Film Night

Saturday, September 17 at 7 PM; Prosser Theater, College Center 

Filmmakers Melinda Levin and Jack Lucido will screen and discuss each of their new films on holistic and sustainable ranching in the Headwaters Region. 

I. The New Frontier: Sustainable Ranching in the American West (see website and trailer), by Melinda Levin

Melinda Levin is a documentary filmmaker and Chair of the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the University of North Texas. Working primarily in the documentary mode, Levin has produced, directed, edited and shot documentaries in the U.S. and abroad, including North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Her works have screened at New York's Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Art Museum, The Society for Applied Anthropology, The American Anthropology Association, and The Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

She is immediate past president of the University Film and Video Association, the premiere academic organization for media producers and scholars in the United States, and is currently serving as president of the University Film and Video Foundation, a non-profit organization that includes oversight of the international Eastman Kodak Film Scholarship. Professor Levin serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Film and Video, and recently served as North American Delegate to the International Association of Film and Television Schools in Belgium. This past year she co-edited a special issue on film and anthropology for the Journal of Film and Video (with UNT Anthropology Chair Dr. Alicia Re Cruz), and her book, Post: Theory and Technique of Digital, Nonlinear Motion Picture Editing, co-authored with Fred P. Watkins, was published by Allyn and Bacon/Longman Press.

Current and recent productions include The Global Rivers Project, an international documentary about the Amazon, Danube, Los Angeles, Mekong, The New Frontier: Sustainable Ranching in the American West, andThe Mayan Dreams of Chan Kom, shot in a traditional Mayan village in Mexico.

This fall, she will be screening her sustainable ranching film in Tailand and at the Bangkok Film Festival.

II. Sustainability in Ranching, by Jack Lucido

"Sustainability in Ranching" is a working title for Jack Lucido's short documentary film regarding ranching in the Gunnison Valley.

This film, to be screened as a work in progress, features local ranchers and centers upon the sustainability of practices in use on ranches here. Both long time utilized practices as well as more recently developed methodologies are discussed and highlighted. Sustainability is decades, if not centuries, old here; ranchers continue to adjust and adapt.  A strong tradition of sustainability exists within our local ranching community.

One primary goal for this project is to nurture dialogue and understanding between those interested in environmental issues, cultural concerns and our ranching heritage.  Ranching families share these concerns; their livelihoods depend upon sustainable practices. The film enlightens the viewer while giving voice to our ranchers.

Final completion of this film is targeted for November, 2011.