Good morning. The first item of business is general questions. At question number one, I call Edward Mountain. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government where the new acute general teaching hospitals will be built over the next 10 years. Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson. In February 2021, the Scottish Government published its infrastructure investment plan, which outlined the Government's priorities up until 2026. The timetable for the following five-year period is still to be determined, but I would expect the next plan to be published in late 2025 or early 2026. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer. Cabinet Secretary, you'll be aware that support is growing hourly for my petition to replace Raidmore. Given the appetite in the Highlands for a brand-new hospital, will the cabinet secretary agree to meet with both the board of NHS Ireland and me to discuss that? As a Government, we are committed to investing £1 billion over the course of the next 10 years in health capital projects. That will include looking at facilities such as Raidmore when it comes to considering plans for either refurbishment or replacement programmes. We are committed to making sure that we make the right investments. I engage with NHS Ireland. I've just come from a call which involves the discussion with the chief executive of NHS Ireland to look at what further investments are necessary. Of course, the member will be aware that we have just opened the new national treatment centre in Highland at the cost of almost £50 million. Over the course of the past two years, we've sought to new community hospitals being provided, one in Raidmore and the other in Skye, both at £18 million and £20 million worth of investment. We have also agreed to take forward work in the redesign of services in Loch Arbor, which will see the replacement of the Belford hospital going forward. I can assure the member that we are very much committed to making sure that we continue to invest in healthcare in the Highlands and that we continue to do that in a way that is planned with the local health board. It is important that we learn lessons from recent NHS capital investment projects elsewhere in the UK. As we know, in England, 10 of the 40 new hospitals pledged by Boris Johnson have faced lengthy delays in the results of not having full planning permission needed to go ahead. Can the cabinet secretary advise what steps can be taken to guard against similar delays being experienced here and can he provide any further information about anticipated pressures facing capital investment in NHS hospitals, given the difficult economic context? In order to avoid the type of scenarios and problems that have been impacting on the hospital capital investment programme in England, we created NHS Scotland Assure, which has got a very specific purpose in making sure that it has a thorough analysis and challenges every part of our capital investment programme in health in order to make sure that there is appropriate governance and that we have the appropriate permissions etc in place, including planning before capital projects are able to start to specifically avoid the types of problems that they have been having in England. The member is also right to highlight that construction inflation has had a significant impact on capital expenditure. If we look at the spring budget announced by the UK Government, we anticipate by 2024-25, we see a 16 per cent reduction in our capital budget here in Scotland as a result of the cuts being made by the UK Government in capital expenditure, which, of course, has an impact on our ability to invest in new projects. More of that will be set out in the course of the medium-term financial strategy, which will be published later today by the finance secretary. To ask the Scottish Government how it can support the Sudanese community living in Scotland in light of the on-going humanitarian crisis in Sudan. The Scottish Government stands with the international community and communities across Scotland in our shared deep concern over the violence in Sudan. This particularly impacts the Sudanese community living in Scotland, many of whom have friends and relatives who are directly affected. On 10 May, I met representatives of the Sudanese community in Scotland, alongside representatives from the national health service and third sector support organisations. That was a starting point for dialogue about how we can support the Sudanese community in Scotland, including ensuring that Sudanese nationals living here are aware of support services that they can access and where necessary, raising issues with the UK Government. I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer. I would be very helpful if some of those signposting bits of information could be shared with colleagues as this is an on-going situation. In my role as committee convene, I met Sudanese health workers online from across the UK. Those are from senior staff, senior consultants through nurses to support services in our NHS, each a vital cog in making our NHS work. Some of their colleagues who work for the NHS were in Sudan at the time that the crisis arose. Others have gone back to bring friends and family to safety, particularly elderly parents and children, but they find themselves now in Egypt and Dubai unable to attain family visas. Can the cabinet secretary ensure that he is making these representations to the Home Office about the situation, as those are vital workers in our communities? First, I think that Clare Adamson is absolutely right to highlight the role of Sudanese nationals and people of Sudanese descent working in our national health service. It is very important to understand quite how many there are and they deserve our recognition and our support. Secondly, in terms of signposting information, which individual MSPs may wish to share with Sudanese nationals and constituents, I undertake to share that information with her and other MSPs. As asylum and immigration, however, is reserved, this is a matter that we are impressing the UK Government on. I have written to the foreign secretary and the cabinet secretary for social justice to call for safe and legal routes and arrangements for family reunion to be put in place. Those must be flexible enough to enable people forced to leave Sudan to safely come to the UK and join families who already have leave to remain here. I will take a supplementary from Foisal Chowdry, but before I do, I would be grateful for concise questions and responses from Foisal Chowdry. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The situation in Sudan is not improving. Almost one million people have been displaced just one month into conflict and neighboring countries are already overwhelmed with refugees. What discussion have the Scottish Government had with the UK Government about the possible influx of the refugees coming from Sudan if the conflict continues indefinitely? Foisal Chowdry will have heard my previous answer when I talked about the communication between myself and the UK Government, my cabinet secretary, colleague and the home office on this question. He is absolutely right to ask this question. What is it that we can do to help families come together in this time of need? I will be happy to work with him and colleagues across the chamber to do what we can to impress on the UK Government their responsibilities. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership and what was discussed. Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with representatives of all health and social care partnerships, including South Lanarkshire, to discuss matters of importance to local people. The cabinet secretary chaired an introductory meeting with the integration joint board chief officers, chairs and vice chairs on Wednesday 17 May, and a representative of South Lanarkshire IJB was in attendance. Integration progress and priorities and seasonal planning were discussed. Can the minister provide an update on the Scottish Government's work to support the provision of pallid of care, as well as on discussions with the hospice sector on a potential budget uplift to help retain and hire new staff? As the minister knows, Colbride hospice in East Colbride is Scotland's youngest hospice, and they do not yet have the same legacy donations as others do. Will the minister or officials be able to meet with representatives of Colbride hospice to discuss their unique situation? The Scottish Government is considering the issues that the hospice sector raised at its meeting in March with the then cabinet secretary for health and social care and minister for public health, women's health and sport, including immediate and longer-term funding issues. It is the responsibility of the IJBs to plan and commission adult palliative and end-of-life care services for their areas using the integrated budgets under their control. My officials are therefore engaging with health and social care partnerships and with the Scottish hospice sector representatives in relation to those issues, and have also met separately with Colbride hospice on 10 May to hear of their specific concerns. Colbride hospice and all other hospices are facing a funding crisis. There is just a third of their money that is statutory given the rest being having to be raised. So when is the hospice sector actually going to find out for definite how much money they are going to get from government? I thank Graham Simpson for that question. My officials are working as we speak with regards to looking at the issues that are in the concerns that the hospice sector have in Scotland. I am looking forward to working more closely and also visiting some of the hospices to understand directly their concerns. To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring that opportunities for continuing professional development are regularly available to our healthcare professionals. NHS Scotland staff have access to good quality training and professional development opportunities both through clinical training and a tourist learning platform. All staff can expect support from their employer to help them to acquire new skills to meet the demands of their posts. Personal development planning and review policy is being refreshed as part of the Once for Scotland policy programme, ensuring that learning opportunities are available to NHS Scotland staff. Agenda for change review is also being conducted where protected time for learning is an immediate priority area. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Throughout my time on health and sport committee as well as petitions there were consistent calls for GPs and healthcare professionals to receive more information on a range of conditions like ME or Lyne disease or Huntington's. In Covid recovery there is a call for GPs to receive specific training to recognise long Covid. However, regular CPD sessions stopped during Covid as our healthcare professionals dealt with a single issue. The chief executive of Ersin Arran told me that we must restore CPD opportunities for GPs if we are to retain them. What will the Scottish Government do to restore those opportunities for CPD for our GPs and give them the tools that they require to ensure the very best of healthcare? We provide a range of training opportunities and Nes have a considerable level of online programmes that are available, including in-person training for healthcare professionals and general practitioners covering a range of areas. General practitioners are part of their own CPD work. I have a requirement to ensure that they maintain a knowledge of new and developing conditions as well. Clearly, as we recover from the pandemic, scope for greater provision of training is an area that we want to see further progress on. That is why, through some of the work that we are doing, through Once for Scotland and also through the Agenda for Change review, we want to make sure that we are providing a much broader range of training available to healthcare professionals across NHS Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to modernise the fire state. Minister Siobhan Brown. Steps to modernise the fire service state and our decisions for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to make. The Scottish Government has provided a capital budget of £32.5 million for £23 to 24, and the allocation of its capital budget, including whether to prioritise fleet equipment or the fire service state, is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Kate Clark. This month's freedom of information responses to my office confirmed the poor state of Scotland's fire estate, with around 45 per cent of fire stations assessed as being either in bad or poor condition. Four fire stations are known to have no running water and many have inadequate showering facilities, although we know the toxins that firefighters come into contact with are carcinogenic. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is failing its duty of care towards firefighters, so will the Scottish Government commit to an emergency funding package to address these issues? Minister. Thank you. I agree that the safety of firefighters should be our priority. The fire stations with the least facilities are in the remote locations and deal with very few incidents. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has introduced procedures to ensure that firefighters in these locations have workable solutions to ensure that contaminated PPE is dealt with safely. I recently had the pleasure of bringing my members' debate to the chamber to recognise Firefighter's Memorial Day and support the FPU's decon campaign. However, there is also widespread support from the STUC, Scottish Hazards and many other individual trade unions for health and safety legislation, to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Given the Tory's race to the bottom when it comes to workers' rights and the disappointment over Labour's parking idea during the Smith commission, does the minister support those calls and will she press the UK Government to support them? Minister. I thank the member for the question. The FPU decon campaign highlights exactly why we need health and safety powers devolved to this Parliament as a matter of urgency, so I'm happy to support the call. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the culture secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding what support it can provide to communities to establish and operate community-owned libraries. Minister, Christina McKelvie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I meet regularly with my ministerial colleagues to discuss many cross-cutting issues, including that of libraries. The Scottish Government's current support for libraries is through our annual funding to the Scottish Library and Information Council, who provide leadership, advocacy and advice on public library matters. More broadly, we provide support to communities to take forward meaningful cultural and creative activity through schemes such as our culture collective programme. I thank the minister for that answer. Strathblane Community Development Trust recently opened the first newly built community-owned public library facility in Scotland for many years. The Thomas Graham library will see services operated in partnership with Stirling Council. Does the minister join me in congratulating the efforts of Strathblane Community Development Trust and does she feel that this model could be replicated elsewhere? Yes, absolutely. Thomas Graham community library is an incredible achievement by the community. It is the first community and council partnership to deliver public library services in Scotland. I think that that is important to mark that. Libraries are a part of Scotland's social fabric. They have a long-standing reputation as a safe place and is free and open to all, meaning that they are uniquely placed in communities across Scotland and are capable of promoting meaningful change. I know that the Thomas Graham community library is a sustainable model and one of which the Scottish Library and Information Council was keen to encourage. I congratulate them on the work that they are doing and hopefully we will be replicating that across the board. To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to improve patient access to dental services. We are working closely with the dental sector to ensure that it has the support necessary to offer access to NHS care for patients. That includes Scottish Government providing Scottish Dental Access Initiative grants and recruitment and retention allowances to dentists and dental practices in qualifying areas. The Scottish Dental Access Initiative grant pays out a potential £100,000 for the first surgery and £25,000 per additional surgery to practices setting up a new NHS practice or extending an existing NHS practice. The recruitment and retention allowance provides up to £37,500 across three years to eligible NHS dentists. The current funding model for NHS dentistry is broken. Basic NHS procedures like dentures or extraction are delivered at a loss and there are now no practices taking on new NHS patients in South Ayrshire. Moral is at an all-time low and we are seeing an exodus from the NHS dental workforce. What are you doing to fix this? I thank the member for the question. Dentistry has been raised a lot in this chamber over the last week while and I recognise that there are concerns about it. However, we are working incredibly closely with dentists to find a suitable process and fee structure that will support them to ensure that we have a sustainable dentist service in Scotland that also provides NHS care too. Liam McArthur Minister, our early comment in relation to recruitment and retention will recognise that there are particular issues in rural and island areas. Could the minister give her a reassurance that any allowance, any support for recruitment and retention will not be sped so thinly as to be ineffective in delivering the additional capacity that we need in rural and island areas? As he points out, retention is such an important piece of funding. My officials have looked very closely as to where that should be concentrated to get the best results.


Good morning, and welcome to the third and final day of the Films of State Conference. My name is Oliver Geichen. I'm an associate professor at the University of Maryland College Park, and I'll be the moderator for this panel, Government and Its People. I'm going to briefly introduce the panelists, then we will watch their presentations and proceed to a question and answer period at any point during the talks. And thereafter, you can type your questions into the question and answer box. Our first presenter today is Noah Tzika, an associate professor at Queens College, CUNY. He has written four books, Gods and Monsters, a queer film classic, Nollywood Stars, Media and Migration in West Africa and the Diaspora, Pink 2.0, Encoding Queer Cinema on the Internet, Traumatic Imprints, Cinema, Military Psychiatry and the Aftermath of War. And a program note, Professor Tzika will not be able to join us for the Q&A today, but he did send in his talk, which we will start with. The second presentation today is by Tanya Goldman, a PhD candidate in Cinema Studies at New York University. Her work has appeared in Cineas, Cinema Journal, Feminist Media Histories, Film History and the edited volume Screening Race in American Non-Theatrical Film. Tanya will be followed by Stephen Charbonneau, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University. He has written a book entitled Projecting Race, Post-War America, Civil Rights and Documentary Film, and he's currently writing a second book entitled Stony, A Committed Life, A Committed Cinema, about the documentarian George C. Stony, whose filmmaking frequently took place in the context of government projects. Finally, we will hear a presentation by Catherine Harrington, a graduate student in the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University. Her presentation today is drawn from her dissertation, which considers prison media from the 1970s forward. And as on all of our panels, we're also joined by a member of the National Archive staff. This the member today is Alexandra Geitz, who is a supervisory archivist. So those are the introductions. Please enjoy the presentations. My name is Noah Seca. I'm a professor of media studies at Queens College City University of New York. And I'm going to be sharing some research conducted for a forthcoming book on Hollywood's incursions into post-independence Nigeria. The book is forthcoming from the University of California Press, and like my previous books, it draws extensively on government documents housed at the National Archives. Most useful are the records of the U.S. Department of State, which detail all manner of consular and corporate attempts to make sense of post-colonial Nigeria. Such documents indicate the intense interest with which newly independent Nigeria was viewed by U.S. government officials and Hollywood insiders alike. As Eric Smudden notes, historians had paid relatively little attention to Hollywood's foreign markets and almost none to Nigeria. The same cannot be said, however, either for the U.S. government or for Hollywood companies, as State Department records alone attest. When in 1948 the American trade paper The Film Daily asked, can Hollywood movies be so bad when they inspire gals in Nigeria? It established certain rhetorical norms for those who sought to describe and excuse the industry's ongoing incursions into the African continent. But it was also drawing on the U.S. government's own ways of advancing Nigeria's Americanization. By 1963, the United States Information Agency, USIA, was announcing that Hollywood's image was not so bad in post-independence Nigeria, where, according to the agency's statistics, among those who cannot read, an average of 38% are regular moviegoers. That the movies to which such Nigerians subjected themselves were Hollywood productions was an article of faith at the USIA, whose professional surveys, reportedly conducted by independent and partial institutes of public opinion, and initially reserved for official use only, found that preference for and enjoyment of Hollywood films was pronounced. And that impressions of America obtained from these films are generally favorable. Beginning as early as the 1950s, Nigeria was also the subject of U.S. Department of Commerce publications that stressed the country's promise for, among other pursuits, theatrical exhibition. These two were generative speech acts, performative reflections of the need to establish overseas markets and investment outlets. Articulations have entwined national and business interests. They suggest a certain kinship between Hollywood and the US government that standard film histories with their focus on federal antitrust legislation and other state-imposed impediments tend to belie. By the middle of the 20th century, Nigeria had become a key site in which such entwinement, such state private symbiosis, could be elaborated, including in the arena of theatrical exhibition. United Artists Production Executive Stephen Bach, whose company was installed in Nigeria by 1961, noted that practices very much like block booking were still common internationally and actively supported by the US government, even after the major studios entered into a consent decree with the US Department of Justice