Creative Visions Foundation's Blog
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SMC Student Creative Activist FIlm Fest & Discussion March 13
- Posted on 03.05.09
Unique Fest Inspired by "Images of War/Celebrations of Peace" Art Show
Santa Monica College is proud to present the first-ever SMC Student Creative Activist Film Festival & Panel Discussion - a collection of short films made in just one week as part of an organization's desire to give students nationwide a voice - at 7 p.m. Friday, March 13.
The special, free event will be held at the Edye Second Space at the SMC Performing Arts Center on Santa Monica Boulevard at 11th Street.
The festival is being held in conjunction with the SMC Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery's current exhibit, "JOURNEY: Images of War/Celebrations of Peace," a powerful tribute to the late Dan Eldon, a young artist and photojournalist whose images of war-torn and famine-stricken Somalia reverberated throughout the world. The art gallery is also located in the SMC Performing Arts Center, just steps away from the Edye Second Space, and will be open for the festival.
Three short films - made in the span of one week last December - will be screened and followed by a panel discussion. On the panel will be Coby Atlas, Emmy Award-winning producer and President of Creative Visions Productions; Roko Belic, Oscar-nominated and award-winning filmmaker and creative activist; Donnie Eichar, director/producer/writer of award-winning film, television and commercial projects; Barbara Groth, chief executive officer and creative director at Big Buddha Baba Productions and Chair of Creative Visions Board of Directors; and David Serota, documentary film writer, filmmaker and film editor at Dokument Films Production.
The panelists are also judges for the festival and will name the film that wins the festival and the $500 prize.
The filmmaking opportunity was brought to SMC students by Campus MovieFest and Creative Visions Foundation. Campus MovieFest is a national organization that provides more than 75,000 students throughout the country - many of whom have never been filmmakers - the opportunity to shoot a movie. Campus MovieFest provides the students everything they need - an Apple laptop, digital camcorder, training and the chance to tell their story on the big screen.
Creative Visions Foundation is dedicated to celebrating the legacy of artist/photojournalist Eldon and others like him who use their creativity as a means of positive social change. The two organizations agreed to ask the students to express their activism on an issue of their choice.
"We wanted to encourage students to become involved and to be inspired to express their activism through film," said Joey Borgogna, Creative Visions Foundation associate producer.
Campus MovieFest came to SMC last December, and 15 student teams signed up to make films. About 10 films were submitted to the SMC festival, and judges picked the top three to be screened on March 13.
Meanwhile, "JOURNEY: Images of War/Celebrations of Peace" is having an impact on viewers in Santa Monica, just as it has inspired and moved viewers throughout the world wherever the traveling exhibit has gone. The show closes March 21.
In the summer of 1993, Eldon, a 22-year-old photographer for Reuters, was making his way through the streets of Mogadishu to the site of a United Nations bombing where scores of people had just been killed. Amid the ruins, he and three other journalists were stoned to death by an enraged mob.
During his last year of life, Eldon - the son of a British father and American mother who grew up in Kenya - was among a small cadre of journalists who alerted the world to a major famine in Somalia. As many as 1,000 people a day were starving to death when Newsweek, Time, and many international daily newspapers began to pick up Eldon's images in 1992. According to his bureau chief at Reuters, Eldon shot some of the finest images of the horrors of the tragedy that was then Somalia.
Although a decade has passed, Eldon's images remain fresh and relevant. A photograph of an American Marine with a gun to the head of a bound Somali, trying to maintain control of an increasingly chaotic situation, reverberates with today's viewers.
As do Eldon's collages-sometimes meditative, sometimes joyful, often humorous-which he began keeping at age 15 and maintained until his death. Together with the photographs, they are an inspiring record of what it means to grow up in a complex world with one's eyes and ears wide open.
His story has become familiar to audiences through two books highlighting his art, "The Journey Is the Destination" and "Dan Eldon: The Art of Life;" a documentary by his sister Amy, "Dying to Tell the Story;" and various segments about him on National Geographic television, Oprah, CNN, FoxNews, and other national and international media outlets. A major, independent motion picture about Eldon's life is currently in the works, with Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe attached to the project and Julia Roberts' Red Om Films helping to produce it.
"JOURNEY: Images of War/Celebrations of Peace" has toured in six countries and has been opened by more than four heads of state, including former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. Journalists Dan Rather opened the show at Columbia University and Tom Brokaw spoke at Duke University when the exhibit opened there. Other universities that have hosted the exhibit include the University of California at Santa Barbara, Wellesley College, Boston College and, most recently, Oklahoma University. It has also been at the Hamilton Gallery in London, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art in Iowa and the Gallery Watatu in Nairobi, Kenya.
Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. For information about the exhibit and the film festival, call (310) 434-3434 or go to http://www.smcbarrettgallery.com.
Additional information about Eldon and his work is at http://www.creativevisions.org and http://www.daneldon.org.
Related causes: Arts
