Multimedia Presentation, February 23: Alex Harris and Paula Ehrlich on Their Documentary Project, “The Time of Our Lives: Living with Brain Cancer”
Photographer Alex Harris, a CDS founder and longtime instructor, and producer/co-director Paula Ehrlich will discuss their innovative documentary project, The Time of Our Lives: Living with Brain Cancer, in a multimedia presentation at Frank Gallery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on February 23. Thursday, February 23, 6–8 p.m. Frank Gallery 109 East Franklin St., Chapel [...]
Out On DVD: 2011 CDS Filmmaker Award Winner, “How to Die in Oregon”
The winner of numerous honors, including the 2011 CDS Filmmaker Award and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentaries, How to Die in Oregon has been commercially released on DVD by Docurama Films . In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, an option that more than 500 Oregonians have taken. Filmmaker Peter Richardson examines both [...]
Major Upcoming Event: Duke, UNC, and Local Organizations Partner on Symposium on Global and Local Food Studies
A two-day symposium on the UNC–Chapel Hill and Duke campuses, Shared Tables, will provide a forum for both local and global experts to explore key issues related to food studies. Triangle University Food Studies, a faculty and student group from area universities, is co-host of the event. The Center for Documentary Studies is one of many co-sponsors [...]
Watch Video: Duke Students Film Renowned Dance Company
Duke students in an intermediate documentary filmmaking class taught by CDS film instructor Gary Hawkins—Performance-Based Nonfiction—filmed the Alonzo King LINES Ballet during the company’s residency at Duke. Watch this video of dancers performing Scheherazade, King’s reimagining of the famous 1910 work of the Ballets Russes, which made its American premiere at Duke.
Tickets Going Fast for Third Annual Strange Beauty Film Festival, February 16–18 at Durham’s Manbites Dog Theater
The third annual Strange Beauty Film Festival will take place in Durham, North Carolina’s Manbites Dog Theater, 703 Foster St., February 16–18, 2012. The Festival, organized by CDS instructor Jim Haverkamp along with Joyce Ventimiglia, showcases strange and beautiful films, along with musical pieces from around the world and the Triangle. Tickets are going fast! Go to the [...]
CDS Publishing and Awards Director to Review Photo Portfolios at Review Santa Fe 2012: January 30 Deadline, Apply Now
Alexa Dilworth, CDS’s Director of Publishing and Awards, will participate in Review Santa Fe, the premier juried portfolio review event in the world. Up to a hundred photographers are selected to meet with some of today’s most relevant and esteemed curators, editors, publishers, gallerists and others interested in new work. Dilworth will review portfolios with [...]
Watch Trailer: Free Full Frame Screening—January 25—of Oscar Nominee “Hell and Back Again”
The second installment of the Full Frame Winter Series features Hell and Back Again, just nominated for an Academy Award as best feature documentary. All Winter Series screenings are free and open to the public. Hell and Back Again Directed by Danfung Dennis Wednesday, January 25, 7 p.m. Fletcher Hall at the historic Carolina Theatre, Durham About Hell and [...]
View From a Window: William Gedney Photos in the “New York Times,” With Comments by CDS Instructor Margaret Sartor
Photos by William Gedney taken in New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s were the subject of a recent post on Lens, the New York Times photo blog. As Lens editor David Gonzalez describes these images, “From a window overlooking the Myrtle Avenue El, Mr. Gedney spun an urban narrative of surprising intimacy. Working [...]
Film Festival Favorite, “Stitched,” Screens Sunday, January 8, at the Center for Documentary Studies
On Sunday, January 8, film festival favorite Stitched will screen at the Center for Documentary Studies. In this documentary, director Jenalia Moreno follows renowned—and controversial—quilters Hollis Chatelain, Caryl Bryer Fallert, and Randall Cook as they prepare their work to compete in the 2010 International Quilt Festival, which draws more than 50,000 quilters. Stitched film screening Sunday, January [...]
Good Read: Interview With Duncan Murrell, CDS Writer in Residence
Duncan Murrell is an award-winning writer and journalist from North Carolina. He is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine and The Normal School and a consulting editor at Southern Cultures. Murrell has written about living in New Orleans for a year after Hurricane Katrina, as well as on such topics as immigration, politicians, termites, vultures, [...]
Video Available: Photographer Danny Wilcox Frazier On His Book “Driftless”
Interviews with all five winners of the biennial CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography are available on the prize’s new website; here, 2006 winner Danny Wilcox Frazier talks about growing up in Iowa and going back to make the photographs in Driftless: Photographs from Iowa. Application information for the sixth biennial CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition will [...]
Video Available: Sales of “Iraq | Perspectives” Soar After Ben Lowy’s Guest Spot on “The Daily Show”
Sales of photographer Benjamin Lowy’s prizewinning book, Iraq | Perspectives, have spiked following his interview on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on Monday, December 5. The book has gone from #217,000 to #2,125 on Amazon, where it is currently the number-one bestselling book on Iraq, and ranks thirteen out of all books by or about [...]
