L. Kissel

The Beyond the Classroom: China screenings at USC last week were a big success. I’ve received great support from all across campus for this production which makes the months of work feel worthwhile. Right now I’m waiting to hear from a few competitions where I’ve entered the work; the next step is to design DVDs and develop an exhibition and distribution plan.

Next week I’ll be at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, presenting some of my work in an experimental documentary film series. I’m truly honored to be included in a series with such accomplished and inspiring filmmakers. poker onlinehow to play texas hold em poker,texas poker,texas holdem pokerlearn how to play pokerseven card stud strategy,seven card stud rule,seven card studlimit 7 card studpoker strategyonline poker lawfree online video poker gameonline poker reviewfree texas holdem poker playfree online video pokeronline roulette pokeronline texas hold emomaha poker rulereal money online poker7 card stud softwareonline video poker game7 card stud,7 card stud tips,free online 7 card studplay video pokerpoker software developmentpoker game software,poker software development,poker softwarestrip poker downloadpoker gamesfree online multiplayer pokerbad card credit credit gas people,bad card credit gasguaranteed credit card ukuk aqua credit cardcalculator card consolidation debt creditcard christian credit debt helpvalero gas credit card,discover gas credit card,gas credit cardcard credit download free generatorcard credit debt management ukaccount card credit searsbusiness credit card offer,best business credit card offercredit card debt counselingpremier bank credit cardbank credit card application,citi bank credit card application,first premier bank credit card applicationbad credit gas cardbad credit history visa card,bad credit rating visa card,bad credit visa cardapplication bad card creditcard credit debt reduction solutionbest reward credit cardinstant decision credit cardbusiness card credit rewardmerrick bank credit cardfree online credit card,card credit free online processing,card credit free onlinebusiness card credit newcredit card debt management serviceshigh school student credit cardapply for visa credit card

“Beyond the Classroom: China” will premiere at the University of South Carolina on February 4 at 5 PM at the Russell House Auditorium. Another screening will take place on Feb. 5 at 5 PM in the same location. The February 4 event is by invitation only; contact USC’s International Programs office for more information. Preview clips can be seen here.

Four months later yields one more blog post. To keep my one reader, Steve, satisfied, here is another image from China, this one of a beauty parlor in Datong.

It turns out I only blog, on average, once or twice every 4 months. My last blog entry was right before I left for China on May 10. I intended to blog from each city I visited, but there was hardly time. I went to China to shoot a documentary about educational travel in China with 22 college students, one professor, and one program coordinator. Each day was spent shooting (a total of 16+ hours of footage), with the exception of one day when the camera broke down, after our visit to Datong, a coal industry town.

There is so much I might be able to write about here still in retrospect, glancing back at my memories.

“Unfettering the Falcons” was awarded two IDC awards at Hot Docs last weekend: Best Use of the Sports Genre and the IDC Creative Vision Award. Niklas and I had a great time in Toronto and met up with three friends who all had work at the festival. Ariana Gerstein and Monty McCollum screened their incredible new film Milk In The Land, and LeAnn Erickson screened a beautiful documentary about her grandmother called Folk Songs. I was delighted to run into Caroline Martel in Toronto. We shared lovely conversation about her new work. I also met a couple of the programmers, both of whom were incredibly enthusiastic about personal and experimental documentary work. This surprised me and is not what I expected from this festival. I saw a lot of wonderful work… a favorite was Losers and Winners, a conventional documentary about several hundred Chinese workers deconstructing a coke factory in Germany, in order to ship it piece by piece to China. Another beautiful and lyrical film was No Man Is An Island.

I just learned about this: a business in Ocala, FL has posted a sign that says: “What has four wheels and flies? A dead cripple in a wheelchair.” This story has received minor press, including this small AP story noted by several websites.

I was first struck by the bigotry and callousness of the joke. It is unconscionable that some individuals think it’s legitimate to humiliate others publicly. But the second thing that occured to me is that this sign hangs in Florida, a state vulnerable to hurricanes. And what was one the most awful mass media images, post Katrina? The image of an abandoned, African American woman in a wheelchair, drapped with a blanket, who had died during the evacuation. The image conjured by the joke is also a mass produced image of suffering that TV viewers saw repetitiously during the days following the flooding of New Orleans. It is a well known fact that people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by disaster.

