From teaching in Italy, to releasing The Guardians, to filming in West Africa, here’s some highlights of what we’ve been up to the last few months.
The Guardians Release
We premiered our newest independent documentary The Guardians in March and the film has been screening ever since. The film will have its broadcast premiere on PBS’s Doc World Season 3 in October 2018 and it continues to screen around the country, from air force bases to supermarket coops to public libraries. For a list of recent screenings, visit our screenings page. And if you’d like to host a screening in your community, consider purchasing a screening kit that includes all the tools for a successful event centered on conservation. Some notable upcoming events with directors in attendance include a screening of the film as part of Mountainfilm’s Tour in Aspen, Colorado in August, The San Francisco Green Film Festival in September, the Margaret Mead Film Festival in October and a screening at Cobb Island, Maryland’s “Monarch Mania”, the site of one of the film’s only US-based scenes!
West Africa Video Series
In February and March we traveled to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to produce a multimedia series for the non-profit JSI Research & Training Institute. The videos and accompanying photography centered on USAID-funded post-Ebola recovery efforts in the three countries. Working with the three in-country offices, we honed in on compelling and visual stories that would show the impact of USAID funding and make the case for continued support. One story focused on mental health training for nurses and another on free healthcare for Ebola survivors. See all of the video stories here.
Videos series on Italian American Identity and Philanthropy
We recently released a series of three videos for the Sons of Italy Foundation’s 30th annual gala. One featured SOI grantee and non-profit organization Help Our Military Heroes Foundation and the work they do gifting wheelchair accessible minivans to veterans. Another video highlighted the promising talents of student scholarship recipients receiving awards at the 30th annual NELA Gala. And a third celebrated 30 years of philanthropy by the Sons of Italy Foundation, told through archive footage of past galas.
Eidolon Team Co-Instructs Documentary Course in Italy
We were proud to collaborate for the second year in a row with Dean Bernard Cook and the Georgetown University Film & Media Studies on “Italian Realisms”, a three-week intensive documentary film course in which students produced short documentary films about life in Italy. Again, our students impressed us with their ability to produce powerful, complex films in a short period of time in an unfamiliar culture and language. L’Utima Dimora (The Final Resting Place) centered on a florist and a marble artisan working at a cemetery in Fiesole, their proximity to burial reflecting their own perceptions on life and death. Sangue e Orgiolio (Blood & Pride) focused on Calcio Storico, a brutal Medieval sport that continues to be played in Florence. Yet for the Santo Spirito neighborhood, it’s a tradition seen to head off rapid gentrification.