in 1948. What was forbidden at home was permitted, even actively encouraged, abroad, making decolonizing population-dense Nigeria one of the cauldrons in which an ostensibly Americanizing stew could, by mid-century, be stirred. In the spring of 1960, the US Department of Commerce announced that Nigeria exhibited more than average promise for the expansion of American exports, including cinematic ones. Hollywood, which has always enjoyed considerable diplomatic backing, proved especially responsive to the discourses of Nigerian exceptionalism, circulating in and through the international diplomatic community. Consider, for instance, Arnold Rivkin's 1962 description of Nigeria as an oasis of democratic development in an arid desert of authoritarian inclined African states. The director of MIT's Project on African Economic and Political Development, Rivkin considered Nigeria a unique nation, exceptional both on its own sociocultural and certainly mineral terms, and as a potentially economically strong and politically stable ally of the West, it integrated into the global capitalist order. In 1961, Rivkin would inform the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that Nigeria was a society very responsive to economic incentives, and his confidence in the country was borne out by the decision of Hollywood studios to set up permanent offices there, which they did by 1962. Nigeria, what Rivkin extending his exceptionalist rhetoric called an oasis of rationality in a sea of unreason, was considered a natural home for Hollywood interests committed to expansion after the collapse of the studio system. Notwithstanding the industry's active interest in South Africa and Zimbabwe, Hollywood embraced Lagos in the 1960s in ways that echoed the U.S. Department of State's view of Nigeria as the most important country in Africa. Praising Nigeria in the wake of independence in 1960 was the State Department's way of building on its earlier pre-independence articulation of the African continent's significance as a geographical area four times the size of the U.S., producing minerals and primary agricultural products of great importance to America. Outside of the State Department, but hardly untethered to it, the Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations were committed to demonstrating the cultural and economic value of Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, bolstering U.S.-backed economic planning units, including at the University of Efe. Their efforts may have been mired in superficial generalizations, such as prejudice and blind faith and the rational methods of the social sciences, but they were remarkably effective, exerting a pull on Hollywood studios already drawn to Nigeria and all too happy to accept and even trumpet social scientific justifications for their collective commercial interest in Lagos. That Nigeria was, around the time of independence, frequently a testing ground for American media companies, with everything to do with its exceptionality, its population size, vast reserves of natural resources, especially oil, and initially incontestable promise as a major world economy. Nigeria was the first African country to receive a substantial development grant from the United States, a $225 million independence gift offered in 1961. Surprisingly, given this broad commitment to capital development, a kind of Nigeria-first policy of Hollywood internationalism, a belief in Nigeria's status as bellwether of Africa's challenges and opportunities had matured by the early 1960s, uniting the industry's needs across media forums and practices as they consistently coalesced around an emerging nation of great and growing potential. Thank you for having me. I'm Tanya Goldman, a PhD candidate in cinema studies at NYU, and I'll be talking about how the U.S. Treasury Department enlisted non-theatrical film distributors in its war-bond drive campaigns. I contend that the prominent place of non-theatrical films within these drives and the millions of Americans who attended and sometimes even organized local screenings helped pave the way for the mass adoption of 16-millimeter film in the post-war period. On October 29, 1945, the U.S. Treasury Department launched its Victory War-bond Drive. This campaign was the eighth such drive organized by the Department's War Finance Division since 1942 and marked the culmination of four years of extensive activity that drove millions of Americans to buy government saving bonds, generating over $100 billion in revenue. In the weeks prior to the drive, 16-millimeter distributors and community organizers across the country received notices from the Office of War Information and special events campaign booklets from the Treasury to help them prepare for the drive. Accompanying the booklet was a five-and-a-half-minute informational film, a review of coming attractions for what the Treasury promised was, quote, the most powerful 16-millimeter film program yet developed, end quote. Recipients held preview screenings of this film for local journalists and bond-selling representatives to get the word out. Here are some excerpts from the film. The motion picture and special event section of the War Finance Division of the United States Treasury presents your most comprehensive program for the Victory Loan. Here's a program of service for all committees in all communities, promotion events and ideas for agriculture, industrial, banks, retail, schools, and women's committees. Treasury films for the Victory Loan are the best yet produced. 15 dramatic bond-selling motion pictures are available for you in this drive. 16-millimeter Victory Loan film distributors will have quantities of prints on hand enough to service every community. They open the doors for you to tell your bond-selling story at your county and city schools, retail stores, banks, industrial plants, civic clubs. Number one film of the Victory Loan with a dramatic message from President Truman. A picture filled with the drama of the jungle war for the lifeline to China, fistful of hard-hitting film bulletins from the Navy, and three Victory Loan screen songs help to round out your lineup of 16-millimeter films. They're yours to help finish the job. In what follows, the film lists several special event tie-ins, including a national parade day scheduled for October 29th. The film also urged organizers to collaborate with local theater owners, and here is the ending of the film. Watch your mail for flash bulletins. Share you the latest news about motion pictures and special events. Study your special events campaign book for local promotion suggestions. Service to help you finish the job is our slogan. When the drive ended in mid-December, the Treasury reported more than 146,000 non-theatrical screenings. They had occurred in all 48 states, Puerto Rico, and at domestic army and Navy bases from coast to coast. Non-theatrical networks had reached an audience exceeding 32 million Americans, which was only one million less than during the previous record-setting Seventh Warbond Drive, which took place before the armistice with Japan. Scholars such as Greg Waller and Heidi Wasson have noted that 16-millimeter truly came of age during the Second World War. This was particularly the case within the context of the military's use of 16-millimeter for training films, tactical purposes, and more. Significantly less attention has been paid to how non-theatrical networks and government-sponsored films were mobilized on the home front to help win the war by communicating with civilians about how they could do their part to support the war effort. Quite analogous to the U.S. Army, domestic activities also required tremendous tactical coordination. In bringing informational films to communities nationwide, bank lobbies, department stores, factories, libraries, and more transformed into makeshift movie theaters. In the time that remains, I will sketch the behind-the-scenes bureaucratic and logistical processes that propelled non-theatrical films from coast to coast during warbond drives. Within days of Pearl Harbor, FDR famously proclaimed that movies would help win the war. In June 1942, he created the Office of War Information to streamline propagandistic activities previously taking place across disparate government offices. In August 1942, the OWI's non-theatrical division launched an ambitious production schedule for civilian informational films and announced plans to appoint three regional 16-millimeter distribution directors to manage regional affairs outside New York and D.C. Monthly bulletins kept an ever-growing contingent of distributors, film depositories, and organizers abreast of forthcoming productions and tactics to efficiently keep all films and the nation's 25,060-millimeter projectors in constant operation. Unfortunately, these ambitious plans were scaled back following dramatic congressional budget cuts in the summer of 1943. Non-theatrical division remained. Individual government offices were now tasked with commissioning their own films, and the OWI unit would serve as a liaison between production agents and distributors. The U.S. Treasury formally incorporated non-theatrical film screenings into its promotional plan during the Fifth War Bond Drive in the spring of 1943. Film would remain a part of all three of its subsequent drives in 44 and 45. One star of our story is Ted Gamble, a prominent film exhibitor from the Pacific Northwest, who joined the Treasury's War Finance Division to promote bond sales early in the war. On the 16-millimeter front, our stars are C.R. Reagan and Maryman H. Haltz. A Texas native, C.R. Reagan, president of the National Association of Visual Education Dealers, served as head of the OWI's non-theatrical division throughout the war. He worked closely with Maryman Haltz, the Treasury's designated 16-millimeter consultant. These men, in turn, were supported by a national 16-millimeter film committee composed of business leaders from across the country. From this advisory leadership, coordination efforts trickled down. For all four bond drives, each state was designated a 16-millimeter state chairman who, in turn, was tasked with communicating with local 16-millimeter exhibitors across the state. War bond drives were driven by tremendous local initiative. On the left, you'll see an ad from Filmworld, a 16-millimeter trade journal that's asking for local projectionists to participate in war bond drive film screening efforts. Catherine Kramer-Brownwell has written about the activities of J.E. Morton, a Michigan-based auto worker and father of a soldier who organized screenings in his community. From her essay here on the right is a drawing from the National Archives collection of a flyer developed for a program in the state of Tennessee. To wrap up, what this talk hopes to show is that bringing nonfiction film to American civilians during the Second World War required tremendous tactical coordination among a diverse ecosystem of players. This process entailed unprecedented collaboration between government bureaucrats and consultants, non-theatrical and visual education industry leaders, and hundreds of distributors, as well as the can-do initiative of local civic groups and patriotic individuals. In this way, millions of Americans directly participated in nonfiction film culture for the first time. And through these wartime experiences, cinema became knowable as a distinctively civic practice on a mass scale, anticipating the film council movement and mass expansion of the educational film market in the post-war period. Thank you. And now a salute to the conference organizers and to all of the archives who have made my research possible. As we're now well into year two of COVID-19, I am more grateful than ever for the digitization efforts of the National Archives and the Media History Digital Library. And so many of the great visuals from the trade publications in this presentation came from the Media History Digital Library. And here is a list of scholarly works that have informed this presentation. And finally, don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like to discuss this work further. My name is Stephen Sharper, and I'm an associate professor of film studies at Florida Lanark University. And my presentation is entitled, Splitting the Screen, Urban Rebellion, Participatory Documentary, and Preferred Object. The experiences, the film experiences, the films, the documents represented here in this presentation are referred to here were found in the National Archives. And so this research comes out of research directly connected to the National Archives. The materials are I've worked with before I published on written on already, but I'm also sharing them because I'm continuing to find myself returning to these materials as new archival records get processed. I find myself returning to them, and also putting them into new critical frameworks as well. I'm finding new productive ways to re-engage this material. So the context here is my research in general into documentary, Canadian documentary filmmaking, and especially participatory documentary filmmaking. And so the even more specifically, this research focused on the development of a Canadian participatory documentary model known as the film process. And this was designed by Colin Lowe, Julian Biggs, and others when they as filmmakers associated with the National Film Board of Canada and the Challenge for Change program. They, they sought to make, they reimagined filmmaking in relation to social change. And there was a sense that when making a film about a community, one is better off abandoning the old model, traditional model of making a documentary film about others and instead to involve those that community members of that community in the filmmaking process itself to instead of make one film you make many, in fact, dozens of shorter films that involve the community members in the production of those films. And then you screen them in town within a few weeks even possibly of shooting the film and use those screenings as a way to prompt discussion, debate, and in fact, new ways, hopefully, of seeing the community seeing oneself and seeing the social problem or political issue that's dividing the community. And so these smaller films are described as vertical films by Colin Lowe. And for him, it was, they, these were vertical because they refuse the horizontal imposition of the filmmaker when editing a longer form documentary. And so these were sometimes edited for sure but very simply edited sometimes featuring simple two shots of members of the community talking about their lives talking about an issue of concern to them in the community. And so these vertical films were meant to be slices of life, either works of portraiture or works of quiet observation of community activities. It was a safe mode quote unquote because the filmmaker would be relatively less invested in communicating a point of view. Supposedly, it was allowing the people involved to speak about an issue that concerns them and so in that sense there was a sense of greater sense of yielding to the subject. And if the camera may be still in control of the filmmaker there's sense of collaboration editorial advising and then of course the exhibition itself the film was not an endpoint the film was a means to an end. And so it was a means to discussion and consideration. So, animating all of this is a kind of ideology of liberal solutionism of a sense that intractable social political problems could possibly be mitigated by just having people simply listen or bear witness to their neighbors in ways they aren't in a way that maybe only cinema can engender and that in seeing the world in a way perhaps some sort of resolution will be arrived at so this is a kind of liberal idealism solutionism animating this filmmaking process and in you can see here actually a cover of a report submitted by Colin low scribed as three dimensional communication. And again they did not talk about these films as films per se they really saw this as less medium specific and really about the potentials of new modes that could deal with social conflict. And this idea of a safe mode, this idea of verticality, which the verdict in which the filmmaker yields control on some level or tries to blunt their impact on the film, I think is precisely something you know I've always, I've tried to communicate some sort of critique of and I think that's precisely something we should be critical of is that sense of presumed immediacy, especially when dealing with humans were human rights documentaries and who's around gone wrote about this in her excellent book and mediations, reminding us about this trope of immediacy when it comes to documentary, often made in the guy under the assumption that we're in an emergency situation that that language of immediacy needs to be changed. And I think that gives us such a useful and powerful concept to to engage to use to engage critically engage these films that otherwise seem so simple. And so the eventually the DC policymakers in Washington DC, and at the Office of Economic Opportunity sought to import and apply this participatory filmmaking approach to Hartford Connecticut and this was in 1969 about the first year of the Nixon administration. And there was, of course, widespread unrest around social injustice issues of racial inequality. And this was the case in many American cities as we all know, especially in Hartford that Puerto Rican communities were organizing and protesting persistent and trench inequalities around education, health care and employment, etc. And so as they're going into Hartford low is has anxiety about how they're going to be able to make connections with people on the ground. Now, eventually they have a new crew member joins them in Hartford and this is Charles butch Lewis who was the founder of the Black Panther Party chapter in Hartford, and he's also a former Vietnam vet and he and respected, you know, leader in the community, African American community. And so Bush Lewis decides to assist the filmmakers with this, the endeavor, and which they sought out to make, you know, two dozen or more short films about Hartford and the issues facing Hartford. And Lewis is not so certain that this will accomplish anything but Lewis also realizes that it's a chance for it might, and it also is a chance for him to learn filmmaking skills that he could apply in a professional sense to so we saw it really kind of cleverly as just like a good way to learn some filmmaking skills. And so Lewis made, you know, and co produced several of the many of the films that were associated with the Hartford project about two dozen of these were filmed one of which I was going to show here is features butch Lewis himself, along with Professor Oscar Walters three years in Connecticut talking about their establishment of a street Academy for African American youth in Hartford, especially when the white school public schools were failing their, their youth so they talk a little bit about that in this film and you'll notice again the safe mode, simple two shot, allowing the subject to speak about their lives and their experiences, but of course I think this adoption of a safe mode is also reflects a certain kind of liberal solutionism that was animating the whole endeavor as well as even the OEO at the time. So why don't we listen to a brief clip from this and watch. Electric bass, guitar, drums, Academy had its own drums. So students played out in the backyard. Most of everybody in the neighborhood came out and sit out in the grass and listen and went to a photography field. A lot of students got something out of it. We're with sand building downstairs. This is how their photo lab started in a sense. We use Polaroid land cameras a lot. Students learning how to use cameras. This is one field. Hopefully some of the students that did get something out of it will get a chance to get something out of it again in September after Academy started without the funding like I said before. All of the various organizations that we don't, we cannot function under. No student Academy in the Hartford area available. A student Academy in the Hartford area could never function under these Pacific organizations that I named. The main problem is, like what you're saying, we had ideas in terms of education, say like using the Polaroid land cameras to sort of bring out things that a child or a student, a young man, might normally be inhibited about bringing out. In the interest of time, I'm going to stop there. I find it really interesting to hear they talk about the use of the cameras with the students and letting the students creatively express themselves with the cameras and that also allowing for them to open up in interesting ways. There's just an interesting synchronization between the way they talked about their education model and also the way that the discourse around the Pogo process evolved as well. So but at the same time, so again, these films are fascinating for the personalities for the communities for the kind of issues that get highlighted. So there's a real historical value to these films that as a film media scholar I also want to be aware of and be critical of the the ideological suppositions behind these films about assuming that in some ways. I think the assumption is that the real problem is a failure to communicate a failure to truly see a failure to truly listen, as opposed to really sort of grappling with deeper structural issues. But you know there's a tension here people are talking about those structural issues in the films, but at the same time it also seems like the endeavor overall with the communication project this three dimensional communication is also very limited. So I'm going to stop there in the interest of time. Thank you very much. Well, I am Dr Harrington and I'm going to be talking about the correctional officer series. It's an archived in the Bureau of President Records at the National Archive and Records Administration. These films are dated from 1976 to 1981. And they're produced by Charles Cahill and associates. And there's more films than the ones that are actually available at the National Archive. But the National Archive has the most cohesive collection of them so there's about 40 films in the series, but there's 18 that you can actually find at NARA all together in this collection which is the most I was able to find anywhere. And I'm going to talk to you today about why these films are interesting. What kind of discussion they can be sort of productive of. And I also have an article that I wrote about several of these films that goes into more depth than this presentation can sell the citation for that is at the end of my presentation so I just wanted to let you all know that that's available if you find it interesting. So, these are the films we're talking about. Variety of topics here you've got cell searches, dining room conduct, you've got physical exercise and diet. So some things that are kind of like daily tasks, daily concerns and then you have some less mundane concerns around things like crisis negotiation as in if you're taking hostage from the 1981 film. So, variety of lengths, variety of topics here. And there's some sort of interesting challenges in terms of this film series being applicable applicable for a variety of context, excuse me context. But one thing that I want to say before we get into that is just that there is a very important context in terms of the national conversation about incarceration happening at this time. And the Attica Rebellion is really key to that. So, if you're not aware in 1971, right after the killing of George Jackson and San Quentin State Prison, the Attica Rebellion occurred. Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York at the time, ordered state troopers to take over Attica Prison, the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York. And as a result, 39 lives were lost, right? There was an investigation afterwards. There was a lot of media coverage of this. And one of the results of that was the Attica Report, which has a textual version and also was televised. And you can actually find the televised version, a tape of the televised version at NARA at the National Archives. So that's available. But there's a lot of criticism of corrections as a profession, as a field and as a group of people that comes out of the Attica Report and the general coverage of the Attica Rebellion. So it's a pretty important context for this series, especially considering, you know, this series can be considered part of a general push to professionalized training, right? And that push didn't come from nowhere. It was partly in response to criticism, right? So getting back to kind of what I referenced earlier, one of the challenges of a series like this is that there's a general push to professionalize and within professionalization there's this idea of standardization. But corrections facilities and policies in the United States have never been standardized, right? The carceral landscape is a localized sort of collection of institutions. Institutions have their own ideas about how to facilitate proper dining conduct. They have their own building layouts that really impact what their policies are as well, right? So that's part of the reality that the correction law for a series is dealing with, right? So as a result, the series consistently asserts itself as applicable to a variety of contexts because it doesn't have the specific institutional and state regulation particulars, right? So for example, in cell searches and narrator states, there are differences across institutions, but for everyone you have to be systematic, be thorough, and be curious, right? They use these title cards. In dining room conduct in 1978, in the narrator states, since every institution is so different, this program won't review seating procedures, but in every case, it's your attitude and your alertness that determines how effective you are, right? So there's a lot of emphasis on attitude. There's a lot of emphasis on these kind of very general qualities rather than didactic instruction, right? The Correctional Officer series frames itself ironically for training film and for prison film, not as a condescending institutional directive, but as an occasion for contemplating one's own experiences, knowledge, and attitude as a corrections officer. The Correctional Officer series consistently offers itself not as an authority, but as an opportunity for self-reflection and development, to a certain point. This is not to say that the series is evacuated of concrete examples and routines, but rather that the purpose of displaying routine is often framed as an example of the correct approach to the task as opposed to being one that should be exactly replicated. So what I'm basically trying to highlight here is that one of the things that's really interesting about the Correctional Officer series is that it can't deal with the really fine grain sort of policy and procedure in terms of the everyday. And that leaves a lot of space to actually talk about what is the job of a corrections officer? How should they go about it in terms of attitude, in terms of the resultant relationship with the incarcerated? How does society consider corrections, right? There's a lot of space for talking about these sort of bigger, perhaps more philosophical considerations. So that's my introduction to the Correctional Officer series. There's a lot more that we could talk about here. There's a lot of sort of negotiating anxieties around gender and sexuality and race. That also comes up in this material, but I wanted to sort of from the offset kind of give you the larger view of one of the sort of entryways into why this series is interesting and how it can be productive of how instructional film itself can also be very interesting. All right. Thank you very much. Okay, if I could ask the panelists to rejoin, turn your cameras and your microphones back on. We will get started with the question and answer period, and I will start with a question for Tanya. The question is as follows, you characterized your objective study, the complex system of film distribution and screening as an ecological system or a kind of film ecology. How do you collaborate on that particular choice of terminology? And in the background of this question are concepts that are right now, you know, circulating in film and media and social theory, such as infrastructure networks, or even the comeback of the concept of milieu. So are there overlaps and possibilities to connect with these with this wider field of concepts as well? And Tanya, you are muted still. There we go. Thank you, Lori. Lori, and this is such a good I see it's from you. This is such such a great question and it's something I'm still working through like what is the correct term infrastructure ecology. I find that in my presentations that's far I've kind of been using them interchangeably which is inaccurate and something I'm still very much in the process of thinking through. One of the things that I think is really fascinating with this 16 millimeter distribution work is thinking about it in terms of an infrastructure and this sort of weird disconnects between infrastructure, which we often think of as this concrete thing. I think the general answer is I don't have a good answer yet, but it's something that I'm that I'm definitely very aware of thinking through. I think I use ecosystem, just, you know, metaphorically as a way because there are just so many different types of participants and locations and I think that's a great question. There are just so many different locations and I think it really is a nice metaphor to just capture really how diverse, and how eclectic the participants are I mean studying non theatrical distribution is a field that Cecil star says is known for its staggering confusion which I just think is really the way to describe it. It's really in the excerpts from the film that I selected have to where it is just this long list of like, and you can screen it at this place and this place and this place and it's almost you know my title of my presentation was too wordy as is the film itself, in just telling you how often it is there. But I would love at some point to see if any other any other panelists have any thoughts on ecosystem or just talk about it at a future date because this is such a great question. Let's let's talk about it right now because this is actually this was something that came up for me while listening to the panel, at least the overlap between Stevens paper and yours, the notion of participation. And maybe we can extend it also to you Catherine, but, but, you know, I don't want to necessarily try to try to shoehorn all the talks into this but at least between Steven and Tanya the the participatory moons large for both of you. So I'm curious, is it a, what, what, what kind of a fit is it. What are the, what are the overlaps and then what are the disjunctions because I don't think, you know the sort of the wardrobe wardrobe war bond drive and the, what is it the OEO are are totally analogous but but but they seem to share some key features and so I'm curious to to hear you to talk that out. It wouldn't be fun. Sorry, I'll just take it. Oh you please please add that this. One of the things that makes this topic so challenging for me, this particular historical experience is because these, these films are sort of abject they were considered a failure. They were sort of disavowed by many of the participants and some of the policymakers at the OEO, one of whom is and Michael's. And one of the reasons I think it. These are discarded or considered a failure was, and I'm going to put it my own way is that they were almost two participatory in that. Michael's and even Colin Lowe later felt that the films were becoming too political to focused on divisiveness, and that this was going to undermine their effectiveness at smoothing over social disc social racial discord. It's interesting that on the one hand there's a desire for the filmmaker to have the filmmaker a face themselves in the face of community expression on the other hand they felt they were losing control of it. And so there was anxiety over that what whatever participatory qualities were coming through there was anxiety. So that's some of that's one of the things that's fascinating about this project is to a certain extent it's a failure and the way they got caught up in the contradictions of their own discourses. And that you know for, I think, I don't know Tonya how this would overlap I mean, these are technologies of citizenship, these are I think this was an attempt to impart a sense of common, a common civic identity to residents of Hartford, maybe that's a place to overlap here is that to be a good citizen you need to participate. And so there's some notion here of participation, good citizenship in my case it's sort of failing. In your case it seems like it's succeeding. I don't know that might be one way to think about this. I was, I was wondering about that issue, the failure and the success metric. Tonya, do you want to say something about, because I mean it does seem to from the way you've characterized the, the campaign that it was a raging success. Do you think is maybe, you know, little bit hyperbole or overstatement or is it is it legitimately like creating something functional where previously there was, was not, you know, a kind of an actual useful network. I think, you know, it's so easy to fall into especially with World War two propaganda and the happy happiness of success and all of their own sort of rhetoric about themselves and how great they were but I do think that, at least for me looking at data and having hard numbers that they were able to reach 32 million people in these screenings to me seems, you know, quite impressive especially because I'm always thinking about this in terms of Hollywood which to me has such a tightly organized distribution pattern as for these other instances. I think you know what I would intrigue me so much about this and it's impossible to really study the full scope of non theatrical and I've recently had some really great kind of conversations about how we might approach non theatrical with scale in a kind of a larger macro approach as opposed to the micro histories that describe the sort of stories that we're telling. But so for me I do think that they were pretty successful and I think about it more in that level of, you know, that the people in small towns that were able really to participate. I mean, and in making these screenings and things I think was really kind of powerful so I suggest it's sort of like, yes, of course there were plenty of, you know, non theatrical activities before this period but this I think is really this mass scale where we're getting people a great article that I have in my asset in that I site made sure to site by Brown now that really just goes into, you know, gives us really tight example of this one guy who, you know, in Michigan who just got really enthusiastic and did all his own event so I think it was a tremendous participation and agency that then I think further helped naturalize, you know, non theatrical and distribute like non theatrical non Hollywood activities in the post war period so this was the world you know this 35 to 45 period is really significant in that adoption. I hope that was helpful. Yeah, no no absolutely and as we've been talking I realized how to bring Catherine in, which is that, you know, what was the participatory feature of this film series of your film series. It's really struck by your characterization of it as more an opportunity for self reflection. So I'm wondering, you know, there was a question yesterday about sort of additional media pamphlets questionnaires, you know, maybe a test with with this. How did you share of that with this and then how did, how did in the larger sense how did this sort of dynamic of participation function is that something that's that that you've been able to uncover. Yeah. It's interesting, I did go through textual records to try to find, you know, actual reference to the series. And what I came up with was just kind of general memos that were excited about the possibilities of film in a very general way, and a desire for a more cohesive approach to corrections with film, as opposed to pulling in films that were created by other like departments in the government. You know, making something that's specific to corrections there is a desire for that. So I don't, in terms of, you know, other kinds of participatory pamphlets and stuff I do I'm not sure about that but the, the reason why I frame it as something as, as a moment for self reflection that's repeated over and over is, is because it the narration of the film is actually just, what do you think like over and over and over. Sometimes about questions that, ethically speaking, are troubling, right, like some, some, there's a film that asked like some people say never to kill, what do you think, right. So there's, there's that level of participation. There's also a sort of self consciousness around the, the films themselves sort of being aware that they might be kind of foisted onto corrections officers in a particular way. There's a consistent repetition of, hey, if you're a new officer. It's going to be important for you. And if you're an experienced officer. This is a moment for you to remember what you already know. Right. So there's this in the narration there's these constant sort of invitations. The other side in terms of thinking about participation is how they're in terms of production. These are produced with real corrections officers. The consultants that are listed are active professionals in the field. And they're not all the same for each film but there are some repetition of in like different groups within the series. And there's real incarcerated folks that are being filmed in terms of participating in the filmmaking, though they're not individually credited they have like institutions that are credited in there. And that's actually what I wanted to ask about the participants in the film, which was the question I initially when Oliver asked. So there were, can you elaborate a bit more on, you know, who was in there were actual prisoners in the film and then also. Yeah, like, so sorry, can you please allow her. Yeah, yeah. There's a couple of facilities that you see repeated in terms of the credits. Chino, there's a lot of California based filming and facilities, which kind of goes in line with the history of mass incarceration in California sort of being at the forefront of that.  And then that wrote this book criminals, con games, how you can profit from knowing them games criminals play. And that's the guy that's credited for con games inmates play the film. And this that's actually a book that was utilized in training for corrections officers for many decades. There's that sort of connection with the professional field. It's difficult for me to sort of speak to the way in which the incarcerated individuals were kind of roped into this production. But I do want to acknowledge that they are, they have roles they have they were actors in these in these films, even though they are not individually named. So, you know, thinking about sort of the ethics of these films and whether they were sort of a next level of exploitation or something else, you know, is something that I that I do think about. And since we're on the topic of your film shares a question a follow up question. Not directly but sort of asking for more background about your research have you had a chance to compare and contrast the collections at the National Archives with more local collections regional or city. So is there a kind of, you know, national perspective versus a more local perspective in the project. Um, so the way my project is framed is kind of bringing in this series as a way of talking about a way to talk about prison film, getting away from constantly asserting itself as real and authentic in the fictional realm. It's not a longer a larger project about instructional film for corrections officers in a lot of different locations. What I will say is I'm sure there is in institutions that have sort of archival have an archive I'm sure there is local material. I think one of the places that you'll find potentially more local stuff besides actual institutions is actually college libraries that have in institutions that have criminology programs. So if you're looking for actual more local stuff. But it's tricky because, like I said Institute like the carceral landscape is a localized sort of situation so in order to. You kind of have to either go really broad or go really focused in order to get a sense of how things were made specifically and what their exhibition practices were. Yeah, well it sounds like a future project for you or someone else. And for Steven. In your talk, you mentioned the challenge for change program. You uncovered discussions between Canadian and American governments about strategies for documentary production, and particularly this participatory model. Yes, well, this whole chapter. So that focus on the importation of the photo process into the United States. Of course, the OEO was engaged in film production of all kinds to promote its programs. And I think there's some awareness of National Film Board on the part of the OEO and especially his public affairs office, which was often described as a kind of laboratory for trying different things. But that really came through with the case of the photo process. And I think the, that's the, that's the one that I'm focused on and that again it was and Michaels I believe who took note of this community, these kind of community development workshops in the wake of FOGO that were workshops being held in Canada to promote this kind of methodology. And I think they were, and I'm just going based off, I really have to give kudos to Susan Penny Baker at Trinity College and Trinity College received prints donated to them by Butch Lewis. And it led to an extensive oral history project where they interviewed many officials there at the OEO about the background here and what comes through in those transcripts is a feeling of trying to think outside the box, a feeling of trying to think about new ways of using film to facilitate communication which on some level as I already mentioned was seen as being part of the problem. But I think, anyway, not really I don't know if I'm answering the question but I think in particular, I think the looking north was a way of trying to think outside the box and and I think and Michaels. And I think that was the head of the public affairs office they were kind of really trying to think of new ways of using communication media, and I think that's Canada inspired it challenge for change I think inspired that. So I guess I'll stop there I'm kind of. So it sounds like yes and no. Yes. No specific direct links but kind of definite connections in terms of ethos and outlook and kind of a larger right attitude towards this kind of work. I think there was a misunderstanding to I mean it's that you could import something. I mean I think already it's questionable how successful this process was even you know in Newfoundland info go island. I think that there was a perception of success that is questionable that scholars have shown really had more to do with organizing on the ground in the films, and I think there was an excitement and enthusiasm to embrace this and run with this myth of by plying in the United States was very different political terrain, and so that led to a lot of debate and confusion on the ground and, and so on so yeah I think it was inspiration but then the application is that it's is unique, I suppose. Got it. And a note for for you from one of the organizers. That was part of the pilot precinct project in DC pushed back on the idea that OEO was a failure and said it was because of Nixon or the Nixon administration. Coming in and dismantling as much of the program as they could that the sort of the failure label got got attached or, or, or could be seen to describe the program. What's about that does that seem relevant. So I just want to be clear. I'm when I talk about failure I'm talking about this endeavor in Hartford in particular. So I think OEO had lots of success. I think that's absolutely true though once the Nixon administration comes in the OEO gets transformed or guided depending on how you want to look at it and so for sure. That's a backdrop. I think what's interesting as to relate it specifically to this what I'm talking about. It's interesting that their first iteration occurs in fall of 68 right run up through the election, they're in Central Valley, they're in California in a varying context, working with Mexican American Mexican Americans, the farmers and then when they go to Hartford now it's a different institution. And so the momentum that carries them from California to Hartford traverses Johnson and Nixon. And suddenly now you have an OEO that is being run by Donald Rumsfeld. And so there's a certain momentum that carries them through the Hartford, but from above there's certainly I was highlighting the tension on the ground, but the certainly was tension above as well. And I have audio colon low I spent eight, he's very gracious spent eight hours with his wife at their home just talking about this. He told he told some interesting stories about getting chewed out by Rumsfeld in the office. And so there definitely was tension above to about turning things around and there's, you know, this new set of priorities. So but when I say failure I'm really referring to the film endeavor itself. And so it was on the ground in Hartford and some of the frustrations around that in the part of, and Michael's as well as the filmmakers to who are all kind of, you know, had a disagreement about how much they should be quote unquote political and allied with the activists on the ground or how much they should be above the fray and so that was a constant debate. Yeah, okay. Question for Tanya. Thanks for the great presentation. And the question is, would you say that the OWI mostly tapped in to existing networks of distribution for wartime theatrical films or did it significantly contribute to the building of new networks as a result of its efforts to, you know, unite and tie together things that already existed. I would absolutely say that it leveraged as much as what existed already to do their work, especially because when the budget got gutted. Yeah, so there was this like sort of gold that when the ODWI astounded in June 42 by I think it's July 43. And they're like, you have no money so there was this tremendous like exciting period when it first started that we were going to produce all these films and we were going to have these regional people who are going to get appointed to do things. And then that kind of got curtailed. And the second half of it