An Interdisciplinary Conference
at the University of Texas at Austin
October 10th-12th, 2008

Film Festival  

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SEPTEMBER 15-OCTOBER 9:

Celluloid for Social Justice:
The Legacy of 1968 in Documentaries

A Pre-Conference Mini-Film-Series
Honoring the 40th Anniversary of California Newsreel

This film series is free and open to the public.
All films will be shown in CALHOUN 100, starting at 7:00 pm with a brief introduction.

Download List of Films to be shown.

Week 4 Films

Film Fest Home | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

  • thumbnail of scanned text    Mon. 10/6 At the River I Stand
    56 minutes, 1993
    1994 Erik Barnouw Award for Best Documentary, Organization of American Historians
    Memphis, Spring 1968, marked the dramatic climax of the Civil Rights movement. At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a local labor dispute into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This documentary brings into sharp relief issues that have only become more urgent in the intervening years: the connection between economic and civil rights, the debate over violent vs. nonviolent change, and the demand for full inclusion of African Americans in American life. [download handout (MS-Word document)]

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    Tues. 10/7: Keynote Speech by Daniel Ellsberg

     
  • thumbnail of scanned text    Wed. 10/8 Aimé Césaire: Une Voix pour L'Histoire, une parole pour le XXIème siècle, Part 3
    52 minutes, English subtitles, 1994
    3ème Partie: La force de regarder demain. In The Strength to Face Tomorrow Césaire responds to the disappointments of the postcolonial world. His plays, La tragedie du roi Christophe (about the Haitian revolution) and Une saison au Congo (about Patrice Lumumba), were among the first to warn of the dangers of neocolonialism. French anthropologist Edgar Morin, biographer Roger Toumson, Brazilian author Jorge Amado, Antillean novelist Maryse Condé and American writer Maya Angelou testify to Césaire's central role as a "founding ancestor" for the current flowering of African Diaspora literature. [download handout (MS-Word document)]

  • Thurs. 10/9
    Two archival primary source films.

    thumbnail of scanned text    Black Panther
    15 minutes, 1969
    This is the film the Black Panthers used to promote their cause. Shot in 1969, in Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento, this exemplar of 1960s activist filmmaking traces the development of the Black Panther organization. In an interview from jail, Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton describes the origins of the Panther Party, Eldridge Cleaver explains the Panthers' appeal to the Black community, and Chairman Bobby Seale enumerates the Panther 10-Point Program as Panthers march and demonstrate. [download handout (MS-Word document)]

    thumbnail of scanned text    San Francisco State: On Strike
    20 minutes, 1969
    Ethnic studies courses are common today, but that hasn't always been the case. In many ways, multicultural education can be traced back to San Francisco in 1968-1969. In one of the most high-profile student actions of the 1960s, students at San Francisco State University went on strike, shutting down the campus for six months. University president S.I. Hayakawa called in the police, who busted heads and arrested hundreds in an attempt to restore control of the campus. But the strike didn't end until the school acceded to student demands and created the first ethnic studies department at an American university. This film, shot by the students and their allies, is a classic primary source document of the 1960s. [download handout (MS-Word document)]