I doubt that the folks in Florida responsible for the sign care much about the hatred they’re invoking, especially since they previously hung a sign making fun of domestic violence.

LaVergne, Lauretta and Mariah sent congratulations yesterday to Nik Vollmer and me about the “Unfettering the Falcons” premiere next week in Toronto:

We are positively thrilled for both of you. We know how competitive the jounalism/media fields can be and being selected out of a field of 83 is quite impressive…and having only five days from inception to completion is, well, incredible! …. Yes, our talons WILL be crossed for you two. Yeah, yeah, you’re going to hear how “just being selected as one of the top 12 is an honor in and of itself.” And it is true, ESPECIALLY on an International scale! You two will always have First Place with us…but it would be really nice if you could “win one for the Falcons”. The REAL ones!!!!!!
Thanks for sharing with us and know that the twins and several feathered friends will be rooting for you!

This entry is a flashback to the past three weeks. I realize the point of blogging is to be immediate and timely, but I find that I am both embracing and rejecting the status of being instantaneous and constantly plugged in.

Last week the Green Action Film Series at USC hosted filmmaker Judith Helfand and screened her new documentary Everything’s Cool. Judith is a national leader on community outreach and the use of film for social change; I’ve personally learned a lot from her. She was incredibly generous with her time, spending about 12 hours straight with students and faculty, engaging questions about her latest film and social issue filmmaking. I also had a challenging critique with Judith on the disability rights film I have been working on for some time now. She’s encouraging me to make the film more personal and to include my family’s experience with disability. I have written about my film from a personal perspective, most recently for a chapter in Daniel Bernardi’s new book Filming Difference, (forthcoming from University of Texas Press). Taking her advice and including my own story might make my film more compelling, but I do feel resistant to this approach.

Two weeks ago So Percussion performed for the second time in USC’s award winning Southern Exposure New Music Series, this time with an incredible performance of Steve Reich’s Drumming (1970-71). Of course there was a standing ovation at the end of this standing-room-only show. Jason Treuting and Lawson White (of So Percussion) contributed three great pieces to Cabin Field in 2005. I’m looking forward to further collaboration with them on Disability Is Us, particularly with the Black Stork archival material which we hope to premiere at NYU’s first Orphan Film Symposium.

Three weeks ago we hosted Karen Nakamura as a guest of Asian Arts Week at USC. Karen is an ethnographic filmmaker and anthropologist who does cross cultural, comparative work on disability in Japan and the US. She also runs Photoethnography.com, a great website and blog which crosses practical and theoretical discussions on ethnographic filmmaking and photography. While at USC Karen screened her ethnographic film Bethel, and led an excellent and generous discussion on her production process, her academic work and on the portrayal of mental illness in Bethel. We had great fun with Dr. Karl Heider post-screening, conversations stretching from the teaching of visual anthropology to Dani Houses to Dead Birds to Osa and Martin Johnson. Karen was incredibly generous with her time and she and I even found a moment to hike through the Congaree.

Finally, I attended a great festival in Little Rock, Arkansas at the end of March– the Ozark Foothills Film Festival. It’s run by Judy and Bob Pest, with help from many individuals and sponsors, including a fantastic young filmmaker named Merritt. “Cabin Field” screened there to a very supportive and enthusiastic audience. It was an honor to be invited. I think greater Little Rock, AK needs to *fully embrace the work these fine people are doing to bring independent cinema to Arkansas. I saw some great films in the festival– including a documentary called Factor 8 about the blood donor scandal in Arkansas prisons. It is a known fact that people around the world have become infected with HIV and hepatitis from blood donated within the Arkansas prison system. I hope this story is eventually able to reach a larger audience; as yet, it is largely an untold story in America, despite news and law suits filed against the state of Arkansas in England, Japan and Canada.

I even had time for a tour of Little Rock while at the festival– through the rehabilitated River Market district downtown, to the site of the Clinton Library, and through the neighborhood where Little Rock Central High School is located, one of the important sites in the American Civil Rights Movement.