“What’s the Big Idea?” Clip

SUNDANCE CHANNEL ANNOUNCES SECOND ANNUAL USER-GENERATED ECO-CONTEST
“WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?”

Participants Submit
“Big Ideas” To Green The Planet

Contest Continues Until May 20th, 2008

Sundance Channel invites consumers to share their inspired eco-solutions in the second annual national contest entitled “What’s The Big Idea?” presented by Lexus Hybrid Living. The contest, in which consumers submit a short film or photo essay demonstrating how they work green, play green, eat green or live green, helps to kick off season two of Sundance Channel’s original series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet,” which launches on April 1 as part of The Green, Sundance Channel’s weekly destination focusing on environmental topics. The winner will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000 to help make their “Big Idea” a reality as well as a private green audit by “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” subject Current Energy. Four runners up will receive a Sundance Channel Green VIP Bag.

Current Energy provides energy-efficient solutions that are environmentally sensitive or advanced. Focusing on home and business systems as a whole, Current Energy saves customers money on products, services and utility bills. They are featured in “Big ideas for a Small Planet: Gadgets” airing on June 17th.

Contestants will submit their one-minute short film or photo essay featuring their “Big Idea” via www.sundancechannel.com/thegreen#/bigIdeasContest:overview between April 1 and May 20. Sundance Channel will select the top 25 entries to be viewed and voted on by users between May 27 and June 24. The five proposals to receive the most votes will be reviewed by a panel of environmental experts who will pick the winner. Pieces will be judged on creativity, overall theme, feasibility and presentation.The winner will be announced the week of July 7th.

The Green presents a lively mix of original series, documentary premieres and interstitial series about the earth’s ecology which provide viewers with ideas on how to work green, play green, eat green, dress green and live green. Its documentary presentations survey a broad scope of eco-related topics, from climate change and energy to design, fashion and architecture. “The GREEN” airs every Tuesday night at 9pm et/pt and is presented by Lexus Hybrid Living and Citi Smith Barney.

Under the creative direction of Robert Redford, Sundance Channel is the television destination for independent-minded viewers seeking something different. Bold, uncompromising and irreverent, Sundance Channel offers audiences a diverse and engaging selection of films, documentaries, and original programs, all unedited and commercial free. Launched in 1996, Sundance Channel is a venture of NBC Universal, CBS and Robert Redford. Sundance Channel operates independently of the non-profit Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival, but shares the overall Sundance mission of encouraging artistic freedom of expression. Sundance Channel’s website address is www.sundancechannel.com.

The Films of Bess Lomax Hawes B/W, 107 minutes
This DVD brings together four films by American folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes - GEORGIA SEA ISLAND SINGERS (1964), BUCKDANCER (1965), PIZZA PIZZA DADDY-O (1967), and SAY OLD MAN CAN YOU PLAY THE FIDDLE (1970) - made while at the Anthropology Department of San Fernando Valley State College. These films concentrate on performance and by implication how the performers’ aesthetics both inform and reflect societal values.

Ika Hands - SPECIAL EDITION color, 99 minutes
Here Gardner’s film about the Ika, a Mayan remnant living high in the Sierra Nevadas, is augmented by a conversation between the filmmaker and nobel laureate Octavio Paz and readings from Gardner’s journals illustrated with over 60 color photographs. This newly re-mastered DVD provides further insight not only on shamanism, but also answers to the question: What can images tell us?

John Bishop Short Films B/W & color, 87 minutes
This DVD brings together 14 short films and videos by John Bishop made between 1975-2000 broken down into three categories - documentary, observational and dance.

The Key From Spain: The Songs & Stories of Flory Jagoda color, 40 minutes
In this uplifting tale of survival and continuation, acclaimed Sephardic folksinger, Flory Jagoda, tells the story of her life, of all our lives. With warmth and passion, she sings the songs of her ancestors and contributes melodies and lyrics of her own to this timeless musical canon.

OSS Tales B/W & color, 68 minutes
Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy visited Padstow, Cornwall in 1951, producing a film, Oss Oss Wee Oss, about its May Day celebration. In 2004, filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Sabina Magliocco returned to Padstow to see how the custom was faring fifty years later. This DVD contains four films: Oss Tales (2007), Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953), Oss Oss Wee Oss Redux: Beltane in Berkeley (2004), and About the Oss Films (2007).

Running Out of Time color, 104 minutes
This documentary locates the crisis of Indian Adivasi agriculture in the larger context of Jharkhand’s political and economic history. Positing the indigenous Adivasi people and their ecosystem against overwhelming national interventions that have carved out an industrial and urban “state” in Jharkhand, it shows the fundamental impact of such development on Jharkhand’s environment and demography.

The Swahili Beat color, 28 minutes
This is an upbeat look at the remarkable history of the Swahili people of Kenya and Tanzania’s East African coast. Packed with the music and dance of its indigenous peoples, the film takes viewers along the coast from the fabled island of Lamu to Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kilwa, Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam, tracing the development of the Swahili culture through the intermarriage of Arab settlers with local Africans.

Visit our Resources page to find valuable books about documentary film. Recent additions to the list include Jean Rouch’s Ciné-Ethnography (Visible Evidence, V. 13), Robert Gardner’s Making Dead Birds: Chronicle of a Film, and the new edition of Karl Heider’s Ethnographic Film.