The Worlds of Ursula K. LeGuin

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (working title) is an hour-long documentary film exploring the life, roots, and ideas of the celebrated Bay Area-born science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin being produced by Arwen lee Curry.

Le Guin, now 79, continues to write and publish from her home in Portland, Oregon. She arrived with a bang on the topsy-turvy literary scene of the late 1960s, elevating science fiction and fantasy to new levels of political sophistication and artistry. Over the course of her inimitable career, Le Guin has published more than thirty books of fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, children’s literature, poetry, and nonfiction. Although she is one of our best-loved living writers, and the multiple winner of the highest awards in her genre, her compelling story has never before been captured in a documentary film. Produced with Le Guin’s full participation, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin will be a riveting journey through the author’s career and her worlds, both real and fantastic.

Why is science fiction, or any fiction, important now? We populate an age of global disasters, when technological advancement has surpassed the predictions of early sc-fi writers — yet the basic understanding of how to live together harmoniously seems light-years away. It is essential that we take seriously the task of imagining — and endlessly reimagining — our world. To survive, we must question basic assumptions about how to share resources and responsibilities, how to end global warfare, and how to protect our planet’s ecology. Perhaps more than any writer of her generation, Le Guin has determinedly examined possibilities for how we might achieve such a balance. Her courage in confronting this great creative task makes Le Guin one of our most relevant living writers.

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin will also be a deeply regional film. The daughter of renowned anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and writer Theodora Kroeber, Le Guin grew up in Berkeley and the Napa Valley during the Great Depression. Her father was the friend, student, and teacher of Ishi, the last member of his exterminated Yahi tribe, who emerged from hiding near Chico, California in 1911 and lived at the then-new University of California Anthropology Museum in San Francisco until his death from tuberculosis six years later. As a writer, Le Guin continues to weave themes of exile, discovery, ethnography, individual identity, and cultural relativism into her stories. In her work as in no other, we can look more deeply into the West’s legacy of trauma and promise.

Aimed for public television, new media, and limited theatrical release, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin will explore Le Guin’s life and ideas in exclusive interviews, stunning archival footage, and a variety of classic and experimental film techniques. Traditional documentary progresses linearly through time — Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin will take a highly structured, but more unusual approach. The film will be divided into twelve short chapters of varying lengths, approaching different significant passages or themes of the writer’s life and work using different styles and rhythms. Like songs on a great old LP, these chapters will come together to form a harmonious whole that does justice to the complexity of Le Guin’s contribution.

Production of this new documentary is scheduled to begin in October. Please help us to raise the funds needed to capture this important authors world on film. To make a secure tax deductible contribution just click HERE.

If you are in the Bay area, please join us at a fundraiser on Sunday September 28 from 6:30-8:30 pm at Needles & Pens, 3253 16th Street San Francisco. For more information contact Arwen Curry at: Arwencurry@gmail.com

March 29 Screening of “FRANK: A VIETNAM VETERAN” at the Brattle Theater in Boston

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

For more information about the film, please contact the filmmaker Fred Simon at FSimon@documentaries.org

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

Ralph DiGia: A Man of Peace

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.

“BROTHER OUTSIDER:THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN” on LOGO

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  .

“TODAY THE HAWK TAKES ONE CHICK” – UPCOMING SCREENINGS

Premiere Screening Boston, MA
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART – ICA
February 9 Saturday
7:00 pm
with director Jane Gillooly
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International Premiere Mexico City
FESTIVAL OF INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY CINEMA -  FICCO
February 21 – 26
with director Jane Gillooly
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Boston, MA
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS – MFA  Remis Box Office: 617-369-3306

March 20 Thursday
8:00 pm
with director Jane Gillooly

March 22 Saturday
2:30 pm
Co presented with the LEF Foundations “Filmmakers Face to Face” program.
with director Jane Gillooly

March 23 Sunday
1:00 pm
with producer Tracey Kaplan

March 27 Thursday
2:00 pm

March 29 Saturday
1:00 pm
with executive producer Pat Daoust

April 6 Sunday
5:45 pm

ABOUT Today the Hawk Takes One Chick Year: 2007  Director: Jane Gillooly

“beautiful and wonderfully crafted, its importance pours out”
– Ryan Haidarian
Head of Development & Production
National Film and Video Foundation – South Africa

This is a poignant and beautifully perceptive portrait of three extraordinarily dynamic grandmothers (gogos), resolutely holding their families together in the wake of the Swaziland Aids crisis. Director Jane Gillooly’s respect for her film’s subjects, her sensitive camera and seamless editing create a delicate balance between the culturally specific aspects of the gogos’ lives and the universality of their tragedies.
– Ilisa Barbash
Associate Curator, Visual Anthropology
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

In Swaziland, the circle of life has been turned on its head. Grandmothers – or Gogo, as they are called in SiSwati and many southern African languages – watch their adult children die of AIDS and are forced to raise their many grandchildren on their own.

