John Biewen with a bust of John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, Monterey, California. Photograph by Diana Garcia.

Two CDS-related audio programs—“Travels with Mike” and a Reality Radio event—were among the top ten most licensed pieces in 2011 from Public Radio Exchange (PRX), the award-winning media company that serves as public radio’s largest online distribution marketplace.

The two broadcasts were on the Most Licensed Pieces list in the annual PRX Zeitfunk Awards, which recognizes standout producers and shows among the tens of thousands of audio pieces PRX licenses for use to public, community, and college radio stations throughout the U.S.

The CDS audio production “Travels with Mike: In Search of America 50 Years After Steinbeck,” follows CDS audio director John Biewen as he retraces the famous trip around the U.S. that John Steinbeck took with his dog, Charley, in 1960. (The resulting account, Travels with Charley, was published the same year that Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.) Biewen visited some key locations on Steinbeck’s itinerary, traveling not with a dog but with a microphone—Mike, that is. In each location, he collaborated with an artist who lives and works in that place. “Travels with Mike” is a series of conversations, across time, between a great American writer and a diverse array of contemporary artists—conversations about place and the spirit of the country.

The other best-selling piece, “Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound,” was a show drawn from a live event at Boston’s WGBH in which Biewen joined public radio favorites Ira Glass, Jay Allison, and the Kitchen Sisters for an evening of stories and clips, and to discuss how and why they do what they do. The event was inspired by Biewen and coeditor Alexa Dilworth’s book of the same name, which celebrates the radio documentary form by highlighting the achievements of some of the best producers in public radio.

Click here for more information on—and to listen to—other CDS radio projects.

John Cyr
Juror’s Pick (Anthony Bannon), Daylight/CDS Photo Awards Project Prize

“Crisp, contained, conceptual, and attractively self-conscious. A charm. Couldn’t be better.”­—Anthony Bannon [director, George Eastman House]

In response to the decline of darkroom developing in the digital age, John Cyr created a series of images of photographers’ developer trays “…so that the photography community will remember the specific, tangible printing tools that were an essential part of the photographic experience for a hundred years,” he says.

Here, he talks about the project with Duke documentary studies student Demi Davis:

When you told [celebrated American photographer] Emmet Gowin about your developer tray project, what was his reaction?

When I contacted Emmet in February of 2010, my project was still in its beginning stages. Some photographers have questioned what I was doing, but Emmet understood what I was out to do: photograph a tangible object that has experienced the development of his various bodies of work through the years. When I visited him, he gave me five developer trays to photograph. The developer tray that I chose to use for my project was one that had been used since the late 1960s. Because of the various developers, and how many years [the tray] had been used to produce prints, the plastic surface of the tray has a beautiful yellow tone that is highlighted with purple, blue, and magenta in the areas where the developer stained its porous surface. I also love that [Gowin] wrote “Dektol” on the tray’s side. After I mailed him a print of his developer tray, he wrote that upon seeing this image he was inspired to go back in the darkroom to make some prints, something that he hadn’t done in years.

Emmet Gowin's developer tray. Photograph by John Cyr.

After photographing Emmet Gowin’s tray, how did you know where to go next and which artists’ trays to photograph?

The whole process of contacting other photographers occurred very naturally. Initially, I used all the connections that I had to get as many e-mails, phone numbers, and addresses that I could. Nearly every visit would end with me sitting down with the photographer for a conversation where they would often name a few of their friends and colleagues that they might be able to connect me with. I would not have been able to photograph many of the sixty-five trays that I have amassed without the help and support of all of the photographers, historians, and archivists that I have worked with.

Once I had gone through all of the readily available connections, I did a lot of research that led me to families of deceased photographers, the names of the last assistants the photographers worked with, and various obscure studio locations. The deeper I got into this project, the more photographers agreed to be part of it. Once I had a respectable list of well-known photographers who had allowed me to photograph their trays, I think that the photographers I was contacting realized the vast extent of the archive that I was creating and were generally enthusiastic about being part of it.

