From the Executive Director

Wendy Levy

Hey Alliance people.

February has brought some incredible momentum to The Alliance; I write this month with some program highlights I want you all to know about:

NEW HATCHLAB GRANTEES

We are thrilled to announce the 2018 HatchLab grantees – all working on collaborative media projects designed to transform communities, introduce breakthrough ideas, create confidence from volatility, and shine a light on innovation, justice and the power of the collective voice. Everyone on this list was part of the Philadelphia or New Orleans HatchLabs last year. We are supporting responsive networks in those cities, with artists and storytelling at the center of interdisciplinary conversations that lead to culture shifting and co-creation. Check out the projects here.

ARTS2WORK

Arts2Work has a beautiful case of post-Sundance illumination, and we are working diligently to launch an initiative by Fall 2018 that we believe can transform our industry on a number of levels. As Ava DuVernay said in recently in Hollywood Reporter – “We sit on top of a broken system.” To address this broken-ness, The Alliance is leading the very first National Apprenticeship Program in Media Arts + Creative Technologies, providing on-ramps to creative careers and leadership opportunities for artists of color, youth, women, veterans and the disabled. We are building a national network of forward-thinking media companies who want to be part of the new future of creative work, and media arts centers who are already bootstrapping creative training programs in their communities with no sustainable pathway to jobs or a secure future for themselves or their trainees. Now that we are a registered program with the US Dept. of Labor, we are working to secure the seed funding to support creative workforce development across this country, with the vision of building accessible pathways to creative jobs for all and ending the sexism, racism and elitism that keeps so many stories from being told, and so many voices from rising up.

YOUTH MEDIA

If you or your organization are part of the youth media/creative youth development/media literacy community, I hope you check out our Youth Media Video Roundtables this year. They are a dynamic and participatory space (we use zoom.us) to meet your peers, exchange knowledge and resources about innovative practices, and plan new collaborations. These are actual intergenerational conversations – participants often range from 21 – 60, and for our next three roundtables, filmmaker and educator Gemikia Henderson will co-facilitate with Alliance Youth Media leaders Jason Wyman and Myah Overstreet. If you have a specialty in one of these areas, join us! If you are part of an organization leading youth media activities in your community, join us. If you are an independent teaching artist with a youth-focused practice, join us! Contact Jason@thealliance.media to sign up.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018: How to build sustainable platforms for emerging artists
Wednesday, August 29, 2018: How to tell a single story across multiple platforms including video, podcasting, blogging, social, etc.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018: How to nurture a supportive environment for emerging artists to take risks (brave space + safe space…)

More news coming on our 2018 Innovation Studio projects and Creative Leadership Lab. Watch this space. Join us in this work, and reach out my way if you want to. I’m available at wendy@thealliance.media.

The momentum and illumination continues. Wakanda + Shuri forever.

~ Wendy

This is your Alliance, working for our collective creative futures. Join. It feels really good. As always, feel free to reach out my way anytime, wendy@thealliance.media

The ALLIANCE eBulletin

your latest media arts + culture news—Febuary 2018

Notes from the Field

UnionDocs Collaborative Studio and 5-week Summer Documentary Lab Deadline Approaching
ALLIANCE members UnionDocs are currently accepting applications to programs seeking to push the boundaries of documentary arts, for their upcoming 10-month Collaborative Studio and 5-week Summer Documentary Lab. Both offer unique opportunities to develop skills, connections, and innovative projects. The Deadline for applications for both is Friday, March 9th.

Helen De Michiel Article Documentary Untethered, Documentary Becoming
Filmmaker, author, and ALLIANCE member Helen De Michiel, published a piece in AFTERIMAGE: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, as one part of a group of articles called A Dossier on Collaborative Documentary Practice. The piece explored the underlying philosophical framework of her filmmaking method, the impact her work has on her, and documentary film as a “collaborative process”.

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Still from Lunch Love Community (2015) by Helen De Michiel

Media Policy Watch

by Priscilla Genet

Kareem Abeed, producer of the documentary “Last Men in Aleppo,” was recently denied a visa to travel to the United States to attend the Academy Awards ceremony, happening March 4th. His application was rejected under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a direct result of president Trump’s travel ban on eight countries including Syria, the country Abeed holds a passport for. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expressed solidarity with Abeed stating “For 90 years, the Oscars have celebrated achievement in the art of filmmaking, which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences. As supporters of filmmakers — and the human rights of all people — around the globe, we stand in solidarity with Fayyad as well as the film’s producer Kareem Abeed…”

Last week the Federal Communications Council officially published its controversial Net Neutrality Repeal, the repeal itself will occur in April. As a result of repeal being published, Mozilla, consumer groups, and 22 State Attorneys General, are in process of filling lawsuits, which must be filed within the 60 days allowed for effected parties.

Internal communications watchdogs for the Federal Communications Council have began an investigation of their chairman Ajiit Pai, in relation to his push last April to approve rules allowing television broadcasters to have a massive increase in stations they own. A few weeks after the new rules were approved Sinclair Broadcasting announced a $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media, arousing public suspicion concerning Pai’s motives.

We want to hear from you. Are you concerned with any national media policy stories that are underreported? Are there any local stories in your area that need highlighting? Please let us know.

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