AMNH Hosts 34th Annual Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival 11/11-11/14

Representing the best in documentary, animation, experimental nonfiction, and archival footage, the 34th annual Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival offers an intimate look at worlds rarely revealed, furthering its mission of continuing to illuminate cultural anthropology. This year's festival will screen a selection of 38 films culled from more than 1,000 submissions from Thursday, November 11 to Sunday, November 14, 2010.

In the spirit of Margaret Mead, this year's films open a window into diverse and vanishing cultures. Films and filmmakers from over 30 countries explore and expose the complexity of our society, whether by questioning the ethics of Artificial Intelligence or telling the extraordinary story of a blind musician working with developmentally challenged children. Post-screening discussions with the filmmakers, film subjects, and field experts enhance the viewer's experience, with conversations focused on interpreting cultures through the film medium. Films and filmmakers represent countries across the globe, including Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, China, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Mali, Mexico, Netherland Antilles, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, United States, Venezuela, and Zambia.

"Documentary filmmakers offer some of the best expressions of art, culture, and history generated today," says Ariella Ben-Dov, Artistic and Festival Director for the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival held at the American Museum of Natural History. "The Mead Festival transports our audiences to far-flung corners of the globe and provides a personal adventure forging new cultural connections and understanding."

This year's program also includes a never-before public viewing of one of the Museum's hidden treasures, a collection of 40,000 glass lantern slides, many hand-painted and about half of them only recently rediscovered in a former Museum employee's Staten Island farmhouse. Looking Glass Through History will use these unique slides, which include images of landscapes, scientific specimens, and field expeditions, to provide a tour of a breadth of subjects integral to the Museum.
The opening and closing night films are part of a film series that coincides with the Museum exhibition Brain: The Inside Story, opening November 20, 2010. The exhibition-related films include:
· Plug and Pray. Jens Schanze and Judith Malek-Mahdavi's film about Artificial Intelligence, starring human-like robots, questions the efficacy and ethics of the latest developments in technological research. (Opening night film, November 11, and New York premiere)

· In the Garden of Sounds (Nel Giardino dei Suoni). Nicola Bellucci tells the extraordinary story of Wolfgang Fasser, a blind musician and physical therapist who works with developmentally disabled children, using music and natural sounds to reach through each child's particular physical and mental barriers. (Closing night film, November 14, and U.S. premiere)
· The Electric Mind. Nadav Harel follows an octogenarian widow, a middle-aged art photographer, a young father of two, and an 11-year-old girl undergoing experimental treatments for their debilitating brain disorders. (U.S. premiere)

Other highlights of the Festival include the world premiere of John Cohen's Roscoe Holcomb: From Daisy Kentucky, in which the filmmaker continues his examination of the banjo sounds of Appalachia. Post-screening, John Cohen will perform with The Dust Busters, a NYC-based group influenced and inspired by the direct fusion of Scots-Irish and African music born in Appalachia and the Deep South. Cohen will be on hand to present all the films in the series, which include:
· The High Lonesome Sound (1963). Songs of churchgoers, miners, and farmers of eastern Kentucky express the joys and sorrows of life among the rural poor. This classic film on Appalachia evokes the power of music and religion to help maintain dignity and traditions in the face of hardship.

· The End of an Old Song (1972). Set in the mountains of North Carolina, where English folklorist Cecil Sharp collected British ballads in the early 1900s, this portrait of balladeer Dillard Chandler shows his moving dedication to an art form that is being pushed aside by the juke box and mechanized sound.
· Peruvian Weavers: A Continuous Warp (1980). Featuring an interview with former American Museum of Natural History Curator Junius Bird, this film documents the ancient Andean Indian tradition of warp weaving, which has been handed down by generations of women for 5,000 years.
· Sara & Maybelle: The Carter Family (1983). In a rare filmed performance, Sara and Maybelle Carter demonstrate their characteristic guitar playing and harmonizing on "Sweet Fern" and "Solid Gone."

· Pericles in America (1988). This portrait of clarinetist Pericles Halkias, who emigrated from northern Greece to Queens, New York, in hopes of making more money, demonstrates the unifying force of music and the ambivalence of Greek-Americans who earn their living in the U.S. but have their hearts planted firmly in the mountains of Greece.
· Carnival in Q'eros (1991). This groundbreaking film shows the Carnival celebrations of a remote community of Indians high in the Peruvian Andes that had never been seen by outsiders. It focuses on the spiritual force of the music and the role of anthropologist in documenting an isolated culture.

Other U.S. premieres at the Mead Festival with filmmakers present at these screenings include:
· Eisenwurzen: Das Musical (A Mountain Musical). Eva Eckberg circles the once-iron-rich mountain of Erzberg in Austria, coaxing the old-timers into recalling the yodel-laced folk songs that recount the grim and gay details of their lives with equal gusto.
· My Beautiful Dacia. On a road trip from communism to capitalism, filmmakers Stefan Constantinescu and Julio Soto follow different generations of Romanians with one common love: the Dacia car.
· Tankograd. Once the site of a top-secret atomic bomb factory, Chelyabinsk, Russia, is now the most radioactively polluted city in the world. Boris Bertram tells the poignant story of the unlikely hometown of a vibrant cultural institution and its inspiring dancers: the Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater.
· When China Met Africa. A Chinese entrepreneur, a Chinese project manager for a multinational company, and Zambia's trade minister are the featured characters in filmmaker Mark and Nick Francis's story of the expanding footprint of rising global power.