How do you feel that the practice of photography is changing? 

I think that digital photography is a great tool that has both enhanced the work of professional photographers as well as made high quality images more accessible for amateurs. I scan my 4 x 5 negatives so that I can retouch the files in order to present each tray as consistently as possible. I then output my files as inkjet prints. One has to take advantage of all technology that is available.

I don’t find a need to compare the digital and analog processes in contemporary photography; they are simply different processes that yield different results. In my own practice as a silver gelatin printer, I find that there is still a need for the services that I provide. Many of my clients prefer traditional black-and-white prints for their exhibitions and print sales.

At this point, I can’t think of any analog photographers who haven’t done anything with digital media of some sort. With that said, those who still prefer traditional darkroom prints do so because of the materiality of a silver gelatin print. In one’s digital workflow, an extensive amount of work is performed on a digital file, which can then be printed countless times exactly the same as the first. When making a traditional print, all adjustments are made in the darkroom during the image’s exposure. This results in a unique print that will never be exactly duplicated, no matter how good your printing notes are. It is the objecthood of each silver gelatin print that keeps certain photographers interested in continuing to produce traditional darkroom prints.

Ansel Adams' developer tray. Photograph by John Cyr.

How do photographers, as well as those who aren’t familiar with what a developer tray is, respond to this series?

I have found that this project generally resonates with photographers, photography collectors, art historians, and archivists. These are people who have most likely either used or handled darkroom equipment at some point in the past and therefore have a personal relationship with the project. Many of the trays belong to well-known photographers. If someone looking at my work doesn’t know what a developer tray is, there is at least a connection that can be made to a tray that belonged to a photographer as renowned as Ansel Adams or Sally Mann. If they didn’t know what a developer tray was before viewing my work, now they do. This is an inherent motivation of my project.

Read more about John Cyr’s work. 

CDS undergraduate student Demi Davis conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2011.

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 Hill, North Carolina

For directions, click here.

The Time of Our Lives is a story about two individuals—and their families—who are living their lives in the knowledge and context of having brain cancer, told through a collection of still photographs enriched by each patient’s own voice and the wise perspective of their physician. As the project expands, the objective is to create a mosaic of stories that broadens insight into the experience of people living with brain cancer, to educate a wider audience, and to support future research—”so that people who might otherwise turn away will instead be engaged and captivated, will stop and think, and will be drawn to help,” say Harris and Ehrlich. The project is about the time of all our lives—how we think about time, and how we choose to live in that time.

Coal miners drink moonshine after work in Yenakiieve. Photograph by Misha Friedman. This image won the Award of Excellence in the Portrait category in the 2011 Pictures of the Year International contest.

Photographer Misha Friedman—whose series Donbass Romanticism, documenting the health effects of coal mines and factories in the Ukraine, was recently featured on the New Yorker’s Photo Booth blog—will lead a new CDS continuing education class intended for photographers interested in working on stories of social significance. Participants in the class, Successful Collaboration with NGOs, will look into how the nonprofit sector is organized, as well as how to get assignments and write grants. The focus will be on successful partnerships between photographers and NGOs, including editing techniques. Students “will learn about various distribution models—where and how to show your work and how to make people aware of the issues you want to highlight.”

Misha Friedman, originally from Moldova, formerly part of the U.S.S.R., has worked for various NGOs, including the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, and Medecins Sans Frontiers. Friedman’s work has been published by the BBC and in the New Yorker, Time, and Le Figaro, among others, and he has received prizes from Picture of the Year International, Freedom to Create, and Stop TB. Friedman also won the 2011 Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Annual Award for Donbass Romanticism, which was recognized for social awareness and artistic excellence in photography.

To register for Successful Collaboration with NGOs, click here.

Occupations opening
Friday, February 17, 5–7 p.m.; refreshments provided
Corridor Gallery, East Duke building, East Campus
1304 Campus Drive, Durham, North Carolina
For a searchable map, click on http://www.maps.duke.edu

The exhibit will run through March 15.

Occupations is made possible in part with generous support from the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies.

