On Jan. 26, Meredith will be hosting another “Meredith College Documentary Film Festival” (MCDFF). According to the Meredith College article about the event, the festival will be free and open to the community in Kresge Auditorium from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The festival began in 2013 by its coordinator, opener and film lover Dr. Alisa Johnson. Dr.Johnson is an Associate Professor of English and Assistant Dean in the School of Arts and Humanities at Meredith. The festival will include a panel discussion of featured filmmakers moderated by Camden Watts, a Meredith alum and filmmaker.
Dr. Johnson expressed that the purpose of the MCDFF is to “provide the Meredith community with strong documentaries that speak to [the community’s] experience” both as North Carolinians and living in the South. Additionally, Dr. Johnson added that the MCDFF “contributes to the intellectual climate of the college by providing excellent films, access to filmmakers, and access to the Triangle community.”
She shared with The Herald that the films that will be shown at the festival have been chosen from local and regional filmmakers. The featured films also come from organizations like the Southern Documentary Fund Collection, ALICE Fest and the Longleaf Film Festival. Dr. Johnson’s role in selecting films includes attending “a number of festivals and preview films, and select a variety that [she] hope[s] will appeal to [the Meredith] community.” Dr. Johnson noted that there would be a mixture of short, medium length and full length documentaries, as well as animated shorts.
The festival will be split into two parts, with part one beginning at 2 p.m. The first part of the festival will feature a variety of documentaries like “A Bit of Benin” directed by Brad Herring and Adé Carrena. According to Dr. Johnson, this documentary “describes the journey of Chef Ade Carrena, who uses cooking as a way to deal with personal trauma.” Four shorter films will also be featured during part one. The second part of the festival, which will start at approximately 3:30 p.m., will feature the 85 minute film “Our Movement Begins Here.” Directed by John Rash and Melanie Dang Ho, this film “depicts the birth of the environmental justice movement in Warren County in the 1980s,” she continued.
Dr. Johnson expects “the films and the discussion to be thought-provoking, educational, and entertaining.”
This event qualifies as an Academic and Cultural Event for Meredith students.
By Destiny Calvin, Podcast Co-director
Photo and graphic by Shae-Lynn Henderson, EIC