Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Stoney, George C. / All Films

Five Films on Police

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Five Films on Police
Buy Now: $320.00

These films are a view of police officers as instruments for social service for all rather than just law enforcement bringing down on criminals the punishment of the law. They were made for use during group discussions where the police could share their immediate experiences with one another and with the people from hospitals in their communities. Written material supplemented the films during these discussions, which encouraged the participants to cite their own experiences. Instead of just blaming the police and making them feel guilty, this dialog created some understanding. The first four of these films were produced through the Louisiana Association for Mental Health in collaboration with its executive director, Dr. Loyd Rowland (1902-1981).

The series was co-sponsored by International Association of Chiefs of Police, with support from the National Institute for Mental Health. The fifth film was made last with the New York Police Department. George C. Stoney, producer of the projects, recalls, "I think they had a real effect on the medical professionals and the police. These group screenings brought them together and helped them recognize their common problems." The same problems are facing communities now. Perhaps these films can inspire further dialog, as they did when they were originally released.

Booked for Safekeeping (1960, 32 min) Designed to help police officers understand how to respond to situations involving people with mental illnesses. Made with New Orleans Police Dept.

The Cry for Help (1962, 33 min) Teaches police officers how to interact with suicidal individuals. Made with the Chicago Police Dept.

The Mask (1963, 33 min) A film designed to make police officers aware that alcohol can disguise or mask serious physical and mental illnesses. Made with the Cleveland Police Dept.

Under Pressure (1964, 32 min) Targeted toward police officers, this film discusses personal and emotional problems related to the job. Made with Cleveland Police Dept.

The Man in the Middle (1966, 22 min) Shows police how they can work more sensitively with the communities they serve. Made with New York City Police Dept.

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How the Myth Was Made

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

How the Myth Was Made
Buy Now: $320.00

George Stoney says he has dumb luck. His grandfather was the doctor on the island in Ireland where the legendary maker of documentary film, Robert Flaherty, shot his film Man of Aran. So Stoney's film, exploring the effects Flaherty's film had on the island and its people, is digging into his own roots as an individual while simultaneously studying the work of his intellectual mentor as a producer of nonfiction films.

Robert Flaherty's 1934 classic Man of Aran chronicled fishermen's struggle for existence on Ireland's bleak Aran Islands. Stoney revisits the islands and interviews surviving locals about their memories of the original film - and their reactions to making this one. It includes excerpts from the original documentary. Stoney says, "How the Myth Was Made illustrates what I believe to be a common truth: the filmmaker always leaves his mark on the places and the people he films."

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Hudson Shad

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

Hudson Shad
Buy Now: $295.00

Folk music legend and environmental activist Pete Seeger, in despair over the pollution of his beloved Hudson River, launched a project to clean it up in the sixties. In Hudson Shad, Seeger and others in the "River Keepers," make a statement about our responsibility for keeping the waters of the river clean enough for the shad to thrive.

Co-director James Brown, who grew up near the banks of the river, felt a responsibility for sharing through this film a general concern for the relationship between contamination of the river and the survival of its natural inhabitants. Showing the film to people concerned with the Hudson River helped them garner colleagues and supporters towards the cause. Seeger has continued the work, with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Hudson Shad has been restored with a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Also included on the DVD: Planning for Floods (color, 29 min, 1974)

A documentary commissioned for distribution and use by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an organization founded by Dennis Puleston and others, to raise awareness around conservation issues and promote public environmental responsibility. Though focused on the immediate community of the Mississippi River, the film's message applies well beyond that region, also anticipating by more than 30 years present-day concerns about global warming. Significantly, it suggests positive action rather than just "ain't it awful."Today this film is applicable to our environmental concerns especially if it is used to promote public action, legislation and education. Planning for Floods is used courtesy of EDF.

This DVD is part of the George C. Stoney Collection

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The Newcomers

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

The Newcomers
Buy Now: $295.00

The Newcomers is a film about economically threatened Appalachian people in transition. Fresh as the day it was made in 1963, the issues of immigration and migration and learning how to live with people who are different from one's self are as challenging and critical as ever.

The filmmaker George Stoney writes, “The Newcomers was made for a church audience. I suspect that that church audience shared my middle-class attitude towards 'hillbillies.' It was a re-enacted documentary but the family represented had gone through the experience of being newcomers in a community... It involves Appalachians recalling their own experiences of relocation to urban cities to find work. Over the years I have heard from a number of people whose families were in the original cast, so they seem to feel a certain sense of pride in the documentation...

But, for me, being exposed to them I felt was exposing myself to people I had always held in contempt. Getting to know them changed my attitude and I hope it also did for the middle class audience we made the film for. I suspect those class attitudes exist today and I hope that this film can continue to help change those attitudes.”

The Newcomers is used courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church.

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Race or Reason

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Race or Reason
Buy Now: $320.00

“If you get involved in the community when growing up, and adults listen, you'll feel empowered and never forget it.” — Betty Puleston

In 1969-70, when race riots were sweeping across America in the wake of the civil rights movement, Bellport, a small town on Long Island, NY, was caught in the storm. The town was divided between its poor African-American and Puerto Rican population and affluent whites. The local high school became the scene of angry confrontations, resulting in its temporary closure and a police presence.

The house of community resident Betty Puleston was being used as a meeting place where black, white and Latino students could air their grievances. To help out, she gave the students two port-a-pac video cameras following a concept introduced by the National Film Board of Canada. The hope was that media could be used to facilitate dialog. That hope was realized, as the students recorded their concerns and felt empowered by being able to question adults in their community.

Thirty years later, these same students regroup to view the tapes. Despite the crude production values of these early black and white tapes, the images clearly reveal the passion of the young activists who felt that minority rights could no longer be ignored. We learn that the students have gone on to lead productive lives -- a social worker, lawyer, community organizer and a policeman are among them.

This film will introduce today's youth to the civil rights problems of the 70's, where suburban schools, even in the North, did not employ African-American teachers nor teach black history. It will inspire students, learning that they can make a difference as their predecessors did, and it will show how effective media can be to facilitate conflict resolution.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Margaret Mead Film Festival, 2002

Museum of Modern Art, George Stoney Retrospective screening, 2009

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The Shepherd of the Night Flock

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:47:00 GMT

The Shepherd of the Night Flock
Buy Now: $320.00

The Shepherd of the Night Flock is a documentary about a jazz ministry at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Manhattan which was led by Father John Garcia Gensel.

Gensel formed the Jazz Vespers for those musicians of his growing night ministry who couldn't make it to Sunday morning service after playing late Saturday night gigs. The ministry became the church home for many musicians, including Zoot Sims, Billy Strayhorn and Billy Taylor, and even the legendary jazz great Duke Ellington. Ellington called Pastor Gensel "the shepherd who watches over the night flock," eventually inspiring the title for this film.

The church's community and programming were incredibly varied, often creating a divide among parishioners. While elderly German church members ran a traditional morning service, the Jazz Vespers sang and worshipped in the evening. More traditional church-goers perceived the Jazz Vespers as a group starkly different from them, far disconnected from what their idea of what a congregation should be. Thus, The Shepherd of the Night Flock evolved into a tool to introduce different parts of the congregation to each other.

Stoney quickly realized the unifying potential of the film: "And so, we started making stuff about the Jazz Vespers, and then combining 10 minutes of the morning service and 10 minutes of the Jazz Vespers. And we found that the morning people didn't realize that the Jazz Vespers was actually a religious experience, and the Jazz Vespers people saw that the morning service people really cared about the traditions of the church. And it began to pull the congregation together."

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Southern Voices

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Southern Voices
Buy Now: $320.00

This documentary traces the development and premiere performance of an avant-garde symphonic work by Southern composer Sorrel Doris Hays.

Commissioned by the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Hays' piece is based on the sounds and rhythms of Southern speech and musical traditions. It is a journey into childhood memories via the melodies and rhythms of Southern dialect. Stoney combines analysis of her work with interviews in which Hays discusses her struggle with racism and paternalism of Southern culture.

A note on the composer's name: After the documentary was completed in 1985, Doris Hays changed her name to Sorrel Hays.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival, 1985

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Two Video Reports from China

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:58:00 GMT

Two Video Reports from China
Buy Now: $320.00

In response to an invitation from the Chinese government, twenty-three American family planning workers from the fields of medicine, public health, media and administration spent seventeen days during August and September of 1977 in the People's Republic of China studying its birth control, maternity and child care methods and facilities.

This DVD contains two video reports made during this trip: In China Family Planning is No Private Matter (32 min), and Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine (22 min).

On this trip, they inquired about the government's methods of surveillance that were instrumental in conducting the declared policy of "one child per family" and observed its consequences in factories and communes. In their effort to comprehend the breadth of the government's health care policies, they recorded the extensive use of herbal therapy and acupuncture. Here is presented their recording of a birth by caesarian section using acupuncture as the sole anesthetic. Shortly afterward they talked with the mother as she celebrated the birth of a healthy son.

The People-to-People China Trip was led by Phyllis Vineyard and Margaret Whitman and was facilitated by Planned Parenthood USA as part of its exploration of the methods and consequences of family planning worldwide.

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The Uprising of '34

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

The Uprising of '34
Buy Now: $320.00

The Uprising of '34 is a startling documentary which tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression.

The mill workers' defiant stance — and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it — challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades. Sixty years after the government brutally suppressed the strike, a dark cloud still hangs over this event, spoken of only in whispers, if at all.

Through the voices of those on all sides, The Uprising of '34 paints a rare portrait of the dynamics of life in mill communities, offering a penetrating look at class, race, and power in working communities throughout America and inviting the viewer to consider how those issues affect us today. The film raises important questions about the critical role of history in making democracy work today. A thoughtful exploration of the paternalistic relationship between mill management and its employees, the relationship between black and white workers, and the impact of the New Deal on the lives of working people, The Uprising of '34 is “meant to challenge the myths that Southern workers can't be organized, that they will work for nothing, and that they hate unions,” says Stoney.

More than a social document, the film is intended to spark discussion on class, race, economics, and power — issues as vital today as they were decades ago. “This is more than a story about a strike; it's a story about community. We went out of our way to make sure that we didn't make a 'which side are you on' film,” says Helfand. “The thrust of this film is to give the workers their chance to speak,” adds Rostock. “We're very proud of the fact that here's a film in which they speak for themselves [with no narrator].”

“This film brings home . . . the anguish, terror, and courage displayed by working people in a crisis that deserves to be remembered and understood.” – C. Vann Woodward, Professor of History, Yale University

“An inspired portrayal ... shows the intimate relationship between people's lives, social movements, social change and the law.” – June Starr, Associate Professor, Indiana University School of Law

“[Uprising] breathes new life into history, ethnography, and documentary ... a model for the future of American social history and engaged documentary work." – Faye Ginsburg, Professor of Anthropology, New York University

“Captivating. [Uprising] emerges as an effective, sensitive look at a tragic event in U.S. labor history.” – Booklist

“A stirring account of the general textile strike, perhaps the largest labor protest in the United States. ...Remarkable.” – The Journal of American History

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All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:30:00 GMT

All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story
Buy Now: $320.00

When George C. Stoney was a boy delivering newspapers, he was curious about the black women with black satchels he would spot occasionally on the streets of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, before dawn. Later he learned these early risers were midwives.

This is a training film about midwifery which transcends the form. It was selected by the Library of Congress for placement on the National Film Registry in 2002 as "a culturally, historically and artistically significant work."

All My Babies was written, produced and directed by Stoney in collaboration with the featured midwife, Mrs. Mary Francis Hill Coley, as well as with local public health doctors and nurses. Recorded on location in Albany, Georgia, it shows the preparation for and home delivery of healthy babies in both relatively good and bad rural conditions among African American families at that time. The film is not only a profound portrait of Miss Mary as she was affectionately and respectfully known, but also is a documentary record of the actual living conditions of her patients.

Always interested in the effects a film has on the filmed and filmers, Stoney is amused to report everyone on the crew had babies after making this one. In addition, teamed with David Bagnall, Stoney returned to Georgia in 2007 to record a "reunion" in which over 150 people who had been helped into the world by Mrs. Coley participated. That reunion is now a new film-in-progress.

As a bonus, this DVD includes Palmour Street (1949), a dramatized, open-ended discussion of family relations, which Stoney co-directed on location in Gainesville, Georgia, for the Georgia Department of Public Health. Palmour Street is in Gainesville, Georgia. The people who live on it worked hard to make this picture so that they and all of us might know more about ourselves and our children. An early example of films for lay education sponsored by the Mental Health Division of the U.S. Public Health Service, it soon found an audience beyond the African American community for which it was designed.

“All My Babies is an asset as an educational tool and as a historical portrait.”
— Simone Snyder, International Childbirth Education Association

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