Yesterday, I was privileged to view a remarkable documentary film shown at the Griffin Museum of Photography. As a  photographer/artist and writer, I sometimes wonder if there’s a point to all of the time and energy I put into my crafts. The film, called “A Single Frame,” produced by  Austin businessman and filmmaker Jeff Bowden, makes clear that one can never know the tremendous impact a work of art may ultimately have.

While on a family  trip to Dubrovnik in 2007, Bowden’s daughter  suggests going to an exhibit showing the work of female war photographers. Bowden is much taken with a photograph of a refugee boy taken during the war in Kosovo by  a young French photographer, Alexandra Boulat.

Driven by the  haunting image, Bowden sets out to find the child–who, if still alive would have been in his twenties or early thirties. Bowden’s search takes him from Texas to Paris, where he learns that Boulat passed away due to natural causes not long after the war. He tracks down a group of photographers she worked with, and, in conversations with them and others who were impacted by the war, learns of the devastation it caused, and of the post-war culture of the Balkans. Joining  forces with an experienced war-time fixer, he embarks on a search for the boy.

Rather than give away the outcome of the search, I’ll just say that  A Single Frame, released in 2015,   humanizes and educates distant audiences about the origins and impacts of the cruel war that lasted from 5 March 1998^[8] until 11 June 1999 in the former Yugoslavia. (As described on Wikipedia, the war was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (by this time, consisting of the Republics of Montenegro and Serbia), which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), with air support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and ground support from the Albanian army). Effective in multiple dimensions, the film shows that one never knows where a  work of art might lead, whom it might affect, and how its spirit might live on to inform, influence and inspire future generations. Bravo!

–Anita M. Harris

Link to trailer 

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, in Cambridge, MA.

An Open Secret

The documentary movie “An Open Secret” does a wonderful job of exposing the sexual abuse of children in Hollywood. But you’ll probably never see it– not because of the difficult subject matter, but because almost no commercial theaters are willing to screen the film.

Written by  Amy Berg, Lorien Hayes and Billy McMillin and directed by Berg, the 2014 film shows that abuse of child actors is pervasive in Hollywood and that most people in the industry know about it. Either they’ve been personally touched by it (pun intended) or know someone who has been. Many powerful people in Hollywood who could ruin the careers of anyone who pushes for justice on this issue are involved.

I applaud the subjects who were willing to share their painful stories and especially the teenager who actually went to court against his agent/abuser. The abuser got only six months in jail and is still in the industry despite solid proof of the exploitation.

Questions:
It’s a big story, so why isn’t anyone willing to distribute the film? Why has it been pulled from film festivals?  Why after seeing the film have network executives refused to have the film on their networks? Why did the Screen Actor’s Guild unsuccessfully sue the filmmakers after seeing the film in which the head of their Young Performers Committee was implicated in the scandal?

Answer:

The topic is too hot to handle and hits too close to home.

Who can speak out for the innocent victims? In “Spotlight”, Hollywood is happy to pay homage to the reporters who uncovered sex abuse in the Catholic Church a number of years ago, but unwilling to acknowledge it in their midst.

In the past, I’ve attributed problems of child actors to their inability to handle fame and fortune and an acquired sense of entitlement. Now I wonder whether their spiraling out of control has far more nefarious roots.

I thank the Boston Globe for sponsoring the screening of this movie in its documentary series along with a Q&A session with the producer. I wish that others had the courage to take on this difficult topic and not bow to the powerful perpetrators, but who’s to take up the mantle? Newspapers are too financially strapped to take on such financially powerful interests so others such as documentary filmmakers or even comedians (like those who exposed Bill Cosby) need to raise our awareness and lead us to take action.

See the movie if you can and be outraged by the subject matter (child sexual abuse) and by the story behind the story (the unwillingness to deal with the “open secret”).

–-Sheila Green

Will play at West End Johnnie, Boston, on Wednesday, November 20 Limited tickets now available through Eventbrite.com

James Montgomery to lead at acoustic blues benefit Nov. 20

My friend Bill Lichtenstein is working on what’s certain to be a wonderful nonprofit documentary film about WBCN–a groundbreaking Boston radio station deeply involved in the political and cultural changes of the 1960s.  He’s seeking funding through Kickstarter: an innovative fundraising mechanism that will be of interest to entrepreneurs of all stripes–in order to help change the future.

The film, entitled  “The American Revolution: How a Radio Station, Politics and Rock and Roll Changed Everything”  documents Boston radio station WBCN from 1968 (when Bill, as a 14-year-old high school became the station’s youngest DJ) through 1974.

As reported in the Boston Herald (Dec. 5, 2011), during those years, Bruce Springsteen did his first radio interview ever on WBCN;  Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir,  of the Grateful Dead, and  the Allman Brothers’ Duane Allman stopped into the studio at 2 AM and jammed for an area. When Nixon invaded Cambodia, “BCN got local college kids to strike.

WBCN  “had tremendous national impact both musically and politically,” Lichtenstein told the Herald. “We changed the world one time,” Lichtenstein says.  And, with this film,  “we can do it again.”

Lichenstein, who has produced TV news and documentaries for ABC and PBS, has gathered more than 50,000 documents, photos,  and tapes–which include performances by Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

He has also garnered some $50,000 in contributions–but needs to double that amount by Dec. 19 to complete the film.

He’s  seeking $104 thousand in donations via Kickstarter–a nonprofit that allows contributors tax deductions–but gives fundraisers just a month to get the entire bundle.That is, Kickstarter takes an all or nothing approach:  Lichtenstein must  bring in all $104K by Dec. 19–or he gets nothing.

After three weeks of fundraising, he’s  now almost at the halfway point, with just a week to go.

More info and the film trailer are available at  www.KickstartWBCN.com.  Lichtenstein and Kickstarter will be featured on Boston’s WCVB-TV  “Chronicle”  on Dec. 13, 2011.

——Anita Harris

Anita M. Harris is president of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations firm located in tyhe Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square,  Cambridge, MA.   Anita  is a former national journalist who got HER start in the alternative press–as a founder of the Harrisburg Independent Press and writer for  the The Real Paper and Phoenix in Boston, MA.

Loved Mao’s Last Dancer, a new film based on the true story of ballet dancer Li Cunxin, who, as a child, was pulled from his poor family in the Chinese countryside to train in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution–and through his own quest for freedom  wound up an international star.  

Directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies)  the movie was filmed in China, Houston and Australia–and stars  Birmingham Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Chi Cao, Australian Ballet dancer Chengwu Guo  and Huang Wen Bin, who play Cunxin at different ages. 

Mao’s Last Dancer showcases many beautiful–even breathtaking–ballet sequences from acclaimed Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy and co stars  co-stars Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan and Joan Chen.

The story is so moving that I even teared up at times–despite a bit of clunky acting ( foregivable because the artists are dancers, first, of course).

Mao’s Last Dancer premiered on 13rd September 2009, at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be opening in theaters Oct. 1, 2010.  I’d give it 3 and 3/4 stars–and a great recommendation for anyone who likes dance and US patriotism.

^{–Anita Harris}

^{New Cambridge}