Showcase

Documentary films are serving as the core for innovative spaces and practices that mark a new kind of public media – accessible, participatory and inclusive. This article examines the campaigns surrounding three films: Not in Our Town, Lioness, and State of Fear to uncover how emerging strategies for online and offline engagement are laying the groundwork for "public media 2.0."

Peter Davis, an Emmy/Peabody Award winner, made waves in the documentary film world with his 1974 film about Vietnam, Hearts and Minds. This incendiary film caused great controversy at the time, and has since become regarded as one of the most grippingly honest films about the Vietnam War ever made.

Academy-Award Nominated, Sundance Grand Jury Prize-Winning and Emmy- Award Winning Producer/Director Liz Garbus, co-founder of Moxie Firecracker Films in New York City, is one of the most celebrated young voices in American documentary filmmaking. She will be visiting American University as the Fall 2007 visiting filmmaker on November 8, 2007, when we will be screening her latest film, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib in the 2007 Human Rights Film Series. See our website for details on this special event.

Academy Award-winning cinematographer, film producer and director Haskell Wexler will join the Center for a public screening and discussion of his film Who Needs Sleep?. Join us March 7th at 5:30 in the Wechsler Theater, 3rd Fl., MGC!

In the fall of 2006 The Center for Social Media brought NYU professor George Stoney to screen his insightful documentary How the Myth Was Made: A Study of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran before a packed class of students and visitors at American University's School of Communication. Stoney, a pioneer of documentary filmmaking, was director of the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change project and is considered to be the father of public access television. He is also the director numerous documentary films including All My Babies and The Uprising of '34.

Here are some words that Professor Stoney shared with the audience after the screening: