As a professor of documentary film history, Dr. Churchill Roberts lectures on how both the perpetrators of and the survivors of the Holocaust have used the medium of documentary film. As a film director, he has walked through the death camps of Auschwitz and Chelmno with survivors as they recounted the painful memories of what happened to them and their families.
On Tuesday, February 14 Roberts will present Reconstructing the Most Terrifying Moments of the Holocaust: A Documentary Approach. In this public lecture, he will examine the use of Holocaust survivor testimonies in documentary films, the objectives and responsibilities of filmmakers in securing these testimonies and the ethical challenges filmmakers face with these portrayals. In addition to seminal works such as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, the presentation will include an examination of a film Roberts' co-directed featuring the efforts of a WWII veteran to find Holocaust survivors he photographed during the liberation of a slave labor camp. The lecture will take place from 3:30 to 4:45 in Annenberg Forum, Carswell Hall.
The United Nations Holocaust and Outreach Programme will host a special screening of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz at the UN Headquarters in New York.
The January 25th screening is part of the United Nations' annual observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The UN has also produced a 32-page, full-color study guide to accompany the film. The study guide, available in the six official languages of the UN, and the film will be distributed to the global network of United Nations information centers (63 countries) for screenings and educational programs with students.
The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival will screen The Last Flight of Petr Ginz, "an exhilarating, moving documentary," as its closing night film on February 29. The AJFF is the second largest Jewish film festival in the United States.
Nick Corrao (MFA '11) and Jon Bougher (MFA '11) with subject Fred Kress while shooting Come On Down and Pick Me Up
CNN’s BackStory featured Jon Bougher (MFA '11) and Roman Safiullin's (MFA '11) film Bound by Haiti. Check out Telling the Story of Haiti: After the Earthquake.
DFP alums Nick Corrao (MFA '11) and Bougher continue to have success on the festival circuit. Their film, Come on Down and Pick Me Up, is slated to screen at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February. The film will also play at the 2012 Gasparilla International Film Festival in Tampa, and the 2012 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Alabama. In previous festival appearances, Come on Down and Pick Me Up was a Best Short Doc nominee at the Woodstock Film Festival and won Best Short Doc at Indie Memphis.
Award-winning producer, director and cinematographer Peter Gilbert talks about his position as Part-Time Lecturer in the Documentary Film Program.
As part of his job, Gilbert will be on campus 10-12 weeks and then will leave and continue making films during the rest of the year. Gilbert is teaching two undergraduate classes: Visual Storytelling and Entrepreneurship in the Creative and LIberal Arts. He is also helping the DFP graduate students with their thesis films during his graduate-level Master Class in Documentary Storytelling.
The Documentary Film Program brings together the storytelling passion and experience of three former members of the nationally acclaimed Documentary Institute at the University of Florida and award-winning filmmaker and Wake Forest faculty member Mary Dalton.
Wake Forest's Documentary Film Program provides an inspiring and challenging environment for aspiring filmmakers who want to learn how to craft powerful documentaries.
Offering students an MA or MFA in documentary production, the Documentary Film Program is led by faculty with a proven track record of providing students with the critical and technical skills needed to shape their creative visions into compelling, award-winning and socially significant documentary films.
The Documentary Film Program @ Wake Forest University
Box 7347, Reynolda Station | Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27109 | 336.758.3367
documentary@wfu.edu