The National Video Resources (NVR), a nonprofit organization started by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1990 to increase the public's awareness and access to independently produced film and video is announcing the launch of Viewing
Race. Viewing Race is a free web and print based publication highlighting films and videos addressing race, diversity and tolerance. Comprised of over 70 films and videos, ranging in length and genre,
Viewing Race's goal is to couple viewing with dialogue. The publication is meant to encourage the use of video as a means of opening up dialogue around difference, in particular race and ethnicity. Along with
providing descriptions of the selected films and videos, the publication also includes essays by practitioners in various fields on how to use videos in varying contexts. These include conflict resolution settings,
classrooms, diversity training seminars, and libraries.
Included within the publication is a resource list of organizations that address race and diversity, a thematic listing of the films and videos to assist programmers in
selecting the appropriate work, and interviews with filmmakers like Laura Simon ("Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary"), Renee Tajima-Pena ("My America" & "Who Killed Vincent Chin") and Sandy
Osawa ("Lighting the Seventh Fire") on race and democracy.
The selection process for the films and videos included within Viewing Race was spearheaded by Project Editor Chon Noriega, an associate professor of film and
video at University of California, Los Angeles. "We solicited a range of perspectives in the selection of the work. It was important to have filmmakers involved in the selection process as well as practitioners:
people who actually program the work in different settings." The panelists included filmmakers Lise Yasui, and Ayoka Chenzira as well as media librarian Don Chauncey and television programmer Claire Aguilar.
Commenting on the year long selection process, Noriega states, "We tried to take into account how this work could be used in the classroom, the workplace, and community centers while also providing a cross section of the best
independent media available on the topic."
"While our initial concern had to do with race, we looked for ways in which race was expressed through gender, class, region and so on. Having a diverse and wide
ranging selection panel ensured that we did not settle for an easy and simple definition of race," says Noriega.
Some of the topic and themes addressed in the Viewing Race compilation include Indigenous People's and Colonialism,
Japanese American Interment, Black Civil Rights, Chicano Civil Rights, US Blackness Abroad, Bi-raciality, race and sexuality, education, fear and hatred, stereotypes, self-perception and self representation.
An important part of
the Viewing Race project is the web site, www.nvr.org, which will provide users with a forum to discuss their experiences in programming and using the films, audience reactions and other relevant issues surrounding the screening
and discussion of the films and videos.
The Viewing Race Project has received support from the Ford Foundation, The John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Maurice Falk Medical Fund.
For a copy of Viewing
Race please contact National Video Resources at 73 Spring Street, Suite 606 New York, New York 100112. Please also feel free to phone, fax or email requests for Viewing Race. Phone (212) 274-8080; fax (212)
274-8081, email at NVRinfo@nvr.org. Visit our web site at www.nvr.org.
