DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Oct. 20, 2009) - The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running, premiere showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction. Begun as an exhibition of ethnographic films by anthropologists who were recording cultures seemingly remote from our own, the Festival now also features the documentary as an art form.
The Festival is distinguished by its outstanding selection of titles, which tackle diverse and challenging subjects, representing a range of issues and perspectives. Presented by arrangement with the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
The Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival is a co-presentation with the Center for Interdisciplinary Writing and Research at Daytona State College. Sorry no popcorn! All screenings are free.
Visit www.smponline.org for more information and for detailed schedules.
Thursday, Oct. 29, 6:30 p.m.
Umbrella (San)
Du Haibin • 2007 • 93 min. • China
An umbrella that is carried across a wheat field in central China or the rainy streets of Shanghai is made in a factory in Guangdong and sold wholesale farther up the coast in Zhejiang Province. Tracking the life of an umbrella from factory to market, filmmaker Du Haibin shows how the lives of farmers in rural China have changed since the economic reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. With a pace that belies the speed with which these farmers and their families have to adjust to these new changes, he shows us factory workers, soldiers, students, merchants, and hold-out farmers as they scramble for livelihoods and respect in the rush toward modernization and the glorification of wealth over traditional ideals.
Saturday, Oct. 31, 1 p.m.
Stone Pastures
Donagh Coleman • 2008 • 65 min. • Finland, Ireland, UK/Himalayas
Director Donagh Coleman uses the Himalayas as a backdrop to follow a family of goat and yak herders as they spend a year preparing pashmina wool for market. Their livelihood depends on the income from the wool, and every member of the family, from young children to grandparents, helps with the painstaking process of nurturing the baby goats through the harsh winter, sheering their bellies, separating the wool one strand at a time, and finally weaving blankets. The family struggles to send two boys to school.
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2:30 p.m.
Peace with Seals (Mír s Tuleni)
Miloslav Novák • 2007 • 58 min. • Italy/Czech Republic
Monk seal specialist Emanuele Coppola and director Miloslav Novák are on the hunt for any trace of a real, live Mediterranean monk seal. Conversations with marine biologists and philosophers as well as the beachgoers on the Mediterranean shores who have supplanted the seals lead them to believe that the only monk seals left are those preserved in Coppola's extensive collection of archival footage.
Saturday, Oct. 31, 4 p.m.
Bomb Harvest
Kim Mordaunt • 2007 • 88 min. • Laos/Australia
From 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped a planeload of cluster bombs (about 100 per sortie) onto Laos every eight minutes, day and night – the equivalent of more than half a ton of bombs for every man, woman, and child. Many of these bombs still litter the Laotian landscape and remain live, rendering the largely poor, rural population vulnerable to explosions 25 years after the CIA-funded secret war has ended. Filmmaker Kim Mordaunt and producer Sylvia Wilczynski follow Australian Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician Laith Stevens as he trains young Laotians to become certified bomb technicians themselves, learning to recognize and neutralize the estimated 30 percent of unexploded ordinance (UXO) still lying in wait.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m.
The Lost Colony (De Verloren Kolonie)
Astrid Bussink • 2008 • 72 min. • Abkhazia/The Netherlands
The Sukhum Primate Center in Abkhazia, the oldest primate research laboratory in the world, is crumbling. This once prominent facility has been hailed for its strides in medical research and space exploration. Founded in the 1920s, the institute now strives for relevance amid Abkhazia's struggle for independence from Georgia, dwindling funds, and the loss of a large portion of its animals to a modern lab in neighboring Russia. On the cusp of its 80th anniversary, filmmaker Astrid Bussink visits the lab as it prepares for a conference designed to drum up support in the scientific community. Meanwhile, one guard searches the surrounding forests for any sign of members of the monkey colony thought to have escaped from the lab during the 1992 military conflict. Archival footage of the center's glory days and present-day activities captured at a detached remove are combined with stunning images of the decaying buildings and grounds. Now, with recently renewed fighting between Georgia and Russia over Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence, Bussink's ironic take on this seemingly hopeless situation becomes prescient.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 2:30 p.m.
River of No Return
Darlene Johnson • 2008 • 52 min. •Australia
Frances Djulibing wants to become a movie star. As a child growing up in the remote community of Nangalala in Australia's Northern Territory, Frances recalls idolizing Marilyn Monroe for her "sweet voice." When she is cast in the film Ten Canoes, the 42-year-old takes it as a sign of things to come and begins to cultivate her acting career. River of No Return is a story of transformation as Frances learns to navigate two oppositional worlds.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 4 p.m.
Today the Hawk Takes One Chick
Jane Gillooly • 2008 • 72 min. • Swaziland/U.S.
The Lubombo region of Swaziland suffers from the world's highest prevalence of HIV and a life expectancy that has dropped to 32 years. In this small, landlocked country in southern Africa, a generation of parents has died, leaving the grandparents in charge of the children as well as responsible for retaining the threads of the fraying traditional life. Presented without an overt narrative structure or narration, the film's drama emerges from the steady accumulation of details that tell a greater story of family in a world dictated by AIDS.
MUSEUM HOURS: MUSEUM HOURS: Closed Mondays; Open – Tues, Thurs, & Fri – 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Wed – 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Weekends – 1 – 5 p.m.
CLOSED – Mondays and for the following dates: Dec 23 – January 2, Daytona 500, July 4, Thanksgiving Weekend, July 31 - August 17
MUSEUM LOCATION:
Unless noted otherwise, all museum exhibitions, events and films are presented at the Southeast Museum of Photography which is located on the Daytona Beach Campus of Daytona State College at 1200 International Speedway Blvd, three miles east of 1-95. The museum is located in the Mori Hosseini Center (Bldg. 1200). Visitor parking is available. Admission & Events are free. For detailed exhibition and program information visit www.smponline.org or call the museum information hotline at (386) 506-4475.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Glyn Johnston, Vice President, Marketing, Communications & Events, (386) 506-4499, johnstg@DaytonaState.edu
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