March 2, 2007Newsletter

While we're looking forward, we're also still receiving great feedback from our February Making Your Documentary Matter Conference. Tracy Strain wrote, "What a well-run, thoughtfully-planned, and inspiring event! Many of the presentations gave us great ideas for the initiatives and fundraising for our Lorraine Hansberry documentary." Please continue to share your thoughts and comments on our Discussion Forum, where you can also find video and audio downloads of the discussions. We're pleased to welcome our Spring 2007 Visiting Filmmaker, Haskell Wexler. March will also bring the 2007 Environmental film festival and a public lecture from another CSM Visiting Filmmaker, veteran documentarian and author Doe Mayer, USC School of Cinema-Television. In this newsletter, you'll find some amazing news on fair use--insurers are actually using the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use to accept fair use claims! Oh, there's more - sign up to participate in the Center's latest public media research. Get copies of our latest research. And you can find out what happened at public media conferences the Center cosponsored and attended. Don't want to wait a month for the news from here? Subscribe to the Center's RSS feed to stay updated on all the latest public media and fair use news that matters most to you. See you soon!

Visiting Filmmaker Haskell Wexler: Screening and Discussion of Who Needs Sleep?
March 7, 2006
5:30 - 8:00 pm
Wechsler Theater, 3rd Fl., Mary Graydon Center, American University
Academy Award-winning cinematographer, film producer and director Haskell Wexler, who is legendary for his fierce independence and strong progressive convictions, will join the Center for a public screening and discussion of his film Who Needs Sleep? Wexler will also be working with graduate students in film and video production.

Entertainment-Education :Telling Stories to Change the World
A public lecture with veteran documentarian and author Doe Mayer, USC School of Cinema-Television. Doe Mayer, a CSM Visiting Filmmaker, has worked in Asia, Africa and Latin America to make media that changes lives. She will also be working with students specializing in social documentary.
March 28, 2007
5:30 - 8:00 pm
Wechsler Theater, 3rd Fl., Mary Graydon Center, American University

Film Screening: Troop 1500
A film by Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein
2005, 68 min
The story of Girl Scout troop, Troop 1500, a unique group at Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas that unites daughters with mothers who are serving time for serious crimes, giving them a chance to rebuild their lives together. This touching, wryly funny and sometimes heartbreaking film is a great example of Ellen Spiro's work. The noted documentarian is famous for her ability to bring a sense of humor and warm humanism to her social-justice themes. This screening coincides with an art exhibit that will be featured at the Katzen Arts Center entitled, "Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the US."
Discussion and book forum to follow screening led by AU Professor Gay Young.

Center Releases New Case Studies on Nonprofits and Media
The Center for Social Media has produced two new reports on the latest techniques that are helping to make documentary a powerful communications tool for social change. Preview them online today!
-Big Dreams, Small Screens: Online Video for Public Knowledge and Action
Learn from CSM research fellow Jessica Clark how popular commercial online digital video platforms, such as YouTube, GoogleVideo and MySpace, are being used to create, exchange, and comment upon information for public knowledge and action—and what their limitations are!
-Documentaries on a Mission: How Nonprofits Are Making Movies for Public Engagement
Read about how the Sierra Club, The American Civil Liberties Union and local environmental groups use documentaries for high- impact and action. This report by veteran journalist Karen Hirsch also includes an introduction by AU School of Communication Prof. Matthew Nisbet, an expert on new media.

Come to the Conference--Virtually
Read Center Research Fellow Katja Wittke's report on this year's Integrated Media Association Conference in Boston.

Also, learn about politics, participation and fan culture, showcased at the Beyond Broadcast conference.
It was a thrill to participate in the workshop on media literacy and fair use at the Beyond Broadcast conference last weekend. Henry Jenkins (MIT), Bryan Baker (Temple U) and I brainstormed with about 25 creative media literacy teachers and makers—media arts center managers, profs, after-school programs leaders, filmmakers, bloggers and more. Read more And go virtually to the We Media conference, where journalists, citizen journalists, digital media execs, educators and big thinkers discussed the future of the online public media community.
Read more...

Documentarians Help Wrongly-Condemned Man Win Lawsuit
Social documentaries are a great example of media designed for public knowledge and action. The Trials of Darryl Hunt—watch for it on HBO on April 26 and also in theaters this spring—is the latest example of the difference they can make. Read more...

Insurers are accepting fair use claims
Several insurance companies are now accepting documentarians' fair use claims--because filmmakers and attorneys can now turn to the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. Like other industry actors, insurers were reluctant to accept such claims before there was consensus in the creative field about reasonable interpretation of the law. Now a major errors and omissions insurer, National Union, a member company of AIG, is first out of the box with the simplest proposal, to accept fair use claims (which would be based on the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use) when supported by an appropriate lawyer’s letter. The following week, insurer MediaPro joined the field, with a more complicated but also constructive policy: MediaPro will depend on Stanford Law School’s judgment that documentary filmmakers’ uses are within the Statement’s principles and conditions, and require a lawyer's pledge to defend the case in the event of litigation. There are quiet rumors in the industry that other insurers will also change their previous practice of excluding fair use claim. This is dramatic evidence of the power and value of standards documents to provide businesses with new options to lower costs and improve access to markets. Read more on our Fair Use blog.

Submit your film to the Eye for Change Film Festival
See their website for more information on rules, regulations, and deadlines.

Center for Native American Public Radio has repositioned itself as Native Public Media
Please visit their new website at www.nativepublic media.org.

BLAUFARB AWARD TO SUPPORT DOCUMENTARIES RELATING TO LABOR AND THE LEFT
The Jacob and Besye Blaufarb Video Library of the American Labor Movement has established a fund to provide assistance to filmmakers working on projects relating to the history of Labor, progressive politics, and American social history. It awards an annual prize of $5,000 to support post-production work. Areas of interest include: labor history, the struggle for immigrant rights, race and class, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. For more information, contact: michael.nash@ n yu.edu.

The application deadline is March 31, 2007. Awards will be announced before July 30.

Hurry up! Fellowship applications for the 53rd Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, South of the Other, are now available online
Go to www.flahertyseminar.org for more information and for other funding opportunities.
Application Deadline: March 19th, 2007. The Flaherty offers two types of fellowships which provide economic support to applicants interested in attending the Seminar: Professional Development fellowships and Student fellowships. In both cases, awards are partial grants that cover a portion of the registration fee for the Seminar. The registration fee covers all lodging, meals, Seminar screenings, activities and functions for the week. All fellowships are highly competitive. While preference is given to first-time applicants, you may submit multiple times, and may receive fellowships up to two time.