Organizing / Filmmaking / Archiving: Films from the Third World Newsreel Archives

Presented by Third World Newsreel and NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program (MIAP). Generous support provided by the NYU Department of Cinema Studies, the Tisch School of the Arts and Dean Allyson Green, New York Women in Film and Television, the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Peace Development Fund.

Cosponsored in part by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, NYU Institute of African American Affairs, XFR Collective, and AMIA @ NYU.

Organizing/ Filmmaking/ Archiving: Films from the Third World Newsreel Archives will present rarely seen and recently preserved 16mm films made by the Newsreel and early Third World Newsreel. The Newsreel, founded in 1968 as an activist film collective, produced films documenting radical social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the second wave Women’s Movement, national liberation movements overseas, and community based efforts to fight for equitable housing, health, and education in New York city and beyond.  In the early 1970s, Newsreel became Third World Newsreel, which continues to produce, distribute and train in social issue media, while working to preserve its historic collection of films.

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Schedule:

12:30-2:30PM – Women’s Movement – Films: Janie’s Janie (1970 B&W 25 min) and Make-Out (1970 B&W 5 min)
These films are unique in the Newsreel Collection, and were created by the Women’s Caucus.  Janie’s Janie is a “personal” documentary, an unusual format for Newsreel; it follows a white working class woman in Newark who realizes that she has to control her own life after years of physical and mental abuse.  Make-Out is a dramatic short (also unusual for Newsreel) that continues to resonate, as it portrays what a young woman is thinking while a guy tries to make out with her.  These films were preserved with the support of NY Women in Film and Television’s Womens’ Film Preservation Fund and CIneric lab. Panelists will include filmmakers Peter Barton, Stephanie Palewski, and Deborah Shaffer, activist Cynthia Mellon and representatives of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

3-5PM – Mass Incarceration and State Violence – Film: Teach Our Children (1972 B&W 35 min)
One of the first films made by Third World Newsreel, this film focuses on the historic 1971 Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York.  The film targets the conditions that caused the prisoners to take drastic steps toward securing their basic rights and questions the behavior of the authorities that resulted in the deaths of thirty-one inmates and prison guards from bullets fired by the National Guard.  Preserved by the Pacific Film Archives and CInemalab. MIAP alumni Pamela Jean Smith worked on the preservation of Teach Our Children. Panelists will include filmmakers Christine Choy and Susan Robeson, Attica observer and Fortune Society founder David Rothenberg, and past and current activists on police and state violence.

5:15-7:15PM – Fighting Gentrification – Film: Break and Enter (Rompiendo Puertas) (1970, B&W 42 min)
A Newsreel documentary on the fight against the impact of gentrification, then called “urban renewal” on the upper west side of Manhattan.  The primarily Latino community was being forced out of their homes to make way for hotels and restaurants–and a mostly women-led community organization formed to take back the empty buildings, forming a squatters’ movement Operation Move-In.  Preserved with the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation and Color Lab and the assistance of MIAP interns. Panelists will include filmmakers Peter Barton and Carol Foresta, activist Esperanza Martell, and Shahana Hanif and Wai Yee Poon of CAAAV.

The symposium panels will be preceded by the workshop Archiving and Preserving Film/Media Collections from 10AM-12:30 PM at 665 Broadway, 6th Floor in Room 643.  The workshop will be an introduction for independent film/videomakers, activists and activist organizations on how to organize, evaluate and preserve their film and media collections. Featured speakers: XFR Collective and AMIA @ NYU.  Free with pre-registration.