Participants, and their descriptions and a sample of their work:

Solitude, Natalie Minik [photos]

This image is from the series “Solitude,” taken in Athens, Georgia. It is an examination of how the camera can capture and prolong moments of reflection.

Palimpsests of Public Space, Peter Lisignoli [photographs]

Immediately after the Oaxaca City protests in 2007, city employees painted over graffiti in a vain effort to erase memories of public dissent. Perhaps it was poetic justice or cosmic irony, but before the paint dried, monsoon rain hit the city, leaving superimposed images layered with paints, stencils, and posters.

Commuter Portraits, Lisa McCarty [cell-phone photos]

A five-year photographic study documenting the distances traversed by commuters on the Washington, D.C., Metrorail. Carrying on the tradition of capturing unsuspecting subway riders by covert means, these images were made with a hidden cell phone camera from the perspective of a fellow passenger on her way to and from work.

Tom Was Your Friend, Wolfgang Hastert [video montage]

2012: Social media sites are occupied by searchers, trolls, brilliant minds, and lonely dreamers. “Tom Was Your Friend” makes a visual comment on “friending” in cyberspace. It is a soundless video montage of slightly moving portraits of a cyber generation that wants to hook up but gets caught up in romantic anxiety. The imagery is interspersed with one-liners and cyber truisms.

Occupy Charlotte, Annabel Manning [photographs]

As I interact with people marginalized by this country, I need to express visually, as a demonstrator and an artist, how they are invisible and being denied basic human rights.  In these photographs of “Occupy Charlotte” I use blur and movement to explore the pathos and indeterminacy of the situation.

desk/top(s), Jolene Mok [photos]

This is an on-going visual ethnographic research-creation. I started to take photographs of my work desks in 2010. Through this simple and personal exercise, I try to study my daily practices from the way I occupy my work desks.

Reach, Talena Sanders [video processed for VHS transfer]

Coherence refers to a consistent and overarching explanation for all facts. To be coherent, all pertinent facts must be arranged in a consistent and cohesive fashion as an integrated whole. Coherence is the most potentially effective test of truth because it most adequately addresses all elements. Some standards are sufficient, while others are questionable.

Still from How to Die in Oregon, directed by Peter D. Richardson

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 sides of this complex, emotionally charged issue. What emerges is a life-affirming, incredibly powerful portrait of what it means to die with dignity.

The CDS Filmmaker Award, a $7,500 annual prize, was created to honor and support documentary artists whose works are potential catalysts for education and change. Award winners are selected from films in competition at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival held each spring in Durham, North Carolina. The 2012 festival will be held April 12–15; visit the website for more information.

Watch the trailer for How to Die in Oregon: http://www.howtodieinoregon.com/trailer.html 

Protesters in Les Gonaïves, Haiti, 1986. Photograph by Gary Monroe.

Gary Monroe will present a retrospective of his work and talk about his life as a photographer at this upcoming event on the Duke University campus.  Among the generation of young men and women influenced by Cartier-Bresson and Garry Winogrand, Monroe’s work includes long-term, continuous documentation of people and places as well as “decisive moment” images captured on the fly.

Still from Of Gods and Men by Xavier Beauvois

Each spring, the annual Kenan Ethics Film Series at Duke University features films that provide popular and accessible vehicles for discussing ethics around a particular theme. This year’s theme is “condemned to be free,” with films that explore how individuals—even under the most oppressive circumstances—claim their existential freedom by taking responsibility for their decisions and actions.

The screenings are free and open to the public. All screenings will take place in the Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke West Campus. Free parking will be available in the Bryan Center parking deck (validated parking passes will be provided at the screenings, along with refreshments and snacks). Click here for a searchable map.

Presented by Duke’s Screen/Society, sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, co-sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies, and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image

The film Defiance was screened on January 17; remaining films in the series include:

Monday, February 20, 7 p.m. – LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
(Jim Hanon, 2010, 75 min, Palestine & Israel, English & Arabic w/ English subtitles)

This documentary film tells the story of three men of three different faiths living in Israel and Palestine. Writer and director Jim Hanon explores each man’s choice of nonviolent action in the face of constant violence, and in so doing, finds the humanity common to all three.

