Information Warfare : Film & Video

Information Warfare: film & video screening and discussion
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia Street, SF

Saturday, November 20
2 - 4 pm
FREE


If information, in itself, is a key aspect of national, global, commercial, and political power, how is the information we consume manipulated and delivered? Please join us for an afternoon film and video screening exploring propaganda in times of war. Composed of a collection of excerpts and shorts, this screening will feature films ranging from a historical look at 1940s Hollywood-made American WWII propaganda, to a film about culture-jamming and billboard-liberation antics.

A discussion with filmmakers and media activists will follow the screening.
Featuring Louise Vance, independent documentary filmmaker and
Crescent Diamond, Berkeley Community Media programmer and video activist

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-Why We Fight (1943)
Produced by the U.S. Government War Activities Committee and directed by Hollywood legend Frank Capra, this 7-hour series was designed to rally U.S. troops to fight in WWII. Released theatrically to a pre-television American audience, the series also aimed to convince a reluctant American public to support America's entry into the war.

-Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (2002)
Traudl Junge, one of Adolf Hitler's private wartime secretaries, offers some thoughts about manipulating a nation's conscience, and what she was told would happen to Germany if the National Socialists' mission did not succeed.

-Faces of the Enemy: Reflections on the Hostile Imagination (1987)
Diffucult questions such as: Who are our enemies? How and why do we transform them into monsters? are tackled in this excerpt about soldiers' experiences in Vietnam.

-Control Room (2003)
Looks at the Al Jazeera television network and its coverage of the U.S. war on Iraq, including questions of objectivity and the killing of one of its correspondents by American missile fire in Baghdad. Control Room is a documentary that explores how truth is gathered, presented and ultimately created by those who deliver it.

-Talk Mogadishu: Media Under Fire(2003)
A decade after the disastrous U.S. humanitarian intervention in Somalia, HornAfrik, the first independent television and radio station in war-ravaged Mogadishu, was established by three Somali-Canadians in the face of chaos and devastation. Their vision: to forge a path to peace through freedom of expression, impartial news and debate, despite sometimes deadly opposition.

-Popaganda: The Art and Subversion of Ron English (2003)
A short film about the culture-jamming and billboard-liberation antics of Ron English. Ron paints, perverts, infiltrates, reinvents and satirizes modern culture on canvas, in songs, and directly on hundreds of pirated billboards.

-Vision Test (2004) Computer animation
What begins as a routine eye exam turns into an examination of people's subconscious attitudes towards race, gender and power.

-Just Say It: A Revolution in the Making (2004)
A new documentary film about becoming an artist, making a revolution and just trying to say what you mean. Starring the artists: Michael Franti, Susan Appe, Boots Riley, Diskarte Namin, Nelli Wong, Favianna Rodriguez and the filmmakers, Jennifer Gilomen and Jessica Dorfman.


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Louise Vance brings more than twenty-five years of high-level experience and top filmmaking honors to her role as media producer/director/writer. Her achievements include extensive national credits in television documentary, news and interview programs, as well as interactive CD-ROM, web-based learning and educational video. In 1985, Louise produced, directed and wrote the acclaimed two-hour TBS documentary, Iran: Behind the Veil, which garnered national attention as the first look inside Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Louise is currently in post-production on her independent documentary film, Seneca Falls, the story of nine teenage girls bound for the birthplace of women’s rights in America.

Crescent Diamond has been involved in independent film and video production for the last six years. She has produced projects that range from the highly experimental to the traditional forms of advertising, journalism, documentary and drama. She recently finished co-directing part one in a series of educational films for youth called: The Silence of Sex. Currently, Crescent is working with Radical Transmissions on Street Level TV, a monthly social-justice news program for the Bay Area. Crescent teaches video production and coordinates two public access television stations at Berkeley Community Media.

This screening is in conjunction with a gallery exhibit: Paper Bullets: A War of Words October 6 through November 20, FREE Opening Reception: Wednesday October 6, 6pm This ambitious project combines new work by Sandow Birk, Amanda Eicher, René Garcia, Mondo Jud Hart, Packard Jennings, Kara Maria, Patrick Piazza, Winston Smith & Christine Wong with material from a 50-year survey of psychological warfare & military propaganda (specifically leaflets dropped from the sky to weaken, scare, and divide military and civilian populations in times of war) from the collection of Stephen J. Hasegawa. Examining how graphics, propaganda, and psychological operations have evolved as critical tools in armed conflict. The nine participating artists engage with this history by creating new work that responds and re-contextualizes. ATTENDANT EVENTS Media Literacy in Times of War: Just Think teaches young people to understand the words and images in media, and to think for themselves Saturday, October 23, 2pm Do It Yourself: Agitprop for Beginners Saturday November 6, 2pm Terror Through the Looking Glass: A presentation on the history behind Western images of Islam with Simon Kenrick Saturday November 13, 2pm Information Warfare: Film & video screening and discussion Saturday November 20, 2pm www.theintersection.org