Freestyle Love Supreme and COMIX are throwing a Purpose Party to raise funds for the New Orleans VideoVoices Project! Join Tony Award-winners Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bill Sherman plus Chris Jackson, Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan, Utkarsh Amudkar, Wade Allain-Marcus and Anthony Veneziale along with special guests for an evening of amazing hip-hop comedy for a great cause. Directed by Thomas Kail.
We will be having some awesome silent auction items up for bid (ITH Tickets and more!) and it’s going to be an excellent show.
The New Orleans VideoVoices Project works to build a groundswell of voices for change using community media, inspiring hard hit communities to tell their stories.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8th
@ COMIX COMEDY CLUB
355 West 14th Street
7 pm and 9:30 pm
Join us for a presentation on participatory video and human rights in New Orleans at the 2008 Human Rights Center Conference!
Conference, November 6, 2008, 10AM to 5PM Alumni House, UC Berkeley
Health, Human Rights and Vulnerable Communities - 10:00 AM to 12 Noon (Toll Room)
Faculty Discussant: Cheri Pies, School of Public Health
• Caricia Catalani, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Participatory Video in New Orleans, USA
Abstract
Billions of people worldwide have gained access to the Internet, digital recording devices, and other new media tools. More and more, these new media tools are used as innovative solutions to enduring human rights struggles, however often without critical understanding of their potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. To begin to understand these aspects of new media more thoroughly, this evaluation of the New Orleans Videovoice Project describes the processes and outcomes associated with a particular participatory video methodology: videovoice.
Like its predecessor photovoice, videovoice involves partnering with communities to research health and human rights situations by putting digital cameras in the hands of everyday people. The New Orleans Videovoice Project took place in Central City, an underserved nieghborhood that was hit hard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Those who have returned from displacement have faced a difficult recovery period involving loss of family and friends, loss of housing and possessions, closures of primary sources of health care, marginalization by government and its recovery programs, and the ongoing stress of piecing one’s life and the community back together.
The New Orleans Videovoice Project arose out of a need to organize around human rights and health concerns at this critical time. By building a partnership of diverse community members from the Central City neighborhood, public health researchers, filmmakers, and human rights advocates, the project has produced several participatory documentary videos. The videos describe the neighborhood’s historical and current struggle for human rights, and their own solutions for a better future. Beyond videos, this highly participatory project has resulted in other critical outcomes, such as increased capacity to produce media, understanding of community strengths and concerns, individual empowerment, and engagement in community action.
• Krista Kshatriya, School of Law, Berkeley, World Health Organization/Southeast Asia Regional Office, India
• Miranda Ritterman, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Christian Children’s Fund, Angola
• Nobuko Mizoguchi, Demography, Berkeley, Global Health Access Project, Thai-Burma border
This weekend, we held our world premiere of “In Harmony” in the very New Orleans neighborhood that gave it voice and vision. It was amazing! Over 150 supporters, many of which starred in the film, came to watch it on the big screen at Ashe Cultural Arts Center and Zeitgeist Multimedia Arts Center.
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In true New Orleans style, we started with an incredible food, mostly provided by our friends at J’Anitas BBQ. I am a big fan of the movie, of course, but this pulled pork, brisket, and bourbon bbq sauce was nearly the best thing about the evening!
After the screening, we held an awards ceremony for the filmmakers. Eleven participants were awarded certificates of recognition for achievement in community documentary filmmaking and their own digital video cameras.
Both evenings culminated in a fiery discussion about how we can move forward on the issues that neighbors care about, including housing, schools, and economic empowerment.
It was an incredible weekend! We look forward to sharing the film with all of you through online viewing, DVDs, and screenings in more locations during the next months.
What would New Orleans look like if it were home to the nation’s top urban public school system?
Executive Producer Matt Wisdom and Digital Filmmaker Tim Ryan hope to help convey that vision in a new short Internet documentary about recent successes within New Orleans public charter schools. In addition to an insiders look into what makes public Charter schools successful, the short film addresses the impact current public school reform will have on the future of New Orleans.
Ahhh, we have a place in Central City to do editing! We met up with Lee Stafford @ Zeitgeist / Saturn Silk Screen building (which he owns) and got to move some toilets and air conditioning units to make the space our own. It’s a modest 7 x 12 foot corner that doesn’t quite have walls yet (but the frame of a wall is there!) and we put up a temporary table with the iMac and the external hard drive to call it our editing suite! Yah!
Jeremiah was the first one to christen the suite as he went through some footage for his theme of economic development. Lee also found a disc with many historic pictures from the neighborhood and here are some of them below:
Handelman’s Building before renovations in the 1970s’.
Felicity Street @ Dryades Street at the turn of the century - before paved roads.
A Fish Monger and wife running a store on Dryades Street (date unknown).
