Documentary Film Festival Garners High Attendance

Linna Jones
Arts & Entertainment Editor

   The University of Arkansas at Monticello held its Seventh Annual UAM and Hot Spring Documentary Film Festival in the Memorial Classroom Building Auditorium April 10-11.

   Students, members of the community and faculty attended the films. The attendance for the festival ranged from as low as eight and as high as 86, depending on the time and the film. Eighty-six people attended “Come Walk In My Shoes,” a Civil Rights film.  Robert Moore, professor of English, said this was one of the most important films shown over the two days and the attendance was excellent due to professors bringing their classes.

   “I think it's better every year; people are starting to know about this festival,”  Moore said.

   A dozen or more professors brought their student to watch some of the films, and many professors watched as many films as they could.

   Moore reported several good responses about the films shown at the festival. One student said she didn’t know anything about the Civil Rights Movement and was deeply moved, disturbed and touched by what she saw. Another student said schools do not show any of this in high school.

   “There are people who recognize what an opportunity it is for them,” Moore said. “They recognize what an educational advantage this is for our students.”  

  The films allowed viewers to see and hear about topics they may not have heard about.  The festival showed films dealing with serious to humorous topics including:

• A humorous and factual look at America’ obsession with their lawns in “Gimme Green.”
• The telling of the Civil Rights Movement through a participant's eyes in “Come Walk In My Shoes.”
• Archaeology of the handbag in “In Your Purse.”
• A view into the world of music in “American Music” and “Hip-Hop: Beyond the Beats and Rhymes.”
• The destruction of a Marshall Islands due to atomic bomb testing and a new look at immigration in “A New Island.”
  

   Gary Marshall, professor of Speech Communication, watched the “Old Gray Lady” and he remember the Arkansas Gazette.

   “(The film) was very moving,” Marshall said. “(The newspaper) seem to exemplify the spirit of journalism.”

   Viewers showed intense interest, wrapped attention and real involvement in the subject matter. People gasped and commented, laughed when appropriate and showed real rushes of emotion during the films.

  The films show at the festival included:

• “Random Lunacy": ”The Flying Neutrinos” raised five kids on the road playing Dixieland Jazz as a family and living on donations.
• "Watching the Waters Rise": Little Rock Central High School student film of the great 1927 Arkansas flood.
• “Old Gray Lady”: The history of the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi - the Arkansas Gazette, including the brutal newspaper war which led to its demise.
• "Mothers In Prison, Children In Crisis": Women prisoners and what becomes of their children, including new programs which allow them to raise their children in prison.
• "Galveston": The story of the great flood that wiped out Galveston Island.
• "Even If She Had Been a Criminal": At the end of World War II, French people shaved the heads of women supposed to have had affairs with Germans.
• "Yakoana": Story of the first world congress of Indigenous Peoples held in jungles of Brazil – their struggle for human rights and saving their way of living in harmony with the Earth.
• "Runner’s High": Teenagers from one of the nation’s toughest neighborhoods in Oakland, Calif., sign up to train for a marathon, and seven begin the journey of a lifetime.
  

    Junior Quincy Lucas said he thought more people should have showed to the controversial films.

   “They missed out on a lot of good stuff that is important to our country,” Lucas said.

   The Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute and the School of Arts and Humanities sponsored the 2008 Documentary Film Festival.

   The festival is the oldest outreach program for the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute in Arkansas. The outreach program began in 2001.

   Provost David Ray, vice chancellor of Academic Affairs and former dean of Arts and Humanities; Gary Marshall, professor of Speech Communications; and Robert Moore, professor of English, started the festival in 2001. For six years Marshall and Moore sat as co-chairs on the Documentary Film Festival Committee, and Moore is now the chair of the committee.

  The UAM Documentary Film Festival Committee includes:

• Diane Payne, assistant professor of English
• Ronald Sitton, assistant professor of journalism
• Scott Lykens,  assistant professor of art
• Allen Redmon, assistant professor of English
  

   The committee planned all year for the event, selected the films from the available resources for the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, arranged for space and publicized. The committee kept open communication with HSDFI.

   The committee previews the available films from the HSDFI and fit the film into a time slot. Many films are not selected due to the length of the film. The committee selects the films based on:

• Information
• Relevance
• Humor
• Human interest
• Emotional impact
• Wisdom
• Historic significance
• Educational value
  

   The committee selected some of the films for their humor to lighten things up. The committee showed three comedic films at the festival and received a good response from the audiences. The committee selected a balance of films in the areas of music, history, sociology, literature, art and forestry (i.e. nature).

   Moore said he was very proud of this committee and its commitment to the students. He said, they are dedicated teachers working to bring something exceptional to this campus.

   The aim of the festival brings important documentary information to the students.  The committee tries to get the best documentary films in the country every year.

   “Many years we had the Academy Award winner in our festival,” Moore said.

   A documentary is historical fact about a person, place or event. A documentary may be composed of archival footage, news footage, interviews with people involved, and real human-interest stories of intense value.

   These films feed two things in students; they feed the mind and heart in order to develop conscience.

    “It is the development conscience that is the highest aim of education,” Moore said.

    The films deal with the most important topics of our time - race, sex, war, love, human relationships, our relationships with the Earth, the nature of humanity, and what people are supposed to be doing here as humans.

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