Sophie and Bernie Ampel, owners of Transit Media.

For four years, Transit Media has been making sure that Big Mouth Films and Media That Matters DVDs have been making it into the hands of people who want to see them. I was excited to see where the magic happens.

And was it magic…in fact, Transit Media is a documentary fan’s dream! I pulled up to the purple warehouse in Harriman, NY, to a warm welcome from Bernie and Sophie Ampel, owners of Transit Media.

The second greeting came from a huge stack of boxes of MTM DVDs and the most recent Arts Engine arrival, Election Day, stationed right near the entrance. As Bernie gave me the tour, I couldn’t believe all of the incredible titles housed there. The first film I picked up from the shelf was Katherine Leggett’s Small Town Secrets (Katherine is a long-time member of the extended Arts Engine family).

Transit Media fulfills orders for Women Make Movies, First Run/Icarus Films, New Day Films, Frameline and Educational Video Center, just to name a few.

Strolling around the warehouse, I discovered more of my favorite films: Forever directed by Heddy Honnigman, Troop 1500 directed by Ellen Spiro and many others that I’ve always wanted to see such as Silences directed by Octavio Warnock-Graham for example.

It was incredible to see so many amazing documentaries living under one roof. And Bernie recounted equally incredible stories about the films, filmmakers and tales of the top sellers. I was impressed by how much the folks at Transit Media truly care about getting important documentary films out into the world.

Poster for Trouble the Water.

This powerful documentary follows Scott Roberts and Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, who turns her video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

On Friday, I went to see Imagenation’s screening of the film at The Faison Firehouse Theater. Yes, I knew the film was going to be important but I didn’t know how moving and funny and uplifting it would be. The Scotts are truly a find and exhibit such an incredible spirit. And the filmmakers tell their story beautifully while keeping their finger on the politics of that not so distant past.

The experience of seeing the film in Harlem — with an almost entirely black audience — was pretty powerful. I so rarely have this experience. I didn’t mind when people felt compelled to shout or clap or comment during the screening. It needed to be done.

This film honestly and truly reminded me why I love making documentaries. You can catch Trouble the Water at the IFC or The Faison Firehouse Theater in New York. It opens nation wide a little later.

(A postscript: I realized that I wrote an article for MediaRights in 2005 entitled “Independent Filmmakers Respond to Katrina” that featured the producers of the film.)

DocuWeek New York started this past Friday. It functions as a theatrical showcase for documentary films which then allows these films to be eligible for Academy Award consideration. Check out our fiscal sponsoree Pray The Devil Back To Hell by acclaimed filmmaker Gini Reticker. Other highlights are Kurt Kuenne’s Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father and The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) by Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath. If you are in the NY metro area get yourself to the IFC Center by August 14, when DocuWeek New York ends and moves to Los Angeles for a West coast run.

Chalk one up for the pro-universal healthcare side. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently mentioned a report by the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta that said health issues are a large factor in homelessness and that proper healthcare could get quite a few people off the streets.

Documentaries like Sicko and Roger Weisberg’s Critical Condition have long sung the praises of government-subsidized healthcare, and now the Foundation’s data can be added to their canon. The report stated that mental illness, infection, disease, and poor nutrition plague many homeless people.

For the past three years, healthcare has been a common theme for documentary filmmakers, with stances on both sides of the issue. Productions by On the Fence Films such as The Lemon, Two Women, Dead Meat and A Short Course in Brain Surgery portray socialized healthcare as a deadly alternative that gives politicians the authority to make decisions about medical priorities.

Having only seen the pro-universal healthcare films myself, I would rather the government (which the public has some control over) make those decisions than profit-driven insurance companies and HMOs. And the idea that it could help decrease the number of homeless in this country as well just bolsters my support for it.

Some may balk at the idea even more after hearing this connection, considering socialized healthcare a step towards transforming the U.S. into a welfare state. But truth be told, this wouldn’t be the first thing we socialized in this country. We have socialized schools, libraries, fire departments and postal services. If we can get sci-fi books and romance novels for free, we should be able to have our lives saved for free as well.

-Kathryn Robertson

An article the New York Times recently published says that greenness is now an important factor in the college search. Apparently the Princeton Review polled 10,300 students with a question that my college has never bothered to ask me: whether they care if their college campus is green. 63% answered with a resounding yes, and as a result the Princeton Review has included environmental sustainability in its yearly college ranking, adding pressure for colleges and universities keep the issue in mind in order to attract prospective students.

Some, however, worry that the new green initiatives colleges are implementing are just for show. Recycling programs and “Do It in the Dark” contests between dorms, which challenge students to use as little water and energy as possible, are mostly symbolic. A real environmental benefit depends on big changes like using greener power sources, increasing buildings’ energy efficiency, composting garbage from dining halls, and educating students about sustainability.

This may be a tough pill to swallow for a number of campus environmental groups who pour their hearts and souls into these symbolic initiatives. But it’s also a chance for them to refocus their energy. I, for one, was once told by a professor that ours is the “generation that didn’t do anything.” This could be our version of the civil rights movement.

Some issues to consider though – first, how will it affect traditional remote college campuses where students do a great deal of driving? Will environmentally conscious students want to go to a school where their carbon footprint is huge due to the fact that daily travel requires a car? And second, with the current spike in the price of an education, will going green be another excuse to raise tuition?

It’s exciting that people are taking sustainability seriously and that publications like the Princeton Review are making researching environmentally friendly institutions so much easier. I only hope that these reviews find a concrete way to measure which universities are the most sustainable.

