#1913massacre — Public Fediverse posts

Broke: Die Hard is a Christmas movie

Woke: 1913 Massacre is a Christmas carol

#WoodyGuthrie #1913massacre #christmas #FolkMusic #ProtestMusic

Deanna Kamiel, 1946-2018

Back in September of 2012, when Ken and I had just finished 1913 Massacre, Deanna Kamiel invited us to screen our new film for her graduate documentary filmmaking class in the School of Media Studies at The New School. Like other screenings in the DOC Talk series, it included a videotaped Q & A with the filmmakers, which Deanna moderated and produced.

At the time, we were on our way to Calumet — where we would hold the first public screenings of the film at the Calumet Theatre. We were bringing the film back to where it came from, back to the town and the people it was about. When we mentioned our upcoming trip during the Q & A, Deanna said that George Stoney had done the same thing with Uprising of ‘34 (his film about the General Textile Strike in the south). That was all we needed to know we were on the right track.

Deanna kept in touch throughout our Calumet trip, and encouraged us after that to take the film to Twin Cities Public Television in Minnesota — where it was broadcast on Labor Day of 2013.

Ken emailed yesterday to let me know that Deanna had passed away over the weekend. We will remember her as a teacher, friend, and guide.

The Circle is Complete

A quick update before we leave town this morning.

We showed the film again yesterday afternoon and evening at the Calumet Theatre. The Saturday matinee crowd may have been the biggest of the three. About 1500 people came to see 1913 Massacre over the course of the weekend.

As Ken says, the circle is complete. We both feel as if this homecoming for 1913 Massacre was not just a fitting end to the journey we’ve been on as filmmakers, but an essential part of the filmmaking process. I understand in a new way why George Stoney thought filmmakers should bring their films back to places where they were shot and back to the subjects they filmed. The film wasn’t really finished until now.

Being with those Calumet Theatre audiences, and being in them, as filmmakers, was like riding a wave: the film carried us all, buoyed us up, plunged us down, hushed us, made us laugh, made lots of us cry, took us into dark places and then into the sunlight again; and the wave then carried me and Ken up on to the stage, where we were able to look out and see where we had just been.

We hadn’t all had the same experience of the film — that was evident from the discussions that followed each screening — but we’d all had a shared experience of the film. And maybe that shared experience, the sharing of this story, is what matters most. I know it matters more than our differences.

#1913Massacre #Calumet #CalumetTheatre #copperCountry #documentary #filmmaking #GeorgeStoney #ItalianHall #KeweenawNationalHistoricalPark #UP #UpperPeninsula #WoodyGuthrie