NOVEMBER 29 THROUGH DECEMBER 2
FEATURED FILMS AND EVENTS INCLUDE:
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE OTHER HALF OF TOMORROW, THE U.S. PREMIERE OF THE HUMAN TOWER, AND A SPECIAL PROGRAM ON AMNH EXPEDITION FILMS FROM THE 1920S AND 30S
Themed Whose Story is It?, the 2012 Margaret Mead Film Festival—the preeminent showcase for contemporary cultural storytelling—will screen 29 outstanding films and host special multi-media events and performances Thursday, November 29 through Sunday, December 2, 2012. The festival features experimental films, unique storytelling formats such as crowd-sourced media, and provocative online games from Games for Change. The Mead Film Festival is a rare opportunity to view new films that strive to illuminate the complexity and diversity of peoples and cultures from around the world, all in a museum environment that provides the setting for a deeper level conversation and understanding.
Encompassing a broad spectrum of creative storytelling, the films present a range of cultural perspectives and offer forums for discussion with filmmakers and renowned speakers. This year’s films shed light on contemporary culture through the work of filmmakers from several countries, including Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, and Pakistan. With 24 filmmakers in attendance, the festival’s post-screening discussions allow audiences to participate in rich, engaging, and intimate conversations with filmmakers and film subjects.
“The diversity of human experiences that are represented by the films and events at the Margaret Mead Festival transport our audiences onto a world stage,” said Ruth Cohen, AMNH senior director of education strategic initiatives and director of the Center for Lifelong Learning. “They come away understanding how the marriage of culture, film, anthropology, and ethnography sharpen our everyday insights and make us feel more intimately connected to one another—continuing Mead’s great legacy.”
In conjunction with the upcoming American Museum of Natural History exhibition Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture (opening November 17), the Festival will also present the special foodthemed films Himself He Cooks and Sweet Dreams. In the spirit of exploration, the Museum will open the vault to the AMNH archives and showcase scientific expedition filmmaking, including rarely seen early 20th-century Carl Akeley footage to present-day field research.
Full film descriptions and trailers can be found online at amnh.org/mead. The public can purchase tickets and create a personalized film schedule at mead2012.sched.org. For festival highlights or daily updates, information can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/MeadFilmFestival or Twitter using #MeadFilmFest.
The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Awards
The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award recognizes documentary filmmakers whose work displays artistic excellence and originality of technique while offering a new perspective on a culture or community remote from the majority of the festival audiences’ experience. The 10 contenders for this year’s Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award, presenting U.S. premieres at the festival, are:
• Giovanni Giommi for Bad Weather
• Valérie Berteau and Philippe Witjes for Himself He Cooks
• Ram Devineni and Cano Rojas for The Human Tower
• Zoé Chantre for Keep Me Upright (Tiens moi droite)
• Adam Isenberg for Life Without Words (Una Vida sin Palabras)
• Miyarrka Media for Manapanmirr, in Christmas Spirit
• Pietra Brettkelly for Maori Boy Genius
• Patrick Morell for Nagaland: The Last of the Headhunters
• Sadia Shepard and Samina Quraeshi for The Other Half of Tomorrow
• Stefan Wittekamp and Suzanne Arts for Wheat and Tares
The Mead Award jury includes filmmaker Judith Helfand (The Uprising of ’34), founder and executive director of the New York African Film Festival Mohan Bonetti, executive director and co-founder of Impact Partners Dan Cogan, and director Patricia Cardoso (Real Women Have Curves). The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award winner will be announced on closing night.
Festival Opening and Closing Nights
The opening night film on Thursday, November 29, is the world premiere of The Other Half of Tomorrow, directed by Sadia Shepard and Samina Quraeshi. This series of vignettes offers vivid, unusual stories of women in contemporary Pakistan that, taken together, coalesce into a multifaceted portrait of a country whose national struggles are played out every day on a personal level. The films are grounded in observational footage and intimate interviews that give viewers a visual sense of the disparate realities that make up Pakistan, and highlights what we can learn from the country’s dynamic female population.
Closing night will feature Tropicália directed by Marcelo Machado, on Sunday, December 2. Combining recently recovered archival material and encounters with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, and other icons of the movement, Tropicália brings to life this vital moment in late 1960s Brazilian music and culture: a rare and thrilling document of the brilliant sparks that fly when art, culture, and politics collide. This screening will be followed by the 2012 Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award Ceremony and a Brazilian Dance party with Maracutu NY and Nation Beat.
Mead Events
Free with 2012 Mead ticket stub, special performances and other interactive events around the museum complement the slate of films in the festival and serve to further illuminate the cultures celebrated at this year’s Mead. Events include a Bhangra Dance Party with DJ Rekha (November 30 at 10 pm), African Drumming Performance (December 1 at 4 pm), and a Brazilian Dance Party (December 2 at 9:30 pm). From Thursday, November 29 to Sunday, December 2, the Mead Arcade, in collaboration with Games for Change, will present several entertaining and provocative online games that examine culture and promote social justice.