was, what are we going to do, you know, and how can we just leverage what we have with no budget. But, you know, I forget the exact number because I've seen it go anywhere from by the war's end we have three or 400 different people distributors depositories libraries that have worked with the OWI to help get films out. It's all about gaining expertise from people who are already in the field so these OWI newsletters that went out that I'm writing a lot about in my dissertation, have, you know, people in the field, like, oh, this is what I've done that has been successful and then they have to then, you know, pass out. And the way that it worked organizationally they're there were nine. And of course they're all escaping me besides the YCM, YMCA Film Bureau like these nine monster groups that already existed that were considered the national distributors and then there were all these other major groups regionally that they would contact, and then be like cool you distributors here are some prints figure it out or if you want to print of this leave us alone and contact this distributor, who had to get print so they were very much leaning on the expertise and people within these smaller companies and CR Reagan is someone who comes up everywhere and he is this. There are a ton of trade organizations so he is they all and they change names like 100 times so the two big ones are there's a national. Sorry, non theatrical association of sorry of course I'm spacing out all but there's like multiple trade associations that form this national 16 millimeter film committee. And so the answer is really leveraging anyone who knew anything to help them out in their endeavor and very few people obviously were on the payroll to do this it was just this is our job it's benefiting our business and one of the things that actually comes up in my research is this frustration I'm studying this guy named Tom Brandon who has a really fascinating career as a leftist who then starts working with the government during the war, and he had he had actually produced like some some films in early 1942 educational films about the war effort, and then he gets really frustrated when he finds out like I just made this film called salvage. And now you're making a film owi called salvage, and how. So my investment is ruined. He's, he's a very complicated figure but, but again this this there's just so many kinks to work out and they were trying as best they could to get expertise from these people like CR Reagan or Brandon or plenty of other people who had been these leading figures in the fields. And it makes me wonder, can we, can we talk in any meaningful sense about a connection between this story that you're telling Tanya and the agencies that you Steven and Catherine are studying. You know, is this creation of the 16 millimeter infrastructure in some way, you know, the, an early phase in the creation of these others or is it a diffused to really make meaningful connections here. Thoughts on that. So the fit these films were shot on 16 millimeter. So I think just to clarify that. It's probably obvious, but I don't know I think. Yeah, there's, I think there's a civic mindedness that persists across all of these projects and it seems like there's. Improvising here a little bit but that's 16 millimeter format implies a kind of liability kind of flexibility a kind of applicability to everyday life right able to get into the nooks and crannies of everyday life in order to shed light on that in order to reflect on our everyday maybe behaviors in certain ways in order to cultivate a sense of citizenship it seems like some at 16 millimeter, I want to fetishize it too much. It seems like there's a narrative around it 16 millimeter that seems to cut across these that might be a. I don't know that's a that's a first stab at that I guess I would say well improvised yeah okay. Mine are also originally 16 millimeter. I don't know if I can speak to like a broader sort of institutional situation but I can say that there was actually a memo. In the federal burial prisons records that was very excited about eight millimeter. In 1970. Okay. Well, so let's shift focus for a moment there's a question. It's a kind of deceptively simple question that says can you speak to discourses concerning aesthetic qualities that you encountered in regards to the films that you address. So, this is for everyone who ever wants to go first please go ahead. The one I showed I think is probably the, probably has the least aesthetic theories behind it although it's very, you know, they're, it's kind of typical of government informational crack of government informational films it's pretty straightforward. I think I have found indicates that this one was specifically conceived to do anything, you know, particularly inventive. So I would say this is probably a better question for Steven and Catherine but I am happy to elaborate on government propaganda aesthetics. Should there should no one else want to contribute but my film seems like the odd one out for this question. Yeah. In terms of, I don't I don't know in terms of that the, that there was a discourse around, around instructional prison film aesthetics but there is an attempt to make these both comfortingly instructional with like intertitles, and then also not completely boring if that makes sense. There's like a use of long shots there's like a introduction to the to prison aesthetics, or rather I should say prison iconography is utilized in a way that kind of, to me looks like it's carrying over from theatrical prison film a little bit. There's also a use of sound there's like a bluesy harmonica that kind of reminds you of some present some actual work that's been done in terms of you know, work crew songs like the little max folks but and there's also a little bit of playing with perspective a little bit in order, which I'm just bringing up because part of what I talk about is the ways that the incarcerated folks are visually being positioned as objects of suspicion.  So with, as I kind of discussed in the lecture, or the presentation, but I gave the aesthetics war, I think, talked about a lot by the filmmakers, and it all extends out of this desire to operate in a safe mode, a mode in which the filmmaker of faces, really a faces their impact on what we see so it's interesting to to put this in the context of non theatrical where we might think of an instructional grammar around a voice of God or voice of authority narration that's providing a clear sort of lesson and this, these films are sort of the intended to be the opposite of that, trying to a face any kind of horizontal and position and let the subject speak themselves this leads to a kind of a lot of long takes minimal editing as I said before two shots and a kind of stillness sets into these films, because they're designed to provoke contemplation in the theater and then discussion afterwards. I think the, there's still, that's still an aesthetic that's designed around promoting transparency and promoting communicative liberal ethos, where it's as if the only thing we need in order to solve these problems to simply just see and listen to each other, and if we just see and listen to each other, somehow we'll figure this out. And so I think beneath that simplicity belying that underneath that simplicity is a idealism that is problematic. So, so the aesthetic is actually really important in these films in order to win the trust over from the, from the community, because everyone's worried about being edited in a way that makes them look bad so if they can try to keep it as simple as possible. The filmmakers are trying to win over the trust. But ultimately, I think it's also guided by that desire to to truly listen and truly see each other. So the aesthetics are really important as simple as they are. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks. For Tanya, you mentioned department stores as one of the exhibition sites for Bond films. Where'd you come across this reference, and do you have any more information about what stores and where they were and I think you know this would also be a good moment for everyone to talk a little bit about the exhibition context for the films that that that you were discussing today. Sorry. Hi Liz. Great question. So my sources I came from I use the media history digital library which again everyone should look at. And so a lot of them came up in business screen which was one of the trade publications where I got a lot of good information and photos. I haven't gone into any specific details on department store screenings but there's a lot of really good information that you could probably glean. I think especially out of business screen for those type of historical information. So, but yeah it was it seemed to be and I've researched all types of sort of non theatrical screenings and types and department store you know it's amazing to see how much film and department store windows and things were being used back in like even the 1920s so it's sort of a fascinating, you know, under examined picture but yeah I think business screen on which you can access media history digital library would give you a lot of great information on that. So I would love to know Steven and Catherine a little more about screenings of your films as well. I can say I wish I wish there was. There was archival evidence in terms of exhibition practices I can tell you that when I first went before I found the collection at NARA. There's a nationwide distribution of a scattering of these films across college libraries that have criminology departments so if you can extrapolate from that I think there's been a widespread sort of use of these films, possibly because they are so sort of generalized and they don't sort of stick to one institutional sort of policy framework. It's very difficult to really say with any certainty how they were used in terms of federal prisons in terms of state prisons in terms of jails. So I can only say that I think they've been dispersed. And I speak more to the sort of intention of the filmmakers and what we can sort of productively make out of that. I'm going to chime in for one second. I'm curious if one you've ever found evidence of paper materials like study guides or things being produced with them. And then the other thing is it also opens itself. The fact that you don't know opens itself to like a really interesting sort of like speculative history of exhibition to think about, you know, because I would imagine it would be in some sort of classroom or, you know, room sort of context and there'd be, you know, maybe someone who's facilitating discussions around the film so I around the films I think is really, you know, interesting. Yeah, I do think there's an entire history around, you know, how do how to have these kinds of discussions with corrections officers that has a lot of things that can be mined. I have actually come across the kinds of pamphlets and things that you're talking about just not paired with this particular film series so like there is evidence for some kind of practice of that in this time period. Just, just not paired with my materials unfortunately. So in my case I have lots of detail about the exhibitions of these films, the project before. So in fall of 68 in Farmersville, California. I have detailed documents indicating the frequency of the screenings, the numbers of people in attendance, and what was discussed, don't have that for Hartford. This speaks to the fact that there was some discord on the ground. And so there's a lot of ambiguity I do know that in March of 69. To promote the project, there were screenings of the Farmersville films to the city council in Hartford to give the city council a sense of what the crew was going to be