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Another Year of Media That Matters Magic!

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Posted on June 2, 2004

By Shira Golding (shira)

I am just now catching my breath after the extravaganza that was the launch of the fourth annual Media That Matters Film Festival. As the Program Associate here at MediaRights, this was my second year coordinating the Festival and it just keeps getting sweeterâSixteen high-impact film and video shorts, digital stories and new media are streaming online with Take Action links and are touring the country through community screenings. The Festival DVD with added special features will be available for educators and activists starting in August.

I Promise Africa, winner of the Jury Award Sponsored by National Film Network

Finding Media That Matters We held our open call for entries in November and received hundreds of inspiring entries from producers all over the United States. In conjunction with our Youth Media Distribution site, YMDi.org, the Festival call for entries included the See Change, Make Change Youth Media Distribution Contest. While the Festival has always featured and celebrated youth-produced work, the contest, sponsored by Open Society Institute, the Time Warner Foundation and the Waitt Family Foundation, offered two young video and digital stories makers the chance to win $1,000 each for their outreach and distribution efforts.

After MediaRights staff watched the 300+ entries, we narrowed down the submissions to a pool of thirty finalists which were reviewed by The Media That Matters Film Festival jury in February. The jury of sixteen accomplished filmmakers, activists, journalists, artists, television programmers, teachers and young people met at our Executive Director's home for a jam-packed evening of screening and discussion. They considered each film not only for its individual merits, but for how it would complement the other chosen pieces, with a goal of creating a coherent and inspiring program for our extensive audience. By the end of the night, our enthusiastic jury selected the official program of the fourth annual Media That Matters Film Festival. The other finalists were recognized with Honorable Mentions on the Festival site.

The Meatrix, winner of the Film for Thought Award Sponsored by Heifer International

This year's Festival also became broader in scope with the integration of a new media policy initiative, the Just Media Project. With the support of the Ford Foundation and Open Society Institute, we launched a new program with a goal of bridging the gap between media makers and media reformers. Fully integrated into the Media That Matters Film Festival, step one of the project raises awareness about media policy by honoring the work of individuals on the frontline of the media policy debate.

We invited MediaRights members and the media activism community at large to nominate heroes in the media reform movement. As with the films, the nominees were then considered by a jury of media policy experts who chose the Just Media winners. Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project was chosen to receive the first annual Just Media Lifetime Achievement Award and Malkia Cyril of the Youth Media Council was chosen to recieve the first annual Just Media Emerging Leader Award. Both were honored at the Festival Awards Ceremony and profiled in a special Just Media section of the Festival site alongside Take Action links focusing on media democracy.

We also enhanced the Festival Web site by greatly expanding the pages on each of the sixteen official selections. Personal statements by the filmmakers give visitors to the site added insight into the creative process, extending the impact of the streaming films. For example, after watching the stirring short The Children of Birmingham, you can read about the Kids on the Hill, the Baltimore youth arts program that produced the film on child participation in the civil rights movement.

Media That Matters' name in lights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Festival Premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music On Tuesday, May 18th the festival kicked off with the public premiere at BAM Rose Cinemas. The Media That Matters filmmakers traveled from around the country to attendâteenagers Ashley Potter and Mary Proffit, Directors of Struggling to Survive, made the trip from Eastern Kentucky. Their film addresses the living wage crisis in their community, and they discussed why it is so important for them to reach new audiences: "We wanted to show people what it was like trying to live on $5.15/hr...It's a really really big issue in our community...We want people to realize, to wake up, to be like 'hey let's get this done, let's make a difference.'"

Ashley and Mary's film screened, along with the other Festival films, to a packed audience of filmgoers at BAM Rose Cinemas. After the screening, audience members checked out MediaRights' Take Action Table where they could sign petitions, donate to the AIDS relief organization Keep a Child Alive, and register to vote through Indyvoter. Many also became members of MediaRights and got a free DVD of the third annual Media That Matters Film Festival.

The Festival premiere included a Take Action Table where audience members signed petitions and became members of MediaRights

The after party was hosted by Scopello Ristorante Bar with beer provided by Budweiser and Sierra Nevada. Filmmakers hung out with MediaRights staff and audience members in the upstairs gallery.

Festival Awards Ceremony at HBO The following night, May 19th, the Festival films and Just Media winners were honored with awards at a private ceremony at HBO. Host, Public Enemy's Chuck D, and special guests Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, comedian Seth Herzog and Morgan Spurlock, Director of Super Size Me, helped MediaRights to celebrate all of the filmmakers. Many of the filmmakers also received $1,000 grants for outreach and distribution and all winners receive one year memberships to the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers and to Netflix.

