The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for Arts & Humanities is proud to partner with PBS's POV. POV (a cinema term for "point of view") is television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 300 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.
All screenings will be held at the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (450 East Thach Avenue, Auburn) at 6:30 p.m. A discussion and reception will follow each film. Free and open to the public.
June 6: Screening of Homegoings (60 minutes)
Discussion led by Patience Essah, Department of History
Through the eyes of funeral director Isaiah Owens, the beauty and grace of African-American funerals are brought to life. Filmed at Owens Funeral Home in New York City's historic Harlem neighborhood, Homegoings takes an up-close look at the rarely seen world of undertaking in the black community, where funeral rites draw on a rich palette of tradition, history and celebration. Combining cinéma vérité with intimate interviews and archival photographs, the film paints a portrait of the dearly departed, their grieving families and a man who sends loved ones "home." An Official Selection of MoMA’s 2013 Documentary Fortnight. A co-production of ITVS and POV’s Diverse Voices Project, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A co-presentation with the National Black Programming Consortium. Produced in association with American Documentary | POV.
July 11: Screening of High Tech, Low Life (90 minutes)
Discussion led by Makiko Mori, Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
High Tech, Low Life follows two of China’s first citizen-reporters as they document the underside of the country’s rapid economic development. A search for truth and fame inspires young vegetable seller “Zola” to report on censored news stories from the cities, while retired businessman “Tiger Temple” makes sense of the past by chronicling the struggles of rural villagers. Land grabs, pollution, rising poverty, local corruption and the growing willingness of ordinary people to speak out are grist for these two bloggers who navigate China’s evolving censorship regulations and challenge the boundaries of free speech. An Official Selection of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. A co-production of ITVS and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). A co-presentation with CAAM.
August 1: Screening of Best Kept Secret (90 minutes)
Discussion led by Angie Burque, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Social Work
At a public school in Newark, N.J., the staff answers the phone by saying, "You've reached John F. Kennedy High School, Newark's best-kept secret." JFK provides an exceptional environment for students with special-education needs. In Best Kept Secret, Janet Mino, who has taught a class of young men for four years, is on an urgent mission. She races against the clock as graduation approaches for her severely autistic minority students. Once they graduate and leave the security of this nurturing place, their options for living independently will be few. Mino must help them find the means to support themselves before they "age out" of the system.
September 5: Screening of The World Before Her (60 minutes)
Discussion led by Joyce de Vries, Department of Art
The World Before Her is a tale of two Indias. In one, Ruhi Singh is a small-town girl competing in Bombay to win the Miss India pageant—a ticket to stardom in a country wild about beauty contests. In the other India, Prachi Trivedi is the young, militant leader of a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls, where she preaches violent resistance to Western culture, Christianity and Islam. Moving between these divergent realities, the film creates a lively, provocative portrait of the world's largest democracy at a critical transitional moment—and of two women who hope to shape its future. Winner, World Documentary Competition Award, 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).
October 3: Screening of Brooklyn Castle (90 minutes)
Discussion led by Mark Wilson, Director of CMD CAH and Civic Learning Initiatives
This public-school powerhouse in junior high chess competitions has won more than 30 national championships, the most of any school in the country. Its 85-member squad boasts so many strong players that the late Albert Einstein, a dedicated chess maven, would rank fourth if he were on the team. Most astoundingly, I.S. 318 is a Brooklyn school that serves mostly minority students from families living below the poverty line. Brooklyn Castle is the exhilarating story of five of the school's aspiring young players and how chess became the school's unlikely inspiration for academic success.
November 7: Screening of 5 Broken Cameras (90 minutes)
Discussion led by Matt Malczycki, Department of History
Nominated for an Oscar®, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal first-hand account of life and nonviolent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village where Israel is building a security fence. Palestinian Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, shot the film and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi co-directed. The filmmakers follow one family’s evolution over five years, witnessing a child’s growth from a newborn baby into a young boy who observes the world unfolding around him. The film is a Palestinian-Israeli-French co-production.
