FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 5, 2008
Contacts:
Mark Oliver, film project director
530-859-3316
buggylifer@yahoo.com
Maura Hurley, Public Information Officer
California Council for the Humanities
415- 391-1474, ext. 308
mhurley@calhum.org
Films produced as part of statewide Youth Digital Filmmakers program funded by the California Council for the Humanities will screen June 19 and 27
SISKIYOU COUNTY, Calif. — As part of a statewide project, Youth Digital Filmmakers, teens from Mt. Shasta High School and Happy Camp High School have spent the past year working on documentary films about growing up in isolated Siskiyou County. Now the public will have a chance to see the teens’ work — incorporated into one 60-minute video called "Voices Between the Mountains, Coming of Age in the Siskiyous" — at local screenings on Thursday, June 19, at 7:30 p.m. College of the Siskiyous, Room DLC-3, 800 College Avenue, Weed; and at 9 p.m. on Friday, June 27, at Klamath-Siskiyou Art Center in Happy Camp (http://www.ksartcenter.org).
The students will discuss their filmmaking experiences following both screenings. The Happy Camp screening will be preceded by an organic dinner at 5 p.m. followed by an art opening.
The students' films explore the origins and influences of Siskiyou County's native culture, its mining and logging history, and the challenges young people face bridging the gap between a world still partially rooted in the past, yet pulled toward the future.
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" Siskiyou County is an isolated part of the state, and teens here are more exposed to trees and rivers than to freeways and malls," said Mark Oliver, an artist and filmmaker who directed the project. "Our film is about what it's like growing up in a small, rural town in California, where its 75 miles from the nearest clothing store. By weather, distance and culture, kids here are disconnected from the things most teens take for granted."
Bettina Dubrosky, 17, an exchange student from Hamburg, Germany, spent the past year at Mt Shasta High School and participated in the film project. She said that her part of the film tells the story of European immigrants coming to California in search of gold. She sees that journey as a metaphor for her own journey to the Golden State.
“I was surprised to find tombstones of Germans from the 1860s in a small graveyard in Callahan,” she said. “I didn’t really know that so many Germans had immigrated to search for gold.”
Oliver, an adjunct professor in College of Siskiyous’ Art Department, helped the students with the technical and conceptual aspects of filmmaking. Charles Unkefer, an English instructor at the college, served as the project’s humanities advisor. “The region is home to the Karuk Tribe and has the second largest Native American population in California,” Oliver said. “Charlie provided insight into the historical events that shaped the region, including the first contact between whites and Native Americans. He helped give the students a historical context for their movie."
The Siskiyou Arts Council received a $30,000 grant last June from the California Council for the Humanities to undertake the yearlong filmmaking project. It is one of eight Youth Digital Filmmakers project funded by the Council to enable young people to make films about what matters in their lives and communities. The Council said that more than 75 organizations applied to participate in the program. Youth Digital Filmmakers is part of the Council’s How I See It campaign designed to give California youth an opportunity to explore community and personal issues and present their thoughts, ideas and discoveries to the public.
“The idea behind Youth Digital Filmmakers is to give youth a voice in what happens in their communities and skills they can use in the future,” said Ralph Lewin, executive director of the California Council for the Humanities. “The humanities scholars give the teens a broader perspective on their film topics and help them see how issues they’re dealing with today are similar to those of other places and times.”
The Youth Digital Filmmakers project is being conducted in partnership with the Digital Storytelling Institute of ZeroDivide.
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In addition to the Siskiyou project, the following projects received Youth Digital Filmmakers grants:
BAY AREA
San Francisco: Conscious Youth Media Crew
“A Choice of Weapons”
This is a narrative film about the impact of redevelopment on a San Francisco neighborhood.
Oakland: East Bay Asian Youth Center
The film will focus on Cambodian-American youth living in Oak Park Apartments, home to many recent immigrants in the impoverished San Antonio District of Oakland. Residents cope with gangs on one hand and the gentrification of their neighborhood on the other. Their film, "I Ain't Leaving,'" describes their struggle for balance and security.
Concord: Ally Action, Inc.
"Don't Erase My History," highlights LGBT history in California, a story largely untold in the classroom. The filmmakers explore their own perspectives on being LGBT in a culture that has largely ignored LGBT history.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Long Beach: Khmer Girls in Action
The project, titled “My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach,” examines how young Cambodian women see their place now and in the future, as compared to the outlook of their parents' generation — many of whom who came to California as refugees of war. The film explores efforts to designate the Anaheim Corridor area of Long Beach as an official "Cambodian Town."
Los Angeles: Covenant House California
Through interviews with young people who were recently homeless, the film, "My Spaces: Homeless Youth Explore the Geography of Disconnection," traces the challenges and traumas of Hollywood teens living on the streets.
CENTRAL AND NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Fresno: Center for Multicultural Cooperation
The film, "Common Ground, Sowing Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley," examines the connections and disconnections among cultural communities of the rural Central Valley through the stories of Hmong, Latino, and African American farmers and farmworkers.
Lodi: Lodi High School
“Finding Our Own Way: Teens in Lodi" is made up of five documentary films about such issues as racism among Lodi High teens, teenage drug abuse, video games, skateboarders and cliques on campus.
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About the California Council for the Humanities
The California Council for the Humanities has supported and created programs that bring Californians together around their history and culture for more than 30 years. Since 2001 the Council has been engaged in a statewide initiative, California Stories, designed to tell the larger story of California. The Council’s new California Stories campaign, How I See It, is helping young people to share — in their own words and through a variety of media — what their lives are like, what they care about, and what it’s like to grow up in today’s California. For more information, visit the Council’s website at www.californiastories.org or contact the Council’s administrative office at (415) 391-1474. For more information on California Stories, the How I See It campaign, the Youth Digital Filmmakers project and the California Council for the Humanities please visit www.californiastories.org.
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