates the life and work of Bayard Rustin, the “unknown hero” of the civil rights movement. A mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and the architect of the legendary 1963 March on Washington, Rustin dared to live as an openly gay man during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. BROTHER OUTSIDER reveals the price that Rustin paid for this openness, chronicling both the triumphs and setbacks of his remarkable 60-year career. Visit www.logoonline.com   to check local cable listings and broadcast times.

Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, BROTHER OUTSIDER went on to garner more than 25 awards and honors, including eight Best Documentary awards, seven Audience Favorite awards, and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. The film has been described as “powerful and startling” (The Advocate), “rich in humanity” (africana.com), “beautifully crafted” (Boston Globe) and “a potent and persuasive piece of historical rediscovery” (Los Angeles Times).

We are also delighted that, for the first time, BROTHER OUTSIDER is now available on home video. To purchase a DVD or to learn more about Rustin, please visit the website at www.rustin.org  .