Mar 17, 2009 – A week-long celebration of film and photographic documentaries produced by regional professionals and students will take place at the U from Tuesday, Mar. 24 to Saturday, Mar. 28. The event is free and open to the public. All films will be shown in the Fort Douglas Post Theatre on the University of Utah campus at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a Q & A session.
The Documentary Film Festival is sponsored by the documentary studies program in the department of communication, the division of film studies and the College of Humanities.
Tuesday, March 24
Single Mom, Minimum Wage, directed by Genéa Gaudet
An intimate look into the celebrations and struggles of three mothers, all of whom are employed for $5.15 an hour in Salt Lake City. Through crises with family, drugs and health, the women make choices that define who they are, where they are going, and their ability to move beyond the struggles inherent with poverty and the working poor.
Reserved to Fight, directed by Manju Varghese, edited by Genéa Gaudet
In May 2003, Fox Company of Marine Reserve Unit 2/23 returned from front-line combat in Iraq. Reserved to Fight follows four marines from Fox Company for four years through their postwar minefield of social and psychological integration into civilian life. Returning to their communities proves as formidable a battle as the firefights of previous months. Living among loved ones who don’t yet understand their changes, contending with media focused on the politics rather than the human experience of war, and suffering from a psychological disorder that is difficult to acknowledge, these young veterans grapple with finding purpose and healing.
Thursday, March 26
Films by students from the department of communication and the community-based Humanities in Focus program.
Friday, March 27
Films by students from the division of film studies.
Saturday, March 28
Mayor Rocky and the Upstanders (a work in progress), directed by Rhea Gavry
Rocky Anderson fights what he believes to be the good fight against all odds. In the nation’s most conservative state, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson signs the Kyoto Protocols, gives full city employee benefits to same sex couples, lowers city greenhouse emissions by 36 percent, seeks immigration reform and calls for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. Later, as citizen Rocky, he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee responding to his letter requesting Congress to investigate criminal wrongdoing by the Bush Administration. Beginning Feb. 2007, the film follows Anderson’s unique career as mayor, citizen activist and founder of High Road for Human Rights, an international grassroots community action coalition, as he stands up with others for social justice.
Sister Wife, directed by Jill Orschel
DoriAnn is a Mormon fundamentalist who shares a husband with her younger biological sister. During a private bathing ritual and candid interviews, DoriAnn explores the surprisingly everyday challenges of her marriage, and reveals her struggle to balance her faith with her feminism, and her spiritual ideals with her earthly emotions, a task that brings daily heartbreak. As the film unfolds, the bath becomes a baptism and DoriAnn emerges as a full-bodied woman, complex, individual, transcendent and utterly human.
A photography exhibit titled Estonia: Images of a Baltic Country by Phillip K. Erickson will take place in the Olpin Union Art Gallery in the Olpin Union from Mar. 16 to 31, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday/
For more information, contact Craig Denton at 801-581-5321 or by email at craig.denton@utah.edu.