January 1, 2007Newsletter

Happy New Year! The Center is gearing up for a busy year full of exciting projects and events. Check out the latest on the Making Your Documentary Matter 2007 Conference, to learn how to make documentary a powerful communications tool for social change. The Center is proud to be part of a new project to expand fair use among teachers of media literacy, in collaboration with Temple University. We've added more resources to our Fair Use and Free Speech page as well. If you didn't make it to the International Documentary Association gala or our panel on youth media, you can catch up with the news here. You can also find out the results of the discussions of a convening held by the Center on the future of news. As well, Barbara Abrash reports on a ground-breaking conference of African-American innovators at the cutting edge of new media. And we welcome our local members to our screenings and discussions in January.

Making Your Documentary Matter - Jan. 31 - Feb. 1, 2007
Register now! - Space is limited!
Join filmmakers, outreach specialists and foundation representatives for a conference on the latest in documentary outreach, including keynote speaker Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films and director of Iraq for Sale.

Speakers will include:

• Dennis Palmieri, ITVS Outreach Coordinator, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
• Ellen Schneider, Active Voice
• Aishah Shahidah Simmons, No! The Rape Documentary
• jesikah maria ross, Saving the Sierra
• Jean Seok, Arts Engine
• Michael Hoffman, CEO, See3 Communications
• Marissa Brown, Alliance for Justice
• Benjamen Walker, New Media Producer, We Shall Remain, American Experience
• And many others!

Visit our website to RSVP and for other conference information. topics.

Film Screening: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
By Byron Hurt
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
5:30 - 8:00 PM
Wechsler Theater, Mary Graydon Center, 3rd Fl., American University
HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes an in-depth look at representations of manhood, sexism and homophobia in hip-hop culture. This groundbreaking documentary is a “loving critique” of certain disturbing developments in rap music culture from the point of view of a fan who challenges the art form’s representations of masculinity.

*Discussion and book signing with AU professor- author Will Smith & reception to follow film screening.
In collaboration with the American University Office of Community Service, the AU Jazz Ensemble, the AU Office of Multicultura Affairs, and the Washington College of Law. Please visit our website for more information.

Film Screening: La Sierra
Feburary 8, 2007
Wechsler Theater, MGC 3rd Fl., American University
Part of the Best of INPUT event series.

Every year, public service broadcasters and independent producers from around the world gather to view and discuss the best work of the year at the INPUT conference. In conjunction with several Washington, D.C. arts organizations, the Center is co- hosting the "Best of INPUT" series. "La Sierra," shown at last year's INPUT, is an award-winning, Sundance- selected documentary.

Colombia/US, 53 min., documentary
Directors: Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez
More than 30,000 people have been killed over the last ten years in Colombia's bloody civil conflict, in which left-wing guerillas fight against the government and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. The documentary La Sierra explores life over the course of a year in one such barrio (La Sierra, in Medellin), through the prism of three young lives. Please visit our website for more information.

Read more »

Center Director Pat Aufderheide receives Career Achievement Award at IDA

The International Documentary Association awarded Pat Aufderheide the Career Achievement Award for Scholarship and Preservation on December 7. Aufderheide's early work highlighting the power of documentary and bringing public and critical recognition to the form were celebrated, as was her recent work in facilitating the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. "Pat Aufderheide is the mother of the movement that is bringing fair use out of the closet," lawyer Michael Donaldson said. "The work that Peter Jaszi, the architect of the strategy, and I did was to facilitate a process led by filmmakers nationwide," Aufderheide said to the documentary filmmakers in the audience. "Without your work and theirs, there would have been nothing to do." Donaldson urged every member of the 600-person audience at the Directors Guild theater to pick up a copy before leaving the gala.

The evening was unified by a powerful sense of the social mission of documentary. Keynoter Al Gore called upon documentarians to play the crucial role of informing and engaging the public, as Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth has done. Awards for two powerful documentarians of the Iraq war--James Longley' (Iraq in Fragments), Brent and Craig Renaud (the limited series Off to War) and Andrew Berends (Blood of My Brother)--and of emerging filmmaker Chris Quinn, whose God Grew Tired of Us chronicled the acculturation of Sudanese "lost boys" in the U.S.- -registered the importance of documentary in covering geopolitics in a way news organizations are not. A career achievement award for Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool; Who Needs Sleep?), cinematographer and director whose passionate leftism has marked his career, was presented by Jane Fonda, who recalled his steadfastness during their trip to Hanoi.

