04 Dec Documentary Screenings
We Tell: Fifty Years of Participatory Community Media 
Date & Time: Friday, December 7th, 7:00 PM
Location: 20 Ames St, Bartos Theatre, Lower Level AtriumRoom E15 – 070, Wiesner Building, Cambridge, MA 02142
Free & open to the MIT community and public!
We Tell: 50 Years of Participatory Community Media, is a screening exhibition, which chronicles the histories of place-based documentaries, situating their collaborative practices in specific locales, communities, and needs for social and political change.
Join us for a screening of We Tell: Wages of Work, a compilation of short documentary films produced between 1970 and 2018 that use a participatory media making methodology to explore issues around labor in the US.
The We Tell series is a collection of films/videos that explore participatory community media produced over the last 50 some years. It was co-programmed by programmer and film scholar, Patricia Zimmermann and Louis Massiah, award-winning documentarian and the director/ founder of Scribe Video Center, a community-based media organization. The works in the series were produced by a variety of media arts centers and collectives from across the United States and Puerto Rico. The films have been packaged into six thematic programs.
The Open Documentary Lab will screen We Tell: Wages of Work, preceded by a tribute to programmer and film scholar Patricia Zimmermann.
We Tell: Wages of Work features The United Mine Workers Of America 1970: A House Divided (14 minutes); Wataridori: Birds of Paradise (38 minutes): Plena is Work, Plena is Song (37 minutes): VozMob (Voces Moviles/Mobile Voices) (3 minutes); and I’m NOT on the Menu (12 minutes) followed by a discussion with Louis Massiah.
Included in We Tell: Wages of Work:
The United Mine Workers of America: A House Divided (1971, 14 minutes) Makers: Dan Mohn, J. Benjamin Zickafoose, Appalshop
During the controversial leadership of United Mine Worker of America (UMWA) president Tony Boyle, a disabled member of the UMWA says, “If the rank and file membership don’t take over their local unions, they might as well throw up their hands and quit.”
Wataridori: Birds of Passage (1974, 38 minutes) Maker: Robert Nakamura, Visual Communications
Wataridori: Birds of Paradise (38 minutes) is a tribute to the Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) and their collective history of World War II internment and their post-war pilgrimage to the Manzanar concentration camp.
Plena is Work, Plena is Song (1989, 37 minutes) Makers: Pedro Rivera, Susan Zeig
Plena is Work, Plena is Song examines the cultural and political history of plena, a Puerto Rican musical blend of African and Spanish rhythms.
VoxMob (Voces Moviles/Mobile Voices) (2010, 3 minutes) Maker: Instituto de Educaion Popular del Sur de California
VozMob is a how-to-video about VozMob, a platform designed for immigrant and non-immigrant low-wage workers in Los Angeles
I’m NOT on the Menu (2018) Makers: Gary Brooks, Andrew Friend, Labor Beat
On September 18, 2018, fast food workers with the Fight For 15 Chicago campaign staged a walkout from fast food franchises in ten US cities over their employers’ failure to take action on sexual harassment.
There will be an after-screening discussion with the co-programmer and the audience. Refreshments will be provided. Seize the chance to delve into history, location, and politics through the lens of documentary filmmaking.