IMPOSSIBLE MEMORY: CINEMA, HISTORY, INFORMATION
Dr. Charles Dove
Scientia Lecture, 2007-08
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 4:00 p.m.
McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

A transitory  experience held in darkness, cinema has always had a troubled relationship with memory.  With the historic changes of beginning in the early 1980s, changes in technology and distribution, cinema altered its course and therefore its relationship with memory. While a viewer's memories of a film may once have been embellished with mistakes, imaginings, or misrecognitions, now the viewer could have the film itself at hand in tape or disk or electronic form to confirm or negate the memory - or to manipulate it.  Film essayist Chris Marker, in his study of human survival Sans Soleil (1982) explores these early days of the emergence of this new media, and its implications for human survival.  In the film a filmmaker writes a series of letters about his travels and his feelings towards the footage he has shot, received, and carefully pieced together. Memory, in Marker's film, is filtered through ceremony, photography, and other media.

HUBERMAN PRESENTS AT THE TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Associate Professor Brian Huberman will be presenting a fifteen-minute excerpt from his documentary JAXON'S RANT, filmed in 2001, as the artist who worked on Jackson's final graphic history, "The Alamo: A History Told from Both Sides," at the  Texas State Historical Association's 112th Annual Meeting, March 7, 2008, in Corpus Christi.

For more information, see http://tshaonline.org/about/meeting/.

Session #53 4;00 pm Nueces Room A
JAXON: The Amazing Life and Works of Jack Jackson

IN MEMORY OF FILM & VIDEO TECHNICIAN MICHAEL MIRON
The Rice community is mourning the loss of Rice alumnus and video technician Michael Miron, who died Feb. 3.

Miron first came to Rice as a student in Baker College, receiving a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1975. While attending Rice in the 1970s, he worked as a support technician in the film, theater and Rice Film Series programs.

Miron returned to Rice in 2000 to work full-time in the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts, where he took care of all of the department's projectors, film editing computers, sound decks and other equipment.

"All of us will miss his sense of humor, laughter and wit," said Karin Broker, department chair. "Especially the endless statements he made with his 'fashionable' vintage T-shirt collection."

Miron is survived by his wife, Nancy Ehrlich; daughters Robin and Kelly Pittman; and mother, Marjorie Miron.

A small, private funeral service for Miron is scheduled for 1 p.m. Feb. 6 at Congregation Emanu El Memorial Park.

A memorial service to honor Miron will be held 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 9 in the film auditorium of the Rice Media Center. The family requested that it be a "Michael-style" event where friends and co-workers will have the opportunity to say a few words and share stories. A reception and toast to Miron will follow in the main gallery space of the Media Center.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts Film Program.

BENEFITS OF FOCUS EUROPE LIVE LONG AFTER STUDENTS' RETURN
BY JESSICA STARK, Rice News Staff
Stage to Screen
Grace Ng, Will Rice College junior, studied in Germany for her project "The American Singer on the European Stage: A Research Documentary on the Expectations and Challenges for American Opera Singers in the European Music Scene." She began her project as a way to show people something they hadn't seen before.

"By bringing Europe closer to people, I hope I can encourage them to explore their lives and the world around and beyond them," Ng said. "The Focus Europe fellowship offered me a great opportunity to experience Europe from an opera standpoint and bring this to the American audience."
 
Brian Huberman, associate professor of visual arts, served as her mentor, offering guidance and reminding her that every scene she used should move the film forward.

FILM DIRECTED BY RICE ALUMNI SCREENS TONIGHT AT MFAH
FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS, OCTOBER 26, 2007
Rice alumna Marcy Garriott '79 premieres her award-winning documentary "Inside the Circle" Oct. 26 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) as part of the MFAH "Premieres and Revivals" series. The movie won the SXSW 2007 Audience Award.

"Inside the Circle" tells the story of two talented Texas break-dancers, Josh and Omar. The former best friends join competing dance crews and struggle to keep dance at the center of their lives as they journey to adulthood.

Film director Garriott, who has a bachelor's in electrical engineering from Rice, is a native Houstonian who now lives in Austin. She will attend the MFAH screenings and participate in a Q&A session.

"Inside the Circle" will screen at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. For details, visit www.insidethecircle.com or www.mfah.org.

SCRIPT TO SCREEN
A script to screen reading of filmmaker and guest artist Kim Henkel's script, Exurbia will be held Monday, October 29, 7:00 p.m., at the Rice Media Center.  Exurbia: A first date gone horribly wrong--a black comedy about a ludicrously dysfunctional exurban family.

STUDENT FILM RECEIVES U.S. DISTRIBUTION
The film, Unborn in the USA, made by Stephen Fell and Will Thompson, while they were undergraduate students at Rice receives U.S. distribution through First Run Features. For more information on Unborn in the USA, please visit http://www.firstrunfeatures.com/unborn_synopsis.html.

RICE VISUAL ARTS MAJOR, AMELIA REIFF HILL, WINS QFEST 2007 IKLIPZ AWARD 
Merlyn "Bobby" Pagano, A film by Rice undergraduate students: Amelia Reiff Hill, Benjamin Pollack and Julie Armstrong won the QFEST 2007 IKLIPZ Award.  Watch it here online: http://www.iklipz.com/Industry/Qfest/IndustryProfile.aspx

PROFESSOR HUBERMAN'S FILM, RAY HILL'S PRISON SHOW, FEATURED AT THE TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL
Professor Brian Huberman's documentary, Ray Hill's Prison Show, will be featured at the Grand Cinema at the Tacoma Film Fesitval, October 9, 4:15 p.m. 

Perhaps Houston's best-known advocate for gay rights (and a key organizer of the galvanizing Anita Bryant protests), Ray Hill is also an outspoken voice for the rights of Texas' inordinately large prison population. A former inmate himself, Hill launched The Prison Show in 1980, creating a vital means for family members to remain connected with their loved ones on the inside. As the film suggests, Hill's transformation into an advocate didn't come easily: in a scene from his play, The Prison Years, a casual act of brutality memorably transforms him from a prisoner into a citizen of humanity.  Directed by Brian Huberman, USA, 2007, 58 min., DigiBeta, Color.