Master of Arts in Media Studies
Hirshon Film Festival

The Department of Media Studies and Film presents

The 4th Annual Dorothy H. Hirshon Film Festival

featuring The War Film

with Artist in Residence Peter Davis

A special series of screenings, panels and master classes

April 10th - May 5th, 2006


 

"If the first casualty of war is truth, the last is memory." -- Peter Davis


 

The Dorothy H. Hirshon Film Festival was established by a bequest from the late Dorothy Hirshon, a trustee of The New School for 61 years, with the mission of promoting excellence and education in the filmmaking arts. The fourth Hirshon Film Festival is focused on The War Film and includes lectures, screenings, and master classes with the artist in residence, Peter Davis.

Peter Davis is a writer and documentary filmmaker. Davis' groundbreaking work in television journalism for CBS includes the Emmy, Peabody, and Polk award-winning The Selling of the Pentagon (1971). His timeless Vietnam documentary Hearts and Minds received an Academy Award in 1975. Davis' PBS series Middletown (1982) also won numerous awards, including First Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He is the author of three books, including the Pulitzer-prize nominated If You Came This Way (1995). Davis is an extensively published free-lance journalist, most recently contributing ongoing coverage of the Iraq war to The Nation. Davis is a graduate of Harvard who made New York City his home for thirty years. He currently lives with his family on the coast of Maine.

Hirshon Film Festival Artists-in-Residence
2003  D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus
2004  John Waters
2005  Laurie Anderson
2006  Peter Davis

Schedule of Events

Monday,
April 10

Peter Davis Master Class
6:00-9:00pm Swayduck Auditorium, 65 Fifth Avenue

Open to University degree students. Current I.D. required

Tuesday,
April 11

Screening and Discussion
12:00-2:00pm 70 Fifth Avenue, Room 1204

Vets on Vets on Film

Combat veterans discuss their portrayal in narrative film. Clips from All Quiet on the Western Front, The Best Years of our Lives, Rambo, The Thin Red Line , and others. Panelists include Medal of Honor recipient Jack Jacobs, Swords to Plowshares Executive Director Michael Blecker, and Paul Cox of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 69.

Wednesday,
April 12

&
Thursday,
April 13

Peter Davis Master Classes for Degree Students

by application only, available at

www.mediastudies.newschool.edu/hirshon/apply.pdf

Friday,
April 14

Screening
7:00-10:00pm Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12 th Street

Hearts and Minds (1974)

Q & A with director Peter Davis

 

Peter Davis' landmark Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature of 1974. The Village Voice's Michael Atkinson wrote in 2004 that today "but for a few particulars, Davis' film seems as much a prosecution of the present as of the past; only the names and geography have changed."

Friday,
April 28

Screening
7:00-9:00pm Parsons Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue

Occupation: Dreamland (2005)
Directed by Garrett Scott and Ian Olds

Q & A with Ian Olds

Occupation: Dreamland is a melancholy portrait of a squad of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne deployed in the doomed Iraqi city of Falluja during the winter of 2004.

Thursday, May 4

Screening
6:00-9:00pm Swayduck Auditorium, 65 Fifth Avenue

Q and A with director Terry George (8:00-8:30pm)

Hotel Rwanda is director Terry George's graphic, harrowing, and widely honored film based on the true life heroism of Paul Rusesabigna during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Co-sponsored by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics

Friday,
May 5

Screening

27th Annual New School Invitational Film Show

7:00-9:00pm Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
Reception following

A selection of the year's outstanding films juried by a panel of distinguished filmmakers and film
industry professionals




The New SchoolThe New School Divisions
Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy The New School for General Studies The New School for Social Research Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy Parsons The New School for Design Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts Mannes The New School for Music The New School for Drama The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music Mannes The New School for Music