Podcast Available: CDS Writer in Residence Duncan Murrell Discusses Life and Writing on WUNC’s “The State of Things”
CDS Writer in Residence Duncan Murrell was the guest on WUNC’s (91.5 FM) “The State of Things” on December 5 with host Frank Stasio. Besides CDS and its documentary writing program, the wide-ranging discussion touched on . . . military service, New Orleans, termites, and bow hunting, among other topics. Duncan Murrell on “The State [...]
Video Available: Photographer Benjamin Lowy on His Book “Iraq | Perspectives”
Interviews with all five winners of the biennial CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography are available on the prize’s new website; here, 2010 winner Benjamin Lowy talks about his process for taking the photographs in Iraq | Perspectives, and viewers can listen to some of the conversations about editing the book. Lowy will be signing [...]
Now Available Online: Jim Crow Oral History Recordings from the Behind the Veil Project
One hundred oral history recordings of African American life in the Jim Crow South—from the Center for Documentary Studies’ Behind the Veil project—have been digitized and are now available on the Duke University Libraries website and iTunesU. This digital collection captures the vivid personalities, poignant personal stories, and behind-the-scenes decision-making that bring to life the [...]
New Book: “Literacy and Justice Through Photography: A Classroom Guide”
In 1990, photographer Wendy Ewald, with encouragement from Durham, North Carolina, school administrators and support from the Center for Documentary Studies, started the Literacy Through Photography (LTP) program, working in the Durham Public Schools to make photographs the basis for a variety of learning experiences across the curriculum. Since then, LTP has worked with numerous [...]
Photographer Benjamin Lowy’s “Iraq | Perspectives” Exhibition and Book Signing at Perkins Library
Photojournalist Benjamin Lowy, a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, New York, began his career in 2003 when he was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to cover the Iraq War. Lowy’s career as a conflict photographer has also taken him to Haiti, Darfur, and Afghanistan, among other places. Last year Lowy’s photographs from [...]
Teka Selman Guest Curates “here.” at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia
Teka Selman, assistant director of Duke’s Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts, is a guest curator for a new exhibition, here., that examines the role of “place” in American art. Through December 31 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 118 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102 here. considers how place is not simply the [...]
World Premiere of “The Parchman Hour: Songs and Stories of the ’61 Freedom Riders” October 26–November 13
PlayMakers Repertory Company Center for Dramatic Art 150 Country Club Road, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Wednesday, October 26—Sunday, November 13 Documentary theater at its best: The new play The Parchman Hour transforms the history of the 1961 Freedom Rides into lively firsthand experiences that ripple with the immediacy of the present moment. In 1961, a [...]
“Being There: The Work of Bruce Jackson” Symposium on November 4 in Buffalo
Acclaimed folklorist, documentary filmmaker, and photographer Bruce Jackson will be honored at a special symposium at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York on November 4. “Being There: The Work of Bruce Jackson” Friday, November 4, 7 p.m. Auditorium at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York The symposium will focus [...]
“Image and Meaning: Challenging History & Photography” Panel October 27 at NCSU
Image and Meaning: Challenging History & Photography An evening of thinking and talking about photography Thursday, October 27, 6 p.m. Gregg Museum of Art & Design Talley Student Center at North Carolina State University 2610 Cates Avenue, Raleigh, North Carolina In conjunction with the current exhibition Earth with Meaning: The Photographs of Alan Cohen, the [...]
Latin American Film Festival 25th Anniversary Celebration on November 6 at UNC-Chapel Hill
Local filmmakers Rodrigo Dorfman, Altha Cravey, Penny Simpson, and Charlie Thompson of the Center for Documentary Studies will participate in a panel discussion on the UNC campus in conjunction with the 25th anniversary celebration of North Carolina’s Latin American Film Festival. Sunday, November 6, 4 p.m. Nelson Mandela Auditorium, FedEx Global Education Center UNC-Chapel Hill [...]
Tim Tyson Discusses James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” on November 2 at Perkins Library
On November 2 at Perkins Library, Timothy B. Tyson, a senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies, will discuss James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time with Frank Stasio, host of NPR’s “The State of Things,” in a special live recording in the DukeReads series. Tyson calls Baldwin’s modern classic “one of the best [...]
“In My Mind” Film Screenings: Minneapolis (10/16) and Seattle (11/1)
In My Mind, a film from the Center for Documentary Studies, has been invited to screen at two film festivals this fall: October 16, 2011 Sound Unseen Minneapolis, Minnesota November 1, 2011 Northwest Film Forum’s Earshot Jazz Film Festival Seattle, Washington In My Mind Director: Gary Hawkins, Producer: Emily LaDue, Executive Producer: Tom Rankin In [...]