A panel discussion with Duke faculty members Miriam Cooke (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies), Laura Lieber (Religion), David Schanzer (Public Policy), and Rebecca Stein (Cultural Anthropology) will follow the screening.

CLICK here TO WATCH THE TRAILER.

Tuesday, April 3, 7 p.m. – OF GODS AND MEN
(Xavier Beauvois, 2010, 122 min, France, in French with English subtitles)

Based on true events, this Jury Grand Prize for Best Film winner at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival tells the story of eight French Trappist monks living in an impoverished village in Algeria. When faced with threats from fundamentalist terrorists and the military, the monks must decide between seeking safety or staying with the local villagers who have come to trust them.

CLICK here TO WATCH THE TRAILER.

Monday, April 23, 7 p.m. – HUMAN TERRAIN
(James Der Derian & David Udris, 2010, 82 min, USA, English)

This acclaimed documentary explores the controversy over a new U.S. military strategy—Human Terrain Systems—to use “culturally aware” soldiers and embedded social scientists in Iraq and Afghanistan to win hearts and minds. Human Terrain takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and the shadowy collaboration between American academics and the armed services.

CLICK here TO WATCH THE TRAILER.

The Loving family. Photograph by Grey Villet.

Nancy Buirski, founder of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, made her directorial debut with The Loving Story, which premiered last year at Full Frame and went on to be short-listed this year for an Academy Award for best documentary. A screening on March 1 will be followed by a panel discussion, and on March 2, a symposium, which will include a presentation by director/producer Buirski and producer/editor Elisabeth Haviland James: “Loving Then and Now: The Context and Impact of a Landmark Civil Rights Opinion.”

Screening, Thursday, March 1, 7 p.m.
Varsity Theater, 123 E. Franklin St.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
8:30 p.m.: post-screening panel discussion

Symposium, Friday, March 2, 9:30 a.m.–2 p.m.
Hyde Hall at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities
176 E. Franklin St., UNC Campus
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Featuring rare archival footage and still images, The Loving Story provides a glimpse behind the scenes of the watershed civil rights case Loving v. Virginia. The unanimous 1967 Supreme Court decision overturned all remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S., and it allowed Richard and Mildred Loving to go home to Virginia, where they had been convicted on felony charges for the crime of interracial marriage.

Immediately following the screening on March 1, there will be a panel discussion moderated by Gene Nichol, Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of UNC–Chapel Hill’s Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African American Studies at Duke, will be among the panelists.

The film is free for UNC students with a valid ID and $4 for the general public. The screening is part of the Ackland Film Forum and the Center for the Study of the American South Southern Film Series.

On March 2, UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, with support from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, will hold a symposium on the UNC campus that will bring scholars together to discuss the film from historical, legal, and cultural perspectives. Center for Documentary Studies director Tom Rankin will be among the distinguished panelists.

Registration required for March 2 symposium; click here to register online or call (919) 962-5665 .

For further symposium details, including panel topics, moderators, and panelists, click here.

For directions to the symposium, click here.

Sadie Tillery. Photograph by Joel Mora.

Passes for the 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, named one of the “Top 50 Film Festivals in the World” by indieWire, are on sale; the annual four-day event will be held April 12–15. Here, Full Frame Director of Programming Sadie Tillery, named one of the “Most Powerful People in Documentary” by influential journalist Tom Roston, talks with CDS Publishing Intern Joel Mora about what it’s like to select and screen movies for the festival.

JM: When you’re between festivals what goes on at Full Frame?

ST: We have quarterly year-round programming. This summer we did a series of music films in Durham at the American Tobacco complex—screening them outside—and this fall we had a series of weekend showings, called the Full Frame Fix, at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke that featured a few films that were sell outs at this past year’s festival and a few films that haven’t reached North Carolina yet. This winter we’ll do a series of screenings as well.

