We hope all is well with you. We are looking forward to an exciting October with visiting filmmakers Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy and the Magnum Photographer, Paul Fusco. Throughout October, we will be showcasing landmark documentaries at our Human Rights Film Series. We are also holding a number of fair use and free speech events at the Virginia Film Festival. We hope you can join us at one or more of our events!

October 6, 2 pm, Room 100 of the Broadcast Center.
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Visiting Filmmakers Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy "Fear, Truth and the Documentary" Presentation with Clips
October 7, 2 pm, Wechsler Theatre, Mary Graydon Center, 3rd floor
Visiting Filmmakers Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy speak about the history of activist filmmaking. Learn more>>

The Center is honored to host Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy, makers of State of Fear, as its fall visiting filmmakers. They will also be working with School of Communication students and offering a public lecture. They are extraordinary exemplars of documentarians with a social conscience. There will be a screening of State of Fear as a part of the Human Rights Film Series on October 5 and 6 at 6 pm. A discussion with the filmmakers will follow the film. Learn more>>

October 20, 10 am, Wechsler Theatre, Magnum Photographer Paul Fusco
The Center will be hosting a presentation and talk by photographer Paul Fusco, a member of the renowned photographer collective, Magnum . Fusco will be the fifth in a series of Magnum photographers the Center has hosted over the last two years as part of the Camera as Catalyst Visiting Photographers series. The series is coordinated by SOC faculty member Leena Jayaswal.

6th Annual Human Rights Film Series Screenings held on Wednesdays, room 603 Washington College of Law and Thursdays, Mary Graydon Center, Wechsler Theatre

10/5-6, 6pm State of Fear by Paco de Onís, Pam Yates and Peter Kinoy. Meet the Filmmakers at this local premiere!

10/6, 2pm “Fear, Truth, and the Documentary,” a presentation by Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onís, visiting filmmakers in the TV Studio in the Broadcast Center

10/7, 2 pm, Visiting Filmmakers Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy speak about the history of activist filmmaking in Wechsler Theatre, Mary Graydon Center, 3rd floor.

10/19-20, 6pm Videoletters by Katarina Rejger and Eric van den Broek

10/26-27, 6 pm Sometimes in April, by Raoul Peck

11/2-3, 6 pm WITNESS’s Human Rights in Burma collection
November 3 - Attend the launch of WITNESS’s video handbook, Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism, and meet Sam Gregory from WITNESS!

Center and “Untold Stories” at Virgina Film Festival

Join Center director Pat Aufderheide and filmmaker friends at the Virginia Film Festival, October 27-30. This year's Charlottesville festival, hosted at the University of Virginia and curated by the legendary film programmer Richard Herskowitz, features the theme of In/Justice. The Center’s Untold Stories project will sponsor several events there including a screening of an Eyes on the Prize episode and a workshop about how filmmakers face copyright issues.

Making Your Documentary Matter

If you were one of the hundreds who couldn’t get into the “Making Your Documentary Matter” workshop at the CSM last year, mark your calendar for the second annual workshop on January 30, 2006. “Making Your Documentary Matter” brings together leading experts in public engagement strategies, successful producers of social documentary and nonprofit leaders. Among the confirmed speakers are P.O.V.’s Cynthia Lopez, Active Voice’s Ellen Schneider, Roundtable Media’s Robert Lavelle, Outreach Extension’s Judith Ravitz, Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Joy Moore and filmmakers Charlene Gilbert (Children Will Listen,) John DeGraaf (Affluenza) and Sandy “Simcha” DuBowski (Trembling Before G-d).

The workshop, which builds on the success of last year’s inaugural event, brings together some of the most well respected professionals in public engagement for docs, including broadcasters, funders and producers behind several successful films. Please email socialmedia@american.edu to register or learn more.

A double disc DVD of last year’s workshop will be available soon for $20.

You may place your order now at socialmedia@american.edu.

In September, the Untold Stories project hosted a panel at the National Archives, “Free Speech, Fair Use and the Constitution.” Washington College of Law professor Peter Jaszi, the co-principal investigator of the Untold Stories project, explained the critical importance of fair use as a guarantor of First Amendment rights. Rena Kosersky, a music rights clearance expert, explained the high cost of current resistance to using this right for the celebrated civil rights historical series Eyes on the Prize. The series is now out of circulation because rights clearances have expired; renewal costs are higher than they need to be, because of widespread ignorance about this right. American University historian Kathleen Franz discussed the importance of this right for museum curators, who regularly use video and film, and filmmakers Grace Guggenheim and John Sorensen also showed how their historical films are unnecessarily limited. The forthcoming Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices (learn more at the Untold Stories site) will be a first step in public education about the validity and utility of this right for filmmakers.

At the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture conference, Center director Pat Aufderheide spoke on September 30. The conference, which draws attendees from arts and film production communities and organizations nationwide, featured a plenary on the subject “Risk.” Aufderheide spoke on the trend by large rightsholders in the movie and music industries to create a greater sense of risk than is legally sound around quoting copyrighted material.

November 18 Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices Launch

Washington College of Law, American University, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue NW, 6th floor, 1:30-3:30 pm, followed by reception.

The Untold Stories project is rapidly moving toward completion of its second phase! On November 18, the Documentarians’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use will be released at the Washington College of Law. This statement was created, with the help of the Center and the Washington College of Law, by leading filmmaker organizations.

The CSM and the Program on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest are sponsoring a press conference showcasing leading filmmakers and representatives from leading filmmaker organizations in a panel discussion of the significance of the Statement. Examples of successful applications of fair use, which will appear on the Center’s website, will also be shown. Copies of the Statement will be available for distribution.

“This is an excellent example of filmmakers taking action to address a problem collectively,” said co- principal investigator Peter Jaszi.

“Filmmakers have made it clear what responsible, reasonable and fair practices are in their professional practice,” said Center director Pat Aufderheide. “This creates new creative opportunities for everyone.”

November 18 Panel at National Archives

The Center joins the Washington College of Law in cosponsoring a panel discussion, “Orphan Works and the Visual Record,” at the National Archives, 7 pm on November 18. Filmmakers and other visual artists often want to quote copyrighted material whose owners can’t be found. What to do? The Copyright Office may soon have a good answer. Join us to hear discussion of the best solutions for the “orphan works” problem. Click here to reserve your spot>>