The audience was particularly touched as iThemba filmmakers, Keefe Mureen and Nelson Walker III announced that they were going to give their $1,000 award, sponsored by Sundance Channel, to the Sinikithemba AIDS clinic in South Africa. Their film follows the story of an HIV+ woman who is one of very few South Africans receiving anti-retroviral drugs.

Another moving segment of the evening was a special performance by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary in honor of the film Laugh at the Fat Kid. Peter is a longstanding advocate for peace in our classrooms and, guitar-in-hand, he sang his song "Don't Laugh at Me," which calls for compassion and tolerance in the schoolyard and throughout the world. As Kristina Schoentag, the Director of the film received her award, she explained, "Peter basically sang exactly what I was trying to get across in my film."

First time youth filmmaker Nicole Sobottke directed Dedicated to My Family. Recipient of the Family and Society Award, the film is a personal documentary about her experiences living in a teen shelter in Washington State. She talked about why she made her film and what it means for her to be part of Media That Matters. "I'm hoping people will see my film and not think so badly about teen shelter kids. NOT all of us do drugs, not all of us came from crackhouses. Some of us came from really nice families with bad circumstances. This award is a big honor and I'm really glad to be here. It just shows more people my film, it just puts it out there more, and more people can understand where I'm really coming from."

Jen Simmons, Director/Producer of Bush for Peace, an edgy remix of US foreign policy, explained, "I think it's a great honor to be part of this festival. It's very encouraging to be doing work that feels perhaps risky or beyond what people consider OK or safe. And then this festival comes around and says, 'this is great, we want to help you, we want to distribute this, we want even more people to see this. We want to give you aid for distribution and get this work out there.' It means a lot, it really means a lot."

MediaRights Executive Director Nicole Betancourt with Awards Ceremony Host Chuck D

The Awards Ceremony featured a section dedicated to The Just Media Project. The award winners, Malkia Cyril and Andrew Schwartzman, gave truly inspiring speeches. Both drove home the point that independent media makers and media policy activists have to work together if we are to resist the corporate monopolization that is stifling America's airwaves. Gara LaMarche, Director of US Programs at Open Society Institute, presented the Emerging Leader Award to Malkia. In his remarks he stressed that media democracy is at the core of our greater national democracy. "It's not just about voting, it's not just about organizing, it's not just about civic participation. It's about whether people have the information that they need to make informed decisions about the world in which they live."

Malkia's words echoed this sentiment as she spoke about her work with the Youth Media Council, an organization dedicated to reclaiming media portrayals of youth and people of color: "What we at the Youth Media Council are really hoping to do is bring something new to the table, a new idea—media justice. Within a framework that really examines content, not so much access, that really looks at building power, not just increasing choice. That looks at communications as a human rights issue not just a civil rights issue. That takes it beyond the question of citizenship to the question of humanity. Because we believe fundamentally that you can't live in a just world without a just media. And that's what we do and that's why I'm here."

Andrew Schwartzman, winner of the Just Media Lifetime Achievement Award, underscored the need for filmmakers to join the fight for media democracy: "The point that I want to make for the filmmakers and artists here is that it's not going to happen by itself. You have to recognize that to perform your art and to pass it on to your audience, you have to do something about protecting your rights. Fighting media concentration is just as much of a challenge as the cost of equipment, buying film stock, and dealing with intellectual property rights and licenses—it's part of your job."

The Awards Ceremony concluded with the presentation of the Jury Award to Jerry Henry's I Promise Africa. He talked about why he made his personal film about the effect of AIDS on African children. "I want anyone who has a heart to see my film. I want anyone who was a child to see the film. I would like people not to be so selfish and think that things only happen in their environment—to think about the problems that happen in the world globally." Indeed, Jerry's film embodies all the themes of this year's Festival—justice, media and protest—demonstrating the potential of a short skillfully-crafted film to inspire action.

Media That Matters Begins to Travel Rounding off the Festival launch activities are two events next weekend—our annual installation at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at Lincoln Center and our first Traveling Festival screening in Seattle.

After its New York debut the Media That Matters Traveling Festival comes to a different city every month with a screening and discussion hosted by one of our partners. On Friday, June 11th, Seattle's 911 Media Arts Center hosts the first stop in the fourth annual Media That Matters Film Festival's traveling tour. The screening highlights Nicole Sobottke's Dedicated to My Family, which was produced as part of 911 Media Arts Center's Reel Grrls Program. The event also features the festival's other youth-produced pieces as well as youth media from the event's co-presenter YouthSpace.net.

If you won't be able to attend the Seattle screening, don't fret. There will be another screening in a different city every month. You can also watch the Festival online all year, and starting in August, you can order your very own copy of the Festival DVD and host your own screening! I will be working with individuals and organizations all year long to produce screenings, workshops and panels, so please get in touch with me if you would like take part in some Media That Matters magic.

See you at our next screening!