Joe York and Andy Harper spent last weekend in Harrison, Arkansas for a screening of Mississippi Innocence as part of the Ozark Art Council fall arts series. The event, sponsored by the Harrison Community Task Force on Race Relations was outstanding and Levon and Kenny were moved by the outpouring of support from the full house in attendance. Thanks to Jamie Stevens and everyone in Harrison who helped pull the event together.
Mississippi Innocence
MISSISSIPPI INNOCENCE tells the story of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two men who combined spent over thirty years behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit.
Here is the trailer that we’ve created for the Oxford Film Festival pre-screening of Joe York’s moving film, Mississippi Innocence. Produced with Tucker Carrington and the Mississippi Innocence Project at the UM School of Law, Mississippi Innocence tells the story of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two men who combined spent over thirty years behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit. The film will screen February 11th at 5:30 and 7:00 at the Malco Theatre in Oxford. Please come out to support this project two years in the making.
Filmmaking Workshop Hi-Lites!
Here’s a little bit of behind-the-scenes action from the filmmaking workshop that Media & Documentary Projects helped put on last month. We worked with the Boys & Girls Club, the Oxford Film Festival, and local filmmakers Nitin and Deepak Mantena of Celery Studios in creating a day-long filmmaking camp for local children. Look for the finished result sometime in August (fingers crossed!)
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 annual FloraBama Insterstate Mullet Toss, oystermen on Apalachicola Bay, and beekeepers in Wewahitchka, Florida, among others.
While Joe was on the coast, the oil spilling from the failed Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico became a matter of grave concern. He decided to stay for another week and interview people along the Gulf from Florida to Louisiana about the oil spill and its impact on their lives.
In the coming weeks we’ll be sharing some of the footage Joe collected, beginning with a short piece shot at the 61st Annual Blessing of the Fleet in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
Rock It!
As a part of the week of service leading up to the inauguration of Chancellor Jones, we will be producing a retrospective look at the variety of service projects that are happening on campus. One of the events that happened last night was the “Rock the Bus” where Graduate School members collected school supplies for Mississippi Teacher Corps teachers. In addition, we’ve been following work done by the previous Academic Network piece, the Civil Legal Clinic, the School of Accountancy’s Tax Aid clinic, Computer Science’s grade school computer refurbishment program, and the Intensive English Program’s world mural fundraiser. Check back soon for more info and the finished video.
A Captive Audience
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with a journalism class at West Union High School outside of Oxford about the type of production we do here at Media and Documentary Projects. As you can see from the photo, the students were highly engaged. Just kidding. I snapped this after they left…I promise. Thanks to Greg Hawks for the invite who has already asked for a follow up visit.
-Matthew
MDP is the MAC
This week the Media and Documentary Projects Center traveled to McComb and Tupelo to address the Mississippi Arts Commission festival and event coordinator’s workshops (co-sponsored by the Mississippi Development Authority). 
Andy, Matthew, and Micah hit the road and we used this blog entry to show how easy it is to create content on the fly for websites with the WordPress application for iPhone. Thanks to Southern Studies graduate and MAC Heritage Director Mary Margaret Miller for the invitation.