Recognized on campus as home to classes outside the realm of the typical college experience, the Experimental College is known for its integration of media into the classroom, making it a vital resource for aspiring journalists and filmmakers at Tufts. One of the most successful and innovative courses is Producing Films for Social Change, which for the last three years has been taught by documentary filmmaker and producer Margaret Lazarus with the help of ExCollege Lecturer Don Schechter. Though listed as an ExCollege class, Producing Films for Social Change represents a collaborative effort between the Communications and Media Studies Program and the Tisch College's Media and Public Service Program.
The class enables students to produce short films that are all centered on an issue of social relevance. This year, the class will screen four films — "Falling Through the Cracks: Mapendo and Africa's Forgotten Refugees," "Honkumentary: No Noise is Illegal," "Tourette's: What Makes You Tic" and "The Art of Delinquency."
Before applying for her teaching position, Lazarus gained experience making documentaries. She founded a company called Cambridge Documentary Films with which she achieved great success, winning an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary in 1993 for "Defending Our Lives," about domestic violence.
"The most important thing for this class is to make films about things that the students are passionate about," Lazarus said. "Everything follows from that. I try not to interfere with passion, despite having my own personal preferences as everyone does."
As a teacher, Lazarus is very proud of her students. "That these students could learn this technique in such a short time is amazing," she said. "Their work is really excellent, and films from this class have won many student competitions in the past, including a student Emmy a couple of years ago." Though the students are still more concerned with getting As than Academy Awards, all of the films produced from this class demonstrate a great skill level and an attention to social justice.
"Falling Through the Cracks"
Freshman Allison Fisk worked on her film "Falling Through the Cracks: Mapendo and Africa's Forgotten Refugees" with two seniors, David Axelrod and Jeremy Hirsch. "Nearly everyone in the class came in with minimal to no film experience," Fisk said. "I did a film for my high school senior project, but now I see all the things that I did wrong or could have done better. You just learn so much from this class."
"Falling Through the Cracks" focuses on a local organization in Cambridge called Mapendo International that finds refugees who have either left or been ejected from of refugee camps. "Mapendo tries to locate refugees who are not receiving adequate help from the [United Nations]," Fisk said. "There are many global issues, especially in Africa, that people don't know about. The conflict in Darfur has become globalized and has received a lot of media coverage, but it's nothing new."
The film shows that refugees don't always end up in U.N. camps, and, even if they do, they are not always safe there. One man witnessed a massacre in the U.N. refugee camp he was staying in, just barely escaping with his life. The film also points out that many refugee resettlement slots in the United States go unfilled due to overwhelming demand for humanitarian assistance abroad.
"Tourette's: What Makes You Tic?"
"Tourette's: What Makes You Tic?" takes a different approach, choosing instead to focus on one particular person's struggle as the face of a larger movement. That person is Marc Elliot, a recent graduate of Washington University in St. Louis who has Tourette's Syndrome. Senior Lily Safran produced this film with fellow seniors Alison Barash, Julia Bourque and Megan Terraforte.
Safran is fascinated by Elliot and his ability to turn his disability into a positive message of tolerance. "He just has such a bright outlook on life," Safran said. "He really makes people think about tolerating other people, and he wants to spread that message, so he's taking a year off before medical school to go on a speaking tour."
The film follows Elliot around Boston, demonstrating how strangers judge him for his tics, during which he repeatedly says inappropriate words and clacks his teeth together. His past difficulties with Tourette's are also shown in the film, including his run-in with the law after disturbing people on a public bus. "Tourette's" provides an interesting, in-depth portrait of a man dealing with his illness and persevering in life in spite of it.
"Honk!: No Noise Is Illegal"
The Honk! Festival, although still unknown to some, is an annual gathering of street bands from around the globe in order to celebrate anything and everything. Now in its third year, Honk! may appear on the surface to be a senseless celebration of debauchery, but Tufts sophomore Jane Ottensmeyer, junior Sara DeForest and seniors Deborah Neigher and Chloe Zimmerman set out to see what was really behind the festival with their film "Honk!: No Noise Is Illegal."
"I've always liked the idea that music can cause social change," DeForest said, "and we learned more and more that Honkfest is more than just a music festival; it's about social activism as well."
The film takes a look at many of the individuals behind Honk! and what drives them, but also includes the opinions of passersby who simply enjoy the festivities.
"When we first got to the festival, we just thought about how much fun this was — with all the costumes and abnormal things that you don't really see every day," DeForest said. "But after a while, we saw that there really was a serious message underneath it and that these people really wanted to use their music and their bands to promote social change."
"The most difficult part of the filming process came with the fact that Honkfest is a two-day celebration, so all of the filming had to be done over the span of 48 hours," she continued. "On the day of the festival we just showed up with two cameras and started grabbing people for interviews. Meanwhile there were 25 bands all playing at the same time around you, it was really hectic."
Despite being newcomers to the festival, the team set out to uncover how such an unusual festival came into existence. "Going into this we didn't know how weird this festival was," DeForest said, "but there are so many alternative lifestyles there, it was great."
Despite the eccentric nature of the festival, the team kept focused by emphasizing the social aspects of the story and trying to effect change. "The biggest theme of the film is just to get your voice out there, through whatever medium you can," Ottensmeyer said.
"The Art of Delinquency"
Street Art, sometimes known as graffiti, is more prevalent today than ever before. According to some Tufts students, however, it remains largely misunderstood. Seniors Andrea Abarca and Charlotte Huffman, juniors Moon Kim and Nabila Santa-Cristo and sophomore Ariana McLean have taken it upon themselves to take a deeper look at the artistic phenomenon that is covering cities all across the globe.
"There are all kinds of opinions on street art," McLean said, "so we decided to take a look it and see if it's vandalism, how it compares to graffiti, the penalties involved and, more importantly, the idea that art should be available to everybody."
While the main thrust of the film was to get viewers to reconsider their opinions of not only street art, but art in general, the film takes a deeper look at the lives of the artists as well as those who try to stop them from practicing on public spaces.
"We interviewed several street artists, photographers and community artists who are paid to [create] public art and aren't considered vandals, and then we got the other side and interviewed the people who are hunting down these vandals," McLean said. Strangely, the film reveals that many artists get paid to create this street art, while those who try to nab them are largely volunteers.
It may come as a surprise that the group members found themselves more empathetic with those who were trying to stop the art being placed on public property, since the art did often have the potential to cause real harm. Even so, McLean explained that rather than picking a side, the film is really about "the struggle between art and the law, and how it's more of a cycle than a progression."
Time to reflect
Whether it's through street art or African refugees, music festivals or a man with a disorder, these students have used their time at Tufts to create films that could inspire social change. Their art enables others to see a section of society that they might never have discovered, and hopefully, each film will give its viewers something new to think about.
These four films will be shown on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. in Pearson 104. Admission is free and open to the general public.
