🎙️Your media arts & culture news 📷 ALLIANCE eBulletin July/August 2022

🎙️Your media arts & culture news 📷 ALLIANCE eBulletin July/August 2022

But there’s no scar by Catherine Blackburn in the Alliance XR Culture Galleryfrom a film by Siraj Jhaveri


Welcome to our Summer eBulletin. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, summer is “the season between fall and winter: a period of maturing powers…”  

This summer, our Summer of Storytelling, the Alliance XR Culture Gallery went live in Oculus and I hope everyone with a headset can go and explore the incredible works of art + spirit. Works by Lola Flash, Catherine Blackburn, Valentina Vargas, Jessi Ujazi, and Karo Duro are waiting for you there, larger than life. In our period of maturing powers with this project, we are exploring partnerships with community groups, local museums, cultural institutions, theater makers, musicians, and youth media organizations to expand resources and capacity around live performance, VR world-building and economic resilience. We hope you’ll join us for an exciting presentation and roundtable discussion this fall.

Also, this summer, the Alliance for Media Arts + Culture was named an Apprenticeship Ambassador by the US Department of Labor. As a national program sponsor of Arts2Work, we have been breaking through barriers that have excluded creative media careers from federal and state workforce investments, and marginalized BIPOC, non-binary, LGBTQ+, women, disabled and non-college-educated creatives from opportunity and advancement in the industry. This is an acknowledgment of our work promoting, expanding, and diversifying Registered Apprenticeship and our support strengthening the nation’s creative workforce. We couldn’t do this without the partnership of the Alliance network – our team of artist mentors, and the media training centers and production companies across this country who have envisioned, planned, adapted, and/or launched programs with us and supported their local youth and communities with powerful storytelling training, new work-based learning opportunities, advanced labs, and state-of-the-art pre-apprenticeship models for creative tech careers. Thank you to BAVC, Better Youth, BRIC Foundation, Community Cultural Collective, Creators Collab, New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC), Panoramic Dreams, Pegasus Media Project, PhillyCAM, Portland Open Signal, Reel Works, re-imagine/ATL, RYSE, Terrain, The Last Mile, Urgent, Inc, Visionary Media Productions, Wide Angle Youth Media, Youth Beat, Youth FX…and so many more.  Thank you to ALL!

Enjoy the rest of the summer, and come see us this fall at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in NYC and the International Documentary Association Getting Real Conference in Los Angeles (and virtual!)

Join the Alliance, it’s easy.

As always, please be in touch.

wendy@thealliance.media

Notes from the Field

UnionDocs Break Out Artistic Differences Event Starting
Two weeks ago, the first virtual event for UnionDocs’ Break Out Artistic Differences project started and continues through this Tuesday, August 9th. The event consists of an online film program that features study groups along with physical screenings and public dialogues. In-person events will be occurring internationally, from Open City Documentary Festival in London to TIDF in Taiwan. Each month will offer the opportunity for those interested to attend a Film Program, Study Group, and Dialogue. The films screened were chosen because they are “singular films that open questions about the possibility of collective transformation, about forms and practices of togetherness.” 

Pegasus Arts2work Pre-Apprenticeship Applications Open
Young people looking for an entry into the creative workforce are invited to apply to the PAA program in Dallas. The program will be working with local companies and leaders in the media industry to provide paid training to participants to ready them for a career in digital media. Participants will receive professional mentorship, develop a portfolio, produce videos for local companies, and have the opportunity to complete an Adobe certification exam.

Grants and Calls

William Greaves Research and Development Fund and PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund
Mid-career nonfiction filmmakers from communities that are from racially and ethnically underrepresented that seek to make socially relevant work that represents their communities are invited to apply for the William Greaves Research and Development Fund as well as the PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund. The Development Fund will provide filmmakers with grants of up to $40,000 for research and development and is available to filmmakers from the U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Brazil. The Production Fund provides finishing funding for documentary projects intended for distribution through PBS and made by filmmakers who identify as BIPOC.
Deadline: August 8th

Catapult Development Fund
The Catapult Development Grant offers development funding from $5,000 to $20,000 to documentary filmmakers who have a strong voice and will use it to tell a unique story. Applicants should have prior experience in film or television and a work sample to submit.
Deadline: August 8th


525: The Black Creator Accelerator
25 aspiring black creators have the opportunity to receive a $10,000 a month stipend through Snapchat’s Black Creator Accelerator.
Deadline: August 12th

Foundation Alterciné Documentary Film Grant
Documentary filmmakers born in Africa, Asia, or Latin America are invited to submit to the Foundation Alterciné grant. Filmmakers must provide an example of a previously completed documentary film. One recipient will receive a grant of 10,000 CAD and a few will receive grants of 5,000 CAD.
Deadline: August 15th

Job Bank

Head Projectionist/Technical Coordinator
Maine Film Center
, Waterville, ME

Photography Teaching Artist Venice Arts, Venice, CA

San Francisco Youth and Emerging Media Maker (YEMM) Program Manager Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, CA

MVFF Guest Services Coordinator California Film Institute, San Rafael, CA

Director of Growth Open Signal, Portland, OR

Phase 2 Producer Spy Hop, Salt Lake City, UT

Film Mentor Spy Hop, Salt Lake City, UT

Marketing & Communications Intern (Fall 2022) StoryCorps, Brooklyn, NY

Manager, Digital Engagement StoryCorps, Brooklyn, NY


more jobs on the Job Bank

Media Policy Watch

by Priscilla Genet

As tensions between the U.S. and China escalate, a member of the FCC called for the popular Chinese-owned content platform TikTok to be banned from both the Google and Apple store. Two weeks ago, current Federal Commissioner Brendan Car made a post on Twitter containing a letter to Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, chief executives of Alphabet, asking them to remove the app. This came after Buzzfeed reported that leaked audio from TikTok meetings revealed TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has access to user information they claimed was restricted to U.S. servers. This information aligns with the fears of many conservative lawmakers in the U.S., who fear that the Chinese Communist Party could utilize ByteDance for espionage, or to subtly implant CCP propaganda, with Senator Ted Cruz accusing TikTok of being “a Trojan horse the Chinese Communist Party can use to influence what Americans, see, hear, and ultimately think.” Tim Cook’s letter stoked similar anxiety, accusing the People’s Republic of China of exercising “invasive and omnipresent surveillance capabilities […] to maintain authoritarian control” and calling TikTok a “serious national security threat.” 

Last month, Senators Edward J. Markley and Ron Wyden led the introduction of a new bill, the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act. The bill is a continuation of democratic lawmakers’ struggle to reinstate net-neutrality allowing the FCC to regulate broadband companies by labeling them as telecommunications services making them beholden to standard communications oversight. California house representative Doris Matsui, who introduced a companion bill to the house told CNET “These protections will help defend free expression and innovation — protecting consumers and securing a more equitable online ecosystem.” The bill comes after Biden’s nomination for FCC Chair, Gigi Sohn, who is a staunch supporter of net neutrality, has spent almost two years without being confirmed due to the senate vote for her to assume office being stuck in a deadlock. 

Workshops, Festivals, Convenings

Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival  August 5th-13th, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Melbourne International Film Festival August 4th-21st, Melbourne, Australia

Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival August 8th-14th, Providence, RI

HollyShorts Film Festival August 11th-20th, Hollywood, CA

Sidewalk Film Festival August 22nd-28th, Birmingham, AL

Venice International Film Festival 2022 August 31st-September 10th, Venice, Italy