Media Log: General Humanities
General Humanities
Into the Future: On the Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age
Documentary
Into the Future is about the hidden crisis of the digital information age. It asks if digitally stored information and knowledge will survive into the future. Will humans twenty, fifty, one hundred years from now have access to the electronically recorded history of our time? The film features such shapers and philosophers of the Information Age as Peter Norton, founder of Norton Utilities, and Tim Berners-Lee, father of the World Wide Web. This film is a sequel to Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS: American Film Foundation and Sanders & Mock Productions, Santa Monica, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1997
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Freida Lee Mock
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Terry Sanders
EDITOR: Greg Byers
NARRATOR: Robert MacNeil
INTERVIEWS: John Seely Brown, Michael Dertouzos, Margaret Hedstrom, William Hersey, Robert Kaiser, Paul LeClerc, Peter Lyman, Susan McMahon, Deanna Marcum, Michael Martin, Peter Norton, Jeff Rothenberg, Robert Stein, Kenneth Thibodeau, Sherry Turkle, Donald Waters
FORMAT: Video (60:00 and 30:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: American Film Foundation
The Keepers: Multimedia Project, Season Two
Documentary Series (Radio) and Digital-based applications
The Keepers explores the rich, hidden world of archivists, librarians, historians, collectors, curators, and citizen keepers—keepers of the culture and the deep stories of the collections and cultures they preserve and protect: stories of history, memory, identity, accountability, social justice, and the archivist's role in protecting creative expression, freedom of speech, and promoting understanding in our global communities. Radio and podcast stories produced include:
“Louis Jones, Field Archivist, Detroit,” the grandson of a Pullman Porter, Jones has worked for over two decades building and caring for the largest labor archive in North America, including material documenting Detroit’s civil rights movement, women’s struggles in the workplace, the LGBTQ Archive of Detroit, COVID-19, and more at the Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit.
“95,000 Names—Gert McMullin: Sewing on the Frontline” follows the story of the woman who has traveled with and conserved the AIDS Quilt for over thirty-years, revealing how what we collect and why reveals much about our history, culture, politics, environment, economics, and human concerns. Covering the gay rights movement, the story addresses how collections influence our understanding and how they reflect the evolution of ideas and thinking, exploring what people thought about and reacted to the AIDS pandemic and how it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“North Beach Citizens—Keepers of Community” explores the creation and history of the volunteer organization founded by Francis Ford Coppola to grapple with the needs of homeless and unhoused people living in his neighborhood in San Francisco. Through archival interviews, memories, and reflections, the story takes us deep into the North Beach community with interviews with North Beach Citizens, volunteers, staff, clients, and poetry and stories of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the supporter and Guardian Angel of North Beach Citizens, and more.
“Floating City—Mirabeau Water Garden” Environmental architects and nuns, unlikely partners in working together as Keepers of the Community and creating a vision of "living with water" in New Orleans. Mirabeau Water Garden, one of the largest urban wetlands in the country designed to inspire, educate, and save its neighborhood from flooding.
“Climate Underground”—Al Gore, Alice Waters, farmers, chefs, scientists, entrepreneurs, policy makers, Keepers of the environment— conversations and discussions from Al Gore's 2019 Climate Summit about the role food and regenerative agriculture can play in solving the climate crisis.
“Youth On Fire”—131 youth activists, environmental Keepers, and visionaries from thirty-seven countries gathered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in August 2019 to plan and ignite change in the world. The International Congress of Youth Voices, founded by author Dave Eggers (co-founder of 826 National) and nonprofit leader Amanda Uhle.
“Winona La Duke First Born Daughter”— Ojibwe leader, two-time vice-presidential candidate for the Green Party, food activist, rural development economist, hemp farmer, Harvard graduate, first born daughter, Winona La Duke is a visionary and Keeper of Ojibwe culture. She’s the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the executive director of Honor the Earth. Most recently, she was a leader at Standing Rock fighting the Dakota Access pipeline.
The project also includes “The Keeper of the Day”— a series of short social media episodes images, video, audio, and text that convey memorable stories in concise and impactful ways. Some stories feature sound rich short audio features shared on our website, podcast, and via the large and growing community of archivists and librarians following The Keepers project.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: The Kitchen Sisters Productions
YEAR PRODUCED: 2020/2021
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Davia Nelson, Nikki Silva
PRODUCERS: Davia Nelson, Nikki Silva, Nathan Dalton, Brandi Howell, Jim McKee, Evan Jacoby
FORMAT: Podcasts are approximately 18 – 45 minutes, Keeper of The Day Social Media stories are under 2 minutes.
DISTRIBUTOR: PBS; www.kitchensisters.org, https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/kitchen-sisters-present
Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record
Documentary
Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record examines the disintegration of millions of books, newspapers, documents, photographs, drawings and maps due to the acidic content of most paper produced since the mid-nineteenth century.
PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: American Film Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
YEAR PRODUCED: 1986
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Frieda Lee Mock
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Terry Sanders
WRITERS: Ben Maddow, Terry Sanders
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Erik Daarstad
EDITOR: William T. Cartwright
NARRATOR: Robert MacNeil
AWARDS/FESTIVALS: CINE Golden Eagle; Directors Guild of America; Festival International du Film sur l’Art, Montreal; Salerno Film Festival, Grand Prix
PRINT MATERIAL: Transcript available
FORMAT: 16mm, Video (two versions, 30:00 and 60:00)
DISTRIBUTOR: American Film Foundation