Molly Merrymen: Country Crush

Tutor:

Alice RŮŽIČKOVÁ

Synopsis:

Instructors: Molly Merryman (USA), coordinator Pavla Jonsson

Time and Place: Friday 31. 10. from 10-20h on FAMU, room u 3

Credit Prerequisites: 2 credits for 100 % active participation - module in English with translation to Czech

Prerequisites:

Study Objectives:

Outline and Syllabus:

Representing the Unrepresented:

Independent Documentary and Community Identity

meet reel live Jihlava festival filmmaker in her workshop

Molly Merryman, Ph.D., is an independent filmmaker and professor of Justice Studies, Women?s Studies and LGBT Studies at Kent State University in the United States. She has directed/co-directed four documentaries: Queens of Columbus: Performance and the Art of Illusion (1992), Women Who Flew (1994), Invisible Struggles: Stories of Northern Segregation (2007) and Country Crush (2008). Her films have screened at film festivals and on US public broadcasting, and have won several awards, including broadcast EMMY?s She is the author of Clipped Wings: the Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (1997), and numerous articles and presentation papers that address gender, race, sexual orientation in the context of justice, history and popular culture.

Documentary films are representations of memory and collective identity. The ?truths? revealed in documentary are expressions of those being interviewed shaped through the prisms of filming, editing and dissemination. Documentary films have tremendous potential for revealing the lives of people traditionally unrepresented or underrepresented in formal telling of history and media.

Video gives voice to its interview subjects, an experience that can be extremely empowering for subject and filmmaker alike. When the subject is a minority member of society, digital video can provide a means of expression, of representing subject material that isn?t easily accessible through the written word, and for revealing an honest subjectivity of participants, the giving of voice to ordinary people, and presenting as experts typically oppressed peoples.

This filmmaker will present selections from past documentaries to illustrate how digital video documentaries can address issues of discrimination and/or privilege, and how subjects can become informed participants in the creation of documentary truths. As subjects are given a voice in editing/production, the potential for empowerment and critique increases the power and involvement of the subject as expert witnesses and increases the likelihood of interview subjects actually engaging in a discourse or dialogue on the topic at hand, rather than being ?used? as an object of research or art.

Program:

10-12 lecture & discussion

12-13 lunch

13-14 hands on work

14:30-16 Country Crush film by Merryman

16-20 reception with Molly Merryman

Study materials:

Note:

Schedule for winter semester 2008/2009:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue
Fri
Thu
Fri

Schedule for summer semester 2008/2009:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Animovaná tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - magistr (qualification subject, faculty subject, optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - bakalář (qualification subject, optional subject)
• Animovaná tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Režie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Režie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Kamera - bakalář (optional subject)
• Kamera - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Produkce - bakalář (optional subject)
• Produkce - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - bakalář (optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Fotografie EN - bakalář (optional subject)
• Fotografie EN - magistr (optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Cinematography (qualification subject, optional subject)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting (qualification subject, optional subject)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Directing (qualification subject, optional subject)