Carnahan-Jackson grant bringing documentary filmmaker

Documentary filmmaker Melinda Levin, a professor at the University of North Texas, will be presenting a workshop this week on Thursday, April 19 and Friday, April 20 thanks to a grant from the Carnahan Jackson Humanities Fund of the Fredonia College Foundation. Events on the 19th will be in Thompson Hall W101, and on the 20th in the Williams Center S104.

On Thursday Professor Levin will be screening her film, "The Mayan Dreams of Chan Kom: Tourism, Migration and Changing Identities in the Yucatan." This 30-minute documentary, completed in 2006, examines the village of Chan Kom, Mexico, a traditional, peasant village in the jungles of Yucatan state. Chan Kom is an icon in anthropological research. There have been many studies done on this Maya community throughout the Twentieth Century, but this is the first visual essay of the changes facing this archetypal population. The film follows several villagers, some of whom support immigration to, and a resulting infusion of cash from, Cancun and others who do not, preferring the traditional agricultural lifestyle to the barrios of Mexico's premiere tourist destination.

She then will talk about important issues of international filmmaking practices, whle showing some footage from her visit to Israel just when the war between Israel and Lebanon broke out.  Ethics in filmmaking will be covered in her lecture. 

On the 20th of April, Professor Levin will show excerpts form her sustainable ranching film, "Minding the West: Ranching to Save the Range." The film examines scientific, political and philosophical considerations concerning environmental stewardship, the culture of ranching, collaborations between ranchers, public agents, scientists and environmentalists, and the use of grazing animals to improve land. Through interviews, archival images and present-day observational footage, the documentary also explores the economic and ecological viability of family ranches, and the idea of the "Western mystique" currently prompting the conversion of thousands of acres of working ranch into "ranchette subdivisions."

Also during her visit, the filmmaker will talk about collaboration with non-filmmakers and a new upcoming documentary on the International Rivers Network, a project to protect rivers around the world and the communities that depend upon them.  That day she will also talk about new developments on copyright issues in filmmaking.

Ms. Levin is an award-winning documentary director, editor and director of photography. Her productions have been screened at The Museum of Modern Art - New York, The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Cornell Institute on U.S.-Latin American Affairs, Human Rights in a Changing Society Conference - Israel, The Society of Applied Anthropology, FILE Web Art Show - Sao Paulo, Brazil, The Inter-Society for Electronic Arts Conference - Paris, France and PBS stations in California, Massachusetts, Montana and Texas, among other venues.

She is co-author of the book Post: The Theory and Technique of Digital, Nonlinear Motion Picture Editing, serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Film and Video.

Communications Professor Nefin Dinc can answer further questions on Ms. Levin's two-day visit.

Professor Levin is currently in production or postproduction on three documentaries, one dealing with sustainable environmental ranching in the Western United States, the second on Arab Muslim women of Israel, and a third on international rivers that serve as transnational cultural and political borders.