Join us for SHORTS FROM THE MEERKAT MEDIA COLLECTIVE for snapshots of local social movements. These short documentaries reflect on the group’s unique creative collaboration and consensus process. This program includes two brand new films: The Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Public Money, a broad look at an NYC experiment in participatory democracy told through the perspective of one neighborhood, as well as other influential Meerkat short films Into the Streets (People’s Climate March), Consensus (Direct Democracy at Occupy Wall Street) and We Got This (Occupy Sandy.) Through this review of the collective’s work, we’ll explore the role that collaboratively made media can play in social movements and confront the inherent tensions that arise when you combine art, journalism and activism.
Meerkats Alex Mallis, Dara Messinger, Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, and Zara Serabian-Arthur will be present for discussion following the program.
The Meerkat media collective is an arts collective and worker co-op production company, committed to making artful and thought-provoking films through a non-hierarchical collaborative process.
BK@24FPS is Skylight Pictures INC’s monthly Brooklyn-based screening series which highlights documentary films as a way to to expand dialogue around the intersection of human rights and art. Born out of a three-way collaboration between Skylight, UnionDocs, and WITNESS, these monthly events aim to strengthen the ties between people interested in human rights in Brooklyn and will consist of, a 10-part series of film screenings followed by a partner-moderated discussion between the filmmaker, movement actors, and the audience. During our discussions we will debate the conventional framework for human rights and challenge the definition of what constitutes human rights media.
WITNESS is an international organization that trains and supports people using video in their fight for human rights. WITNESS trains and supports activists and citizens around the world to use video safely, ethically, and effectively to expose human rights abuse and fight for human rights change.