Mead Dialogues
The festival will feature a compelling and provocative series of presentations and interactive experiences, allowing audiences to engage in the conversation and contribute their own voice.
Dialogues include:
• Whose Story Is It? Story Lounge
Saturday, December 1, at 6 pm
This program is an interactive event that will explore the role of stories in our contemporary
lives and dig deep into the theme of this year’s festival: Whose Story Is It? Part of this year’s
Mead Dialogues, Story Lounge participants include anthropologist Pegi Vail, Moth founder
George Green and artistic director Catherine Burns, POV executive director Simon Kilmurry,
and StoryCorps senior producer Michael Garofalo and producer Lizzie Jacobs.
• 18 Days in Egypt
Saturday, December 1 at 7 pm
An interactive project that tells the story of the revolution through personal media—videos,
photos, text messages, Facebook posts—created by Egyptians. The film, an experiment in
crowd-sourced content, and an online community combined into one may alter traditional
expectations of what a documentary can and should be. Mead audiences will have opportunities
to experience 18 Days in Egypt in both its original form and in a guided viewing experience with
the project team.
• George Stoney Tribute: How the Myth Was Made
Saturday, December 1 at 1 pm
A tribute to the beloved documentarian and educator George Stoney, who passed away earlier
this year, this program will feature discussions about truth, fiction, and the impact of
documentary filmmaking on its subjects. Screenings of Stoney’s How the Myth Was Made and
Robert Flaherty’s ethnofiction Man of Aran will be followed by a panel discussion about the two
films and Stoney’s enduring legacy.
• Re-seeing the Century: The Expedition on Film
Friday, November 30 at 5 pm
Celebrating the Museum’s legacy of documenting expeditions on film from the early 20th
Century to the present day, this program features the work of legendary historical AMNH
scientists well as current, ground-breaking expeditions by contemporary Museum scientists.
• Through Navajo Eyes
Sunday, December 2 at 5:30 pm
In 1966, seven Navajo from Pine Springs, Arizona picked up movie cameras and created short
silent films about their worlds, part of an innovative project created to see whether their work
would look distinctly Navajo. This program includes a special screening of two of the seven
films, and will be followed by a discussion about their history and the exciting contemporary
process of restoring them to the Navajo Nation.
• Sun Kissed
Friday, November 30 at 7 pm
After a Navajo couple discovers their children have a disorder making exposure to sunlight
fatal, they learn this rare genetic disease is all too common on their reservation in New Mexico.
Following the screening, a group of distinguished panelists will discuss critical questions about
Navajo culture and genetics.
Festival Information and Tickets
All screenings take place at the American Museum of Natural History. Opening and closing night tickets are $15. All other screenings are $12. Members/students/senior citizens should call or check online for discounted rates. Shorter films may be grouped together in single programs. The Friend of the Festival Pass (opening night film and reception for two, plus six other programs) is $99 (a $150 value). Tickets can be purchased by phone at 212-769-5200, online at amnh.org/mead, or at any of the Museum’s admission desks. For more information, the public should call 212-769-5305 or visit amnh.org/mead.
Support
The Presenting Sponsor of the Museum’s multicultural public programming is MetLife Foundation.
The Margaret Mead Film Festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
The American Museum of Natural History gratefully acknowledges HBO, Inc. for its generous support of the Mead Films and cultural programming for New York City Public High Schools.
Projector solutions provided by projection design.
Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (www.amnh.org)
The exclusive corporate sponsor for Our Global Kitchen is JPMorgan Chase.
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses 46 permanent exhibition halls, including the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. Five active research divisions and three cross-disciplinary centers support 200 scientists, whose work draws on a world-class permanent collection of more than 32 million specimens and artifacts, including specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, as well as one of the largest natural history libraries in the Western Hemisphere. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, it is the only American museum authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree. In 2012, the Museum began offering a pilot Master of Arts in Teaching with a specialization in earth science. Approximately 5 million visitors from around the world came to the Museum last year, and its exhibitions and Space Shows can be seen in venues on five continents. The Museum’s website and collection of apps for mobile devices extend its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more beyond its walls. Visit amnh.org for more information.
Follow the Margaret Mead Festival on Facebook at facebook.com/MeadFilmFestival. Follow the Museum on Twitter at twitter.com/amnh, on Facebook at facebook.com/naturalhistory, on YouTube at youtube.com/AMNHorg, on Flickr at flickr.com/amnh, and on Tumblr at amnhnyc.tumblr.com.