The 4th Annual International DIVERSITY IN PLACE FILM FESTIVAL (DIPFF) returns once again to Honolulu, Hawai`i! This year we ask you to submit films on URBAN EXPLORATIONS. Tell us stories about the existing, yet unseen places in or around the urban areas you live/d, visit/ed, encounter/ed. The notion of urban exploration usually entails this sense of off-limits, abandoned, forgotten and neglected places. However, these places, as Josh Clark writes, were once “created with people in mind; they’re constructed to serve some function that benefits us. But [once] abandoned, these sites cease to have any sort of purpose. By gazing upon these structures as art or historical monuments, urban explorers give them a new purpose.” Hence, our call invites you to leave your “normal” world, venture and wonder through less usual paths. Please share with us your stories of encountering, examining, infiltrating, appropriating the normally unseen or off-limits parts of the urban areas around you. Imagine and image for us what you encounter and what there was once to be seen.

UPCOMING DEADLