Blessing of the Fleet
In February, the UM Media & Documentary Projects Center and the Southern Foodways Alliance began work on a year-long project. The result will be a feature-length documentary film “Southern Food: The Movie.” Joe York, who is directing the film, recently returned from a two-week turn along the Gulf Coast where he filmed contestants at the […]
Documenting Our Backyard
Here is a Jackson Free Press review of “Smokes and Ears” that came out just before the Crossroads Film Festival–where it won the Best Mississippi Film award. This review sums up the Mission of the Media and Documentary Projects Center about as well as anything I could write. In a Pig’s Ear By Bret Kenyon […]
Civil War in Film
MDP was at the Overby Center tonight recording Professor Gary Gallagher’s lecture on the Civil War in Hollywood. The presentation, sponsored by the UM Center for Civil War Research, addressed the main interpretations of the Civil War as depicted in motion pictures.
Congrats to Joe York
Congratulations to Joe York whose “Smokes and Ears” took home the Ruma Award at the Crossroads Film Festival. The award, designed by artist Wyatt Waters honors the best Mississippi film. Joe has had quite a run this last month with screenings of films in California, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and upcoming in New Zealand. Joe is also featured […]
CUD goes Down Under!
CUD, a short film by MDP producer/director Joe York about Georgia cattleman Will Harris, is now an official selection of the Reel Earth Film Fetsival in…..NEW ZEALAND! And that’s not all! This weekend CUD will screen at the Going Green Film Festival in Los Angeles, where it is nominated for the Chipotle Food that Matters […]
Tell Your Ma, Tell your Pa, I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas!
MDP Producer/Director Joe York is just back from a week-long video shoot that took him and graduate assistant Alan Pike all across the great state of Arkansas. Collecting footage and interviews for the forthcoming SOUTHERN FOOD: The Movie, their travels included stops in Little Rock, Lake Village, Brinkley, DeValls Bluff, Stuttgart and DeWitt, Arkansas. In […]
CUT/CHOP/COOK "debuts" at Charleston Food & Wine Festival
On March 6th, MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance gave folks at the Charleston Food & Wine Festival a sneak peek at their latest short documentary. The film CUT/CHOP/COOK, a profile of pitmaster Rodney Scott of Scott’s Barbecue in Hemingway, South Carolina, was produced and directed by MDP’s Joe York in association with the Union […]
CUD goes to Hollywood
CUD, a co-production by MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance, will screen in Hollywood at the upcoming Going Green Film Festival on April 2&3. One of only thirty films chosen for the festival, CUD is a short documentary film by Joe York which profiles of Georgia cattleman Will Harris. To learn more about the festival, […]
MDP Films to be featured at Ozark Foothills Film Festival
Earlier this year MDP & our co-producers at the Southern Foodways Alliance were invited by the Ozark Foothills Film Festival to present four films at the festival, which runs from March 26-28 in Batesville, Arkansas. Here’s the write-up in the event from festival director Bob Pest: “New collaborators also include the UM Media & Documentary […]
CUD chews its way into Atlanta Film Fest
CUD, a short film by MDP producer Joe York, is an official selection of the Atlanta Film Festival! CUD profiles catlleman Will Harris of White Oaks Pastures in Early County, Georgia. Watch the trailer for the film above or check out the film at the Landmark Art Cinemas in midtown Atlanta during the Atlanta Film […]
Willie Mae's Audience Continues to Grow
Joe York’s Media and Documentary Projects film has received a new round of distribution on public television stations across the country. It was a pleasant surprise to find Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House listed on WKNO this evening. To date, Willie Mae’s has aired on over 20 public television stations and that number will continue […]
Intruder in the Dust turns 60.