Every year the Mead Festival introduces audiences to cultures and communities that might otherwise be inaccessible. With filmmakers present at the screenings, films that spotlight the struggle to preserve traditions and cultures against great odds include:
· Circo (Circus). Director Aaron Schock follows Tino Ponce as he operates the Circo Mexico, which travels across the Mexican countryside. Hoping to continue the century-old family business, Ponce has recruited his own children as performers while laboring night and day to stave off financial misfortune. (NYC premiere)
· Human Terrain. James Der Derian, David Urdis, and Michael Urdis examine the U.S. military's Human Terrain System, which embeds scholars with American combat troops. (NYC premiere)
· In Comparison. Harun Farocki's documentary travels from Burkino Faso to India and from France to Germany to show how the brick, the literal building block of civilization, is made and used across geography and cultures.
· Mi Chacra (My Land). Jason Burlage chronicles one year in the life of a Peruvian father. From the planting season and harvest to a season of work on the Inca Trail, the film paints a vivid picture of his world and his hopes that his child will find a better life in the city.
(East Coast premiere)
· Osadné. Marko Skop takes a sardonic look at how a Slovak village, home to 200 Rusyns-a dwindling minority on the easternmost edge of Europe-struggles to stop the exodus of its population and thrive in the new economy. (NY premiere)
· Puisque Nous Sommes Nés (Because We Were Born). French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Duret and Andréa Santana follow two young boys who hang out at a service station in Pernambuco, a poor town in northeast Brazil. The boys watch trucks and travelers go by and hear stories about a wider world that can only be imagined. (NY premiere)
· Shelter in Place. The petrochemical industry in oil-rich Texas is legally permitted to release millions of tons of toxic pollutants into the air each year. British filmmaker Zed Nelson visits Port Arthur, Texas, where one poor community battles corporate power and environmental pollution to make their homes safe for their children. (NY premiere)
· Shooting With Mursi. Deep in the heart of Ethiopia's fertile Omo Valley, the Mursi have been living the same way for centuries. A nomadic tribe ruled by consensus and the wisdom of elders, they uproot seasonally in order to graze their cattle and avoid the rainy season. Now, they are encircled by three national parks, none of which they are allowed to enter. Directed by a tribesman, Olibui Olisarali, along with Ben Young, this intimate film introduces audiences to a community in transition. (East Coast premiere)

The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award
The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award recognizes a documentary filmmaker who embodies the spirit, energy, and innovation that anthropologist Margaret Mead put into her research, fieldwork, and writings. This award honors filmmakers who test the boundaries of traditional documentary filmmaking, transporting audiences, and offering new perspectives on cultures and communities they would not normally access. Filmmakers must display artistic excellence and originality in their storytelling techniques, pushing beyond traditional notions of ethnography, and experimenting with the language of documentary filmmaking. Eligible film must be 50 minutes or more and be presented as a world or U.S. premiere. The award will be presented to the winning filmmaker at the closing night party.

Past Mead Festivals and the Traveling Festival
Tackling diverse and challenging cultural and social issues, the Mead Festival has introduced New York audiences to such acclaimed films as Spellbound (2002), Power Trip (2003), The Future of Food (2004), the Oscar-winning animated short The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation (2005), and the Oscar-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006). The Festival has a distinguished history of "firsts" and was the first venue to screen the now-classic documentary Paris Is Burning (1990), about the urban transgender community. It is also one of the first U.S. festivals to feature "indigenous media production." The Mead Festival continues to showcase the season's strongest international documentaries and includes engaging post-screening discussions with directors, producers, film participants, and regional and topical experts. A touring version of the Festival begins its cycle in January, visiting universities and film centers around the country.

Festival Information and Tickets
All screenings take place at the American Museum of Natural History. Opening and closing night tickets are $15. All other screenings are $12. Members/students/senior citizens should call or check online for discounted rates. Shorter films may be grouped together in single programs. The Friend of the Festival Pass (opening night film and reception for two, plus six other programs) is $99 (a $150 value). Please note the Mead Festival has eliminated the ticket service charge. You now save money when you order tickets in advance by phone or online. Tickets can be purchased by phone at 212-769-5200, online at amnh.org/mead, or at any of the Museum's admission desks. For more information, the public should call 212-769-5305 or visit amnh.org/mead. (Note: The website will be active beginning Friday, September 24, 2010.)

Support
The Mead Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and Consulate General of Israel.

Brain: The Inside Story
Open from November 20, 2010, to August 14, 2011, the exhibition will explore how the brain-a product of millions of years of evolution-produces thoughts, senses, and feelings. Visitors will experience how the brain is continually changing at different stages of life and discover how a new understanding of the workings of the brain may help scientists repair and reverse declines in brain function.

American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org)
The American Museum of Natural History is one of the world's preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1869, the Museum has advanced its global mission to explore and interpret human cultures and the natural world through a wide-reaching program of scientific research, education, and exhibitions. The Museum accomplishes this ambitious goal through its wide-ranging facilities and resources. The institution houses 45 permanent exhibition halls, state-of-the-art research laboratories, one of the largest natural history libraries in the Western Hemisphere, and a Permanent Collection of more than 32 million specimens and cultural artifacts. The spectacular Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space, which opened in February 2000, features the rebuilt Hayden Planetarium and striking exhibits about the universe and our planet. With a scientific staff of more than 200, the Museum supports research divisions in anthropology, paleontology, invertebrate and vertebrate zoology, and the physical sciences. With the launch of the Richard Gilder Graduate School in 2006, the American Museum of Natural History became the first American museum with the authority to grant the Ph.D. degree. The Museum is on track for record-breaking attendance this year of approximately 5 million visitors from around the world and has produced exhibitions and Space Shows that can currently be seen in venues on five continents, reaching an audience of millions more. In addition, the Museum's website, amnh.org, extends its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more beyond the Museum's walls.

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