'Documenting Justice' class hits Sidewalk Festival
Keli Goodson
Senior Entertainment Reporter
Issue date: 9/26/07 Section: Entertainment
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At this weekend's Sidewalk Film Festival, attendees will be able to see a group of films that document justice or injustice in Alabama - all shot by students of the University.
These documentary shorts were shot for last spring's "Documenting Justice" class, a course offered by the department of telecommunication and film.
Elliot Knight, a first-year graduate student in American studies and a photographer for The Scene, partnered with Sesei Bonsi to produce the film "Very Source of Life."
Knight said the film was about local organic farms in Alabama.
"When I was a freshman, I took an organic farming class for New College," he said.
He said the class actually went out and worked on a farm, which led him to choose organic farming as his topic.
It took a while for them to film, Knight said, and they had about 10 hours of raw footage. Neither he nor Bonsi had taken a telecommunication and film class before that one.
"That class was great," Knight said.
Kevin Garrison, a law school graduate, partnered with Allison Stagg and produced a documentary called "Trained In."
He said it follows a neighborhood in downtown Birmingham that is intertwined with the industrial industry.
The film focuses on a neighborhood that is permeated with railroad tracks, where trains sometimes sit on the tracks for over an hour at a time, preventing residents from getting to work or school and preventing emergency services from getting to the neighborhood.
"There's around 20 railroad crossings in this one tiny neighborhood," Garrison said.
Children cut through the still trains as they make their way to school, he said, sometimes having dire consequences.
"There have been kids who have lost legs due to these trains starting to move," Garrison said. "It seems amazing this is allowed to go on in this day and age."
He said he decided to focus on this topic because the people in that neighborhood are suffering so much, and it is only a few miles from where he lives. He thinks sometimes people forget about problems that have existed for as long as this one.
These documentary shorts were shot for last spring's "Documenting Justice" class, a course offered by the department of telecommunication and film.
Elliot Knight, a first-year graduate student in American studies and a photographer for The Scene, partnered with Sesei Bonsi to produce the film "Very Source of Life."
Knight said the film was about local organic farms in Alabama.
"When I was a freshman, I took an organic farming class for New College," he said.
He said the class actually went out and worked on a farm, which led him to choose organic farming as his topic.
It took a while for them to film, Knight said, and they had about 10 hours of raw footage. Neither he nor Bonsi had taken a telecommunication and film class before that one.
"That class was great," Knight said.
Kevin Garrison, a law school graduate, partnered with Allison Stagg and produced a documentary called "Trained In."
He said it follows a neighborhood in downtown Birmingham that is intertwined with the industrial industry.
The film focuses on a neighborhood that is permeated with railroad tracks, where trains sometimes sit on the tracks for over an hour at a time, preventing residents from getting to work or school and preventing emergency services from getting to the neighborhood.
"There's around 20 railroad crossings in this one tiny neighborhood," Garrison said.
Children cut through the still trains as they make their way to school, he said, sometimes having dire consequences.
"There have been kids who have lost legs due to these trains starting to move," Garrison said. "It seems amazing this is allowed to go on in this day and age."
He said he decided to focus on this topic because the people in that neighborhood are suffering so much, and it is only a few miles from where he lives. He thinks sometimes people forget about problems that have existed for as long as this one.
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