Great documentaries have the power to personalize seemingly incomprehensible world issues, breaking barriers of distance and language to present the human condition across cultures. Few achieve that feat as well as Jane Gillooly’s Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, which presents the stories of three African Gogos living in a society at the threshold of simultaneous collapse and reinvention, organizing into communities at an age when they expected that their adult children would be taking care of them.

Gillooly’s direction shines light on the individual suffering and perseverance of those afflicted by AIDS. For 73 minutes, Gillooly’s work invites the audience to live in world where HIV affects everyone, and forces us to ponder the fate of its people. The cinematography and sound recording is sensitive, observant, and mesmerizing; we feel drawn in as participants, overwhelmed and inspired by the challenges the Gogos’ face, with not enough support.

And so this documentary film was made to support the Gogo Project, a consortium of international aid organizations working to provide seeds and fertilizers for gardens, shoes and school uniforms for the children, and profitable trade skills to the Gogo so that they can support their expanding households.
– Richard Herskowitz, Film Programmer
Creative Director Virginia Film Festival

DANGEROUS LIVING!

One of the strangely positive results from Iran President Ahmadinejad’s callous response at Columbia University to a question on homosexuality was that it forced the international mainstream media to actually report on the plight of glbt people living under the terror of religious fundamentalism in the developing world.

Though the press story of abuse to homosexuals was quickly over, there is still information available to you and others about glbt struggles in the developing world.

Dangerous Living continues to be one of the few documentary films to deeply explore the lives of gay and lesbian people in non-western cultures. Please visit our website www.gogaydvd.com , click the pink triangle (view our free video streams) and watch our recent stream (“Are there homosexuals in the Middle East?).

Dangerous Living, endorsed by Human Rights Watch as a film that sheds light on human rights abuses, was recently acquired by the Columbia University Law School, just a few months before Mahmoud Ahmadinegad’s appearance on that campus.

Also please send your friends, especially educators, librarians or teachers you might know to www.gogaydvd.com . They can rent or buy Dangerous Living there among other titles.

Thank you for your support in the struggle to end abuse of glbt people around the world,

John Scagliotti
Director, Dangerous Living
www.afterstonewall.com
www.gogaydvd.com
www.lipstreams.com

POLIS IS THIS:THE LIFE AND ART OF CHARLES OLSON TO SCREEN AT THE MFA BOSTON

JOIN FILMMAKERS HENRY FERRINI AND KEN RIAF AT THE MFA BOSTON From Postman to the Postmodern, Charles Olson remains today an original American master. The enigmatic and hulking six-foot eight Harvard historian drifts back to the hard-luck New England fishing port of his boyhood summers. There he forges transcendent vision that links his besieged town, caught between tradition and modernity, to all places – in all times.

Viewers join Actor John Malkovich in a one hour race for meaning that stretches from antiquity to yesterday, from the local to the universal and from that which is most familiar to that which can only be imagined.

Audiences in rough cut screenings have come away wanting to find out for themselves why the place they call home can be both unique and universally connected to the larger world.

POLIS IS THIS: THE LIFE AND ART OF CHARLES OLSON

Thursday September 20 6:30 pm filmmaker present for Q & A
Saturday September 22 1:45pm

Tix: call the MFA at 617-267-9300
Link to MFA site for more info: http://www.mfa.org/film

SHADOW OF THE HOUSE AT MFA BOSTON IN SEPTEMBER

Shadow of the House
PHOTOGRAPHER ABELARDO MORELL
A film by Allie Humenuk

Saturday, September 15th, 1:45 pm
Q&A with the Director and Abelardo Morell. Reception to follow.
Thursday, September 20th, 2:45 pm
Saturday, September 22nd, 3:30 pm

Saturday, September 29, 1:45 pm
Sunday, September 30th, 12:15 pm

All screenings take place in the Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Advance tickets available at http://www.mfa.org/

“Humenuk has transcended the “artist documentary” genre with an elegantly crafted, richly complicated portrait of the artist. It is a serendipitous collaboration between a gifted photographer and master cinematographer and teller of tales.”
- Raymond Liddel, Art New England

For more information about the film visit: http://www.shadowofthehouse.com
Co-Sponsored by the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University.