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the world premiere of Intruder in the Dust and the Media and Documentary Projects Center was well represented in the effort to commemorate the milestone. The event, a fundraiser for the Oxford Film Festival, was held at the recently restored Lyric Theater in the same room where […]
Debate Documentary to Premiere
The Media and Documentary Projects Center presents The Debate Starts Here: The Presidential Debate Comes to Ole Miss. A look into one of the pivotal moments in Ole Miss history when the eyes of the nation and entire world looked to the University of Mississippi as we hosted the first Presidential debate of 2008. With interviews […]
CUD
Last Saturday, Joe York’s documentary “CUD” screened in Athens, Georgia, at the Potlikker Film Festival hosted by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The film profiles Will Harris, a cattleman from Bluffton, Gerogia, who raises grass-fed beef cattle at White Oak Pastures, the expansive farm that has been in his family for over 160 years. This film […]
MDP at the Summer OFF
The Media and Documentary Projects Center was well represented last night by two films showing at the Oxford Film Festival summer series. The first was a documentary by Mary Warner and Joe York that resulted from Mary’s Southern Studies MA Thesis on Thacker Mountain Radio. Mary Produced Thacker for several years and we were lucky enough […]
As Seen On TV
In case you didn’t see it, here’s a (bad) picture from tonight’s broadcast of our own Joe York’s “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” on Mississippi’s Public Broadcasting Station (PBS). The showing was a great success and nice venue to show off all of Joe’s hard work. To watch the film in it’s entirety, click here or […]
Final Cuts
The Southern Studies Documentary Fieldwork class we taught with David Wharton has wrapped up. Our students worked hard this semester and have produced some really good documentaries. Click on the images below to watch them and let us know what you think.
In a flash…
Recently we cleaned and transferred an old 16mm “Castle Films” news reel featuring the game-story of our heart-stopping 1959 football game with LSU. During the transfer process I realized that one of the frames of film actually caught the moment in which Billy Cannon had his famous snapshot taken. As you can see, that’s a […]
Mississippi Premier of Willie Mae's and great news for John Currence and John T. Edge
May brings the great news that Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House will make it’s Mississippi debut and that two of the film’s stars, Oxford’s own John Currence and John T. Edge have joined Willie Mae Seaton as James Beard Foundation Award winners. Currence received a Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: South and our partner John T. […]
Honoring Chucky Mullins…
Always a moving event, this year’s Chucky Mullins Courage Award Banquet marked 20 years since the inception of the award. Chucky Mullins will forever impact this University, and all of us at the Media and Documentary Projects Center are honored to work on the event. This year, we produced video elements that played throughout […]
If You Feed Them, They Will Come
This last Friday, Matthew Graves showed his film “Feeding the Soul at Jones Valley Urban Farm” for a panel discussion on sustainable agriculture for Green Week. Liz Stagg, one of the panelist who’s spearheading the new Oxford Community Garden said that the film was one of the major inspirations for creating the garden in Oxford and […]
Tom Brokaw Chimes In
We had the chance to interview Tom Brokaw tonight for our upcoming documentary about the Presidential Debate. Mr. Brokaw was visiting Oxford to take part in a panel discussion at the Overby Center and was able to stop by and give us a great interview that will be a helpful addition to this ongoing project.
Going Whole Hog in North Carolina
This past week MDP producer Joe York traveled to eastern North Carolina where he shot a short documentary about the Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC. Pictured to the left, the Skylight Inn was named the “BBQ Capitol of the World” in 1979 by National Geographic Magazine. The Jones family, who have been cooking eastern North […]
Another Piece of the Puzzle
Today, producers Joe York and Matthew Graves traveled to Columbus to interview District Attorney Forrest Allgood for Joe’s upcoming documentary on the Mississippi Innocence Project. Pictured is Allgood going over some court documents with York. Check back for more information and updates on this ongoing project.
Senator Thad Cochran in Kinard Studio
In this blurry picture you can see U.S. Senator Thad Cochran sitting down for an interview in our studio. Senator Cochran was here to give a short P.S.A. about the Center for Natural Products Research on campus. In addition, we were able to ask him a few questions about the Presidential Debate that happened last […]
And They're Off…
This semester Joe York and Andy Harper are helping teach SST 554, Documentary Fieldwork, with Dr. David Wharton. The class has been divided into five groups and each group will produce a ten minute short documentary focusing on the intersection between local food and culture. In this short video student George Ray discusses the project […]
Hooray! for Drake and Terry
Remember the James Meredith documentary by two students from Madison Middle School that we blogged about last week? Well, it went over like gangbusters at the National History Day competition this past week, winning everything in sight! Here’s an email we received from Drake and Terry’s teacher Tom Watts at Madison Middle School: Andy and […]
"Are You Ready…" to make Documentaries?
Andy Harper and Joe York are working with David Wharton’s Documentary Fieldwork class this semester. This Southern Studies class gives undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to learn oral history techniques and the basics of documentary film making. Each of the five groups of three students will produce a short film and we will post […]
Planning for the Chucky Mullins Courage Award
Today I met with several of the organizing members of the Chucky Mullins Courage Award banquet. The event, April the 16th, will be the 20th such banquet, a number that just doesn’t seem possible. Was it really two decades ago when we were all brought to awareness of this fantastic human being? Was it really […]