doing from April until July I don't think they. I'm not sure they really made it until June to be honest, and the mayor was was quoted in the paper the Hartford current is being very nervous about what these filmmakers are going to find and and so I have that's, that's, that's something I'm still pursuing so it's interesting I have a lot of information about pretty much every info on every screening, when the crew was in California, don't have that Hartford. Part of that is a lot of that information I got in so many different places. Some of those documents were in the possession of former crew members, and we were able to get them archived at the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, and I was able to access it that way. So that's the material I got from the Lyndon Johnson residential library. The next step is the think to go to Nixon and wait for those brumsfeld papers to get processed and so there may be information in the brumsfeld collection because he was the head of at this time so. So anyway, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I think Alexandra you were going to bring something up as well and want to. Yes, yes, I was everyone. I'm Alexander. I must have advised your activist in the moving image and sound branch and I just wanted to jump in because I'm sure a lot of you in the audience are like myself and you've been listening to this wonderful conversation thinking I gotta, I gotta see those films are talking about and and you're in luck because actually the films that Stephen has been referencing for the Hartford series we've digitized our preservation film lab has digitized. Most if not all of those films and they're available in our online catalog actually in record 381 the records of the Community Service Administration so if you go to our catalog and search there you'll be able to view and download those films if you're interested. I don't make a you know, similarly for the other films that have been mentioned as well the the victory bonds that Tanya had mentioned, we have some of them have been digitized and are available in our catalog in the Department of Treasury records. Other than others that have not been digitized, you can reach out to us at the mopics at narrow.gov email address and give you more information about those as well and unfortunately for Catherine's other series of records that Catherine has been talking about the corrections officer program series we don't have the digitized versions of those available in our catalog but we do have the item information for each of those titles available so you can search for those. Find the titles if you're interested in learning more again reach out to us. Yeah, any, any, any questions come to us for mopics at narrow.gov happy to help you. Thank you, Alexandra that's always wonderful to find out about how much of this material is not just there but easily accessible and becoming more so all the time. That goes to the end of our session there's there's a question that came in for Noah I want to try to repurpose it, or share it. And the question for Noah was about the Hollywood's quote incursion into night, Nigeria, and the question was if there are other kinds of nonfiction government sponsored cinematic incursion so taking that as a kind of a provocation for your, your examples. Does that does that dynamic makes sense. What, what kind of things come to mind when thinking about your your case studies as, you know, a kind of imposition invasion in incursion. I'll just run with that for a second. I think that it's important to sort of for my work. It was important to the Attica sort of context is really important because the entire profession of corrections was kind of on the defense. And one of the reasons they were on the defense was yes because of the media coverage and the criticism of the Attica report, but there already is at that point, a stereotype of corrections officers that's circulating in theatrical film that is is not complimentary and is being spoken of as negative. So, the, there's, there's kind of a sense of Hollywood incurred in Hollywood incursion into corrections and creating the smug hack is the name of the sort of stereotype. In terms of corrections officers. So there's really, there's an effort to kind of push back against that. Right. There's an effort to encourage an inch of Hollywood but a push back against it. Any other thoughts. There's a there's another comment that I want to bring up before we close by the late 60s 16 millimeter projectors would have been pretty a pretty normal institutional piece of machinery. In addition, the vast majority of these projectors came equipped with microphones normalizing the idea of parallel commentary and live presentational modes for these kinds of films. So this is primarily for Stephen and Catherine, any, any, any evidence of the, the, the use of the built in microphone with the projector to do voiceover, or, you know, kind of have that additional layer. For not for me, I don't believe there's no evidence of that on my end. I know that the the crew was probably adopting a more traditional industrial model on some level they were working in California they were working with UCLA film grad students they were working with. I think Bernie Burna fields was a major, that's editing obviously was a big advisor here and they had trained sound record is working on the, the, the shoots both in farmersville and Hartford. So now, I will actually just have to add really quickly all over to the theme of incursion as big for me as in this case because the oftentimes folks on the ground for saying we've got this double dose of outsiders we have Canadian filmmakers funded from the DC coming into our community, making films about us and why there was a double dose of incursion going on there that's, that's really interesting that theme of incursion also on the same applies well. All right. Well, I just want to thank you all panelists and attendees, both for for this excellent session. I want to thank everyone that the next panel, the, the, the final panel that will follow this format starts at 1pm Eastern. And yeah, thanks again. Thanks everyone. Thank you Catherine thank you Tonya thank you Oliver. Thank you. Thanks for organizing. This is great. Thank you.


Foxes, unlike possums, are not native to Australia, but neither are white people, so no judgement. I got here the same way she did. Her ancestors came here because rich Englishmen wanted to have fox hunts in the bush. Mine came here because rich Englishmen wanted a distant prison colony. We are all where we are on this planet because of the dances our ancestors did, with rich Englishmen and native possums.  If you ever need to find me just look for the trail of rosary beads and communion wafers of murdoch papers and nice guy rapists. If I am dead when you find me, please weave fairy lights through my bones and leave a sign that reads, here lies emptiness. Maybe lizards and frogs will play in this ribcage. Maybe native flowers will grow in this skull. I don't know what any of this is or where any of it is going. I'm blown through this horny graveyard party like a dandelion seed in the wind. The old crone told me cosmic joy would cost me everything, but when I paid her she showed me the money was only leaves. I accidentally scared the fox off by flicking on the porch light, causing her to drop her dinner in her haste to escape. I switched the light off and waited in the dark for her to reclaim her prize, which she eventually did, slinking off into the night with the possum. I'll see you round, I said to both of them. Fruit bats passed overhead.


final score of this one, eight to four, the Yankees win it. It's a three game sweep in Buffalo and Buck, we talked about it. So difficult, especially for the Yankees this year, trying to get that sweep. That's just what the doctor ordered in a lot of ways. But I think it probably was their most fundamentally sound series of the year. They did so many little things to make a big difference in this game. The pitching was there, the outs were there, the defense was there. It was a fun game to watch. There was obviously a difference in the two teams and the way they played the game in these three series. Four days ago, a despondent and testy Aaron Boone said, we're going to find out if we're the team that we think we are. And now you look three games later. This is the team the Yankees think they should be. It's taken a while to get to this point. But as Buck pointed out, dazzling defense tonight, you turn a triple play.  You take that momentum and score four runs in the next inning. Stanton with a two run homer, Gittens with a two run single. Their bullpen was sound again. You get that sweep and you start building some traction. You start feeling a lot better about yourself than you did a few days ago. And in all three of these games, Buck, they built momentum late in the games.  When they turn the triple play in the first game, it looks like, you know, the key may not get out of the first game. Here we go again. We're going to have to do this and that. And all of a sudden there's a triple play and momentum doesn't mean anything. To me, it was like the game was almost over there. It's like what's going to happen bad for us tonight from Toronto side. Momentum changed a variety of times in the game, but late it happened to the Yankees.


What if you never take that first step and you're looking back on your life and you have to live with yourself knowing you didn't have the courage to take one single step?  Just the step of acknowledging you desire more. And you didn't have the courage to even take that first step. There is no stagnation. It's either getting better or getting worse. What if your life simply continues to play out the path it's going now? What if you live your entire life not even attempting or taking the single first step towards a dream? I know I would say, what's the point? Now what if you take that step and you go for it? You're motivated, you're inspired, you get momentum building and you fail. You fell flat.  At least you had that courage. You will be able to look back and say to yourself, at least I went for it. I'm the guy that went for it. And that's the worst case. That is if you fail.   Every failure is a stepping stone towards your success. Now what if you succeed? What if you could fly? What if you could touch the rim? What if you could keep going? What if you can make these thoughts manifest into physical reality? What if you knew you had that power? What if you saw that power? Would you still doubt it? What if you can experience possibilities that are outside your realm of comprehension in this moment because you're simply here now? What if there's more doors? What if there's more possibilities? What if there's more experiences? What if you can achieve things you can't even fathom yourself attempting yet? The what if is still the same. It's still a question. It's still an unknown. The fears are real, but they are just as real as the possibilities. And both of them don't even exist yet. So what's real is your action in this moment. What seeds are you planting? And just like seeds, you don't have to make them grow. All you have to do is plant them and have the trust they will grow into a tree. Those are your possibilities. Whatever you desire, that is your seed to plant now and let it unfold. What if it grows? What if it's happening all around you at all times and you don't see it, but it's happening? What if you trust that it's building? What if you trust that it's growing? What if you trust that that possibility is coming towards you and you are aligning it by planting seeds in the now? By taking that courageous step, you are planting that seed and allowing it to start growing. What if.