Center co-sponsors panel on youth media: Improving Education Through Youth Media
The Center for Social Media recently collaborated with leaders in the field of youth media to discuss the power of youth media to shape public discourse. Read a summ ary of the discussion on the Center's News from the Future of Public Media blog.

Groundbreaking Summit Brings Together African- American Innovators on the Edge of New Media
The National Black Programming Consortium, a member of the CPB Minority Consortia and principal provider of African American programming to PBS, is taking the lead in a rapidly changing digital media environment with initiatives designed to nurture young producers of color, and maximize the potential of multiplatform delivery systems, in order to foster black public engagement and enrich mainstream public interest media.

Read more about the NBPC Technology Now! Leadership Summit

Fair Use and Fair Dealing at RealScreen
At RealScreen--the annual conference in Washington, D.C. where the ruthless terms of today's documentary business are laid out--an international panel will address the ways that copyright laws permit use of copyrighted material without permissions or payment. Called "fair use" in the U.S. and other terms such as "fair dealing" elsewhere, this is a part of copyright law that is regaining respect internationally.

Center Collaborates on Initiative to Expand Fair Use for Media Literacy
The Center for Social Media is collaborating with American University's Washington College of Law and Temple University's School of Communication and Theater to shape a best-practices guide to fair use for media literacy teaching. Pat Aufderheide, Peter Jaszi and Renee Hobbs are co-principal investigators. Many teachers and media makers, including many students, find themselves frustrated by expectations that they must license copyrighted work in order to show it--even when critiquing or analyzing it. Indeed, the practice of media literacy is often squarely within "fair use"--the right to use copyrighted material without permissions or payment. But too few people now know how the law applies to their own practices.

Documentary filmmakers had the same problem, and addressed it by researching their own problems and then devising a statement of best practices in fair use, with the help ofthe Center and the Washington College of Law and with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

This project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, follows the model established do filmmakers. Like documentary filmmakers, media literacy teachers will document their problems in quoting popular culture in their work. They will then devise a code of best practices modelled on that of doc filmmakers, reflecting their practices and concerns. Slated to culminate in 2009, the project will concern media literacy in the classroom, in curriculum materials and in media produced with the intent of producing critical thinkers about media and communication.

Do you have a story you would like to share about your frustrations when teaching about popular culture? Please write socialmedia @american.edu. Thank you!

Check out the Center's latest Fair Use Tools - Learning from Refrigerator Mothers
Understanding fair use made easy - learn from decisions made by Kartemquin Films when making Refrigerator Mothers. The Center’s latest videos feature clips used in the film under Fair Use and purchased clips.

Report Demands More Clarity from the Smithsonian Dilemma
When the Smithsonian signed a 30-year contract with Showtime, filmmakers howled because "the Nation's Attic" was restricting access--the terms were murky--to filmmakers who did not have a Showtime deal. The future of media for public knowledge and action was at stake, they argued. Congress looked into it, with prodding from the Center for American Progress. Many filmmakers in the Center for Social Media network signed a petition calling for the Showtime contract to be cancelled. Now the GAO has issued a report saying that the Smithsonian needs to clarify how it will decide whether filmmakers have access to Smithsonian resources or staff.

Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant
This grant funds first time documentary makers for travel and accommodations at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, April 12-15, 2007. For four days, grant recipients will be given access to films, participate in master classes and be mentored by experienced filmmakers. TWO filmmakers will be chosen for the grant in its first year. Deadline: Applications must be postmarked by February 5. Applicants will be notified by email in mid-March. Visit the website for full details

Public Media and Financial Sustainability
The Developing Radio Partners, in collaboration with Open Society Institute Network Media Program, recently researched and produced a new series of electronic guides on local radio management and sustainability. The program highlights the importance of public media in the global arena. Click here to download the guide.

J-Lab Request for Proposals: 2007 New Voices
New voices is a pioneering program to seed innovative community news ventures in the US. New Voices helps to fund the start up of micro-local, news projects. Deadline is February 20, 2007. Visit the website for full details.

User Rights at Risk in Video and Film: Issues for Media Librarians
American Library Association - Video Round Table Pre-Conference
Friday, June 22, 2007, 2:00 - 6:00pm
Room 603, Washington College of Law
The conference will address the appropriate balance between user and owner rights, and interpretations of copyright law that can usefully support the media librarian’s role as a facilitator for the public’s access to audio-visual media. Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi are coordinating the preconference with the American Library Association's video committee.

Silverdocs 2007: Call for submissions
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2007 Silverdocs film series. Visit their website for full details on deadlines and contact information.