- Kathryn Robertson

The New York International Latino Film Festival starts this week and it is offering some impressive films. Highlights include Cristina Kotz Cornejo’s narrative 3 Americas; Big Pun: The Legacy, a documentary that looks at the life and music of the late South Bronx hip hop star; and Renee Tajima-Peña’s Calavera Highway, which tells the story of “seven Mexican-American men grappling with the meaning of masculinity, fatherhood and a legacy of rootless beginnings” (set to air this year on POV). Other than films, the festival has planned some interesting panels and events. I’m most excited about the one entitled Latin Horror: The Accent on a New Genre, which appeals to the horror geek in me. For the full festival schedule, go to: www.nylatinofilm.com.

With the social networking scene exploding across the Internet, we at Arts Engine and the Media That Matters Film Festival didn’t want to miss the chance of bringing our social issue-focused films to an even broader audience. But with the wealth of online communities out there today, we thought it would be a good idea to highlight the main networks we’ve been using and show you how you can become part of our community.

Check out my guide to “Social Networking with Arts Engine and the Media That Matters Film Festival” over at the Festival site to see where you can find us and to get instructions on how to become our “friend.”

Leave us a comment here to let us know what other cool sites you are using to network online.

by Austra Zubkovs

AFI’s Silver Theater, in downtown Silver Springs

I’m still thinking of all the great films I watched at this year’s SILVERDOCS festival, so I’ll try to summarize my experience there as best as I can. I will start with one of the highlights for me—the DocuClub “In-The-Works” session. Moderating the feedback was a new friend and ally, Erica Ginsberg, who runs a similar works-in-progress screening series in Silver Springs, Docs in Progress, Inc. The rough cut we screened was Stages, by the talented and prolific arts collective Meerkat Media. Read more about this screening in our own DocuClub Talk Back.

Members of film collective Meerkat Media

I was moved by two portraits of unconditional family love, Eric Daniel Metzgar’s Life.Support.Music and Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father by Kurt Kuenne. The former depicts the aftermath of Jason Kriglin’s massive stroke, which leaves him paralyzed. A 34-year old skilled musician, Kriglin was an unlikely candidate for such a tragedy. The film documents Kriglin’s amazing recovery, which is made possible by his doctors, friends, fans, and most importantly, his dedicated wife and family. Hoping not to sound too sentimental, Kriglin’s story is truly awe-inspiring. A different kind of tragedy befalls the main subject of Kuenne’s film. In it, the director uses the epistolary form to construct the incredible tale of the murder of his childhood friend, the suspect’s mental illness, miscarriage of justice, victims’ rights, and ultimately, everyday heroes.

Other highlights include Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s The Garden, which had its World premiere at the festival and won its Sterling US Feature Award. The film recalls the fate of the largest urban community farm in downtown Los Angeles at the hands of greedy real estate developers and corrupt city officials. In Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Arts Engine fiscally-sponsored filmmaker Gini Reticker recounts how a coalition of Christian and Muslim women helped to bring resolution to Liberia’s civil war though wit, courage, and peaceful civil disobedience. The film won the festival’s Witness Award. Another Arts Engine alumna of our fiscal sponsorship program, Cheryl Furjanic, presented her tribute to the Olympic women’s synchronized swimming team, Sync or Swim, which played two sold-out shows. Furjanic’s film is a crowd-pleaser, and she fielded questions from enthusiastic audiences post-screenings. Another hit was Andrew Jacobs’ Four Seasons Lodge. Producer Matt Lavine stated that the film’s two screenings delivered “good crowds and strong responses.”

Sync or Swim director Cheryl Furjanic, wearing her accessory of choice

The festival was packed with so many panels and films that it was incredibly difficult to even take a break in between events. I wanted to attend everything! A high school marching band from Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School led the way into the AFI Silver Theater for the premiere of Hard Times at Douglass High. The film was produced by Alan and Susan Raymond, whose PBS series An American Family, was also presented at the festival. In verité style, Hard Times plays like an inquisitive fly-on-the-wall, roaming the halls of the school and following each character’s struggle in a neglected inner-city institution. (The documentary is currently airing on HBO.)

Members of Douglass High marching band

Finally, I made it to several interesting panels, including one presented by PBS’ National Minority Consortia. The Consortia is comprised of organizations that fund and nurture programming by minority producers, and is aimed at diverse audiences. Chief among its mandate is to bring new voices to public television. Sitting on the panel were Patricia Boero of Latino Public Broadcasting, Ruth Bolan of Pacific Islanders in Communications,
National Black Programming Consortium’s Leslie Fields-Cruz, and Shirley Sneve of Native American Public Telecommunications.

Minority Consortia panelists Boero, Bolan, and Fields-Cruz

At the “Funding Case Study of Made in L.A.,” director Almudena Carracedo and producer Robert Bahar laid out their strategies for fundraising. Their film, an examination of the appaling conditions endured by immigrant workers in L.A. garment factories, took almost five years to make. The filmmakers insisted that building an audience and fundraising go hand-in-hand, and happen simultaneously.

A special thank you goes out to SILVERDOCS’s people power: Director of Programming Sky Sitney, Founding Festival Director Nina Gilden Seavey (who gave a witty introduction to audience members at our DocuClub session), Coordinating Producer Deborah L. Jaramillo, Guest Relations Coordinator Alex Lewis Coles, and all the wonderful volunteers.