A lot of our work as a staff during the year is figuring out the best and most efficient way to organize the festival for the upcoming year—the best ticketing systems and line systems. And we fundraise. An anonymous donor has agreed to match up to $25,000 in new gifts, so now we’re looking for new donors or for past donors to increase their donations to Full Frame.

JM: Are you ever trying to top yourselves, think of new things for the festival?

ST: Absolutely. We have this rare, intimate four-day experience, and we hear time and time again that what filmmakers really love is being able to come and speak with their colleagues and hear conversations that they wouldn’t be able to hear elsewhere. So programmatically, I think where we’re trying to grow and achieve the most, is how do we create more conversation around the art form? Last year we had this A&E speakeasy venue where we programmed one-hour panel conversations in between the bands of programming, so it was really easy for patrons to get out of the film and then pop in and hear a little bit of this conversation and go back and get in line for their next movie.

JM: What films have you screened in past years that have really taken off?

ST: It’s really exciting to be a part of a film’s—what’s the word?—springboard, and sometimes those aren’t necessarily films that we premiere or show for the very first time. A film that comes to mind is Buck, which won our audience award in 2011 and has had a really successful theatrical run. I think it’s mutually beneficial because they were able to dip their toe in the water by showing here in Durham and received a lot of audience support, won the award, and now Full Frame’s laurels are at the top of its trailer.

JM: Are you getting a lot more films from newcomers or from people who are established?

ST: We offer an Emerging Artist award every year, so that always calls attention to how many first-time filmmakers’ work we end up programming and that list grows every year. I think last year it was in the twenties. There are people at other events who feel that too many films are being made, and there are too many festivals, and that somehow that will water down the quality of work, but I don’t feel that way. A festival is a really unique experience because it’s a rare thing for a filmmaker to be present when his or her film is shown, to hear the audience react.

JM: You were a filmmaker and studied film.

ST: I did—I went to Hollins University in Virginia and studied film and photography. I was studying at Hollins when I started interning at Full Frame. I did a fair amount of work in 16mm, experimental stuff, some of it centering around my family.

JM: How do you think your background in film influences your thinking during the selection process?

ST: A few things come to mind. One is that having done some work with film gives you an appreciation of just how hard it is to make a good movie. I feel really grateful to have had some experience because I think it makes me a more conscious watcher. You’re looking for the reason a film doesn’t belong—it’s a very different screening process. I’m aware that to get to the really good work I will have to let go of other films.

JM: So you’re cutting out more than adding on?

ST: We have to. With 1,200 submissions and 60 spots, we have to be thinking about how to make cuts. The hardest part of my job is saying no, and it’s one of the biggest parts of my job and it’s heartbreaking. People spend years making their films, and there are many more wonderful films than we can show.

JM: I read that your system of choosing isn’t necessarily based on rank but is more discussion-based. . . .

ST: Yeah, it’s not based on written comments or on any type of score sheet but on conversations the selection committee and staff has around each title. So much of what I’m trying to do is be a listener and a filter—carefully hear how films are affecting other people so that I can imagine how they might affect a whole room of people—a weekend of people. We’re looking for the whole package—for films that are affecting either because they’re visually striking or emotionally resonant or are exploring an important and timely subject or issue.

JM: I won’t ask you about a favorite Full Frame film, because I know you wouldn’t tell me, but what about certain moments? And as the program director, what kind of legacy are you hoping to build?

ST: There are so many moments, and they are all more about the people than they are about the films. When a filmmaker is walking into Fletcher Hall and sees a thousand people in the audience, it’s a wonderful moment.

As for a legacy … I guess there are two main things, and one is to be able to look back and say, those were incredible films, an incredible spectrum of work over all those years, that filmmakers and audiences were able to appreciate. I hope to show films to the best of our ability, to be able to say that we grew an audience for documentary film by doing that. And more personally, as an individual in an industry that can be painful and full of rejection, I want to look artists in the eye and let them know we appreciate what they are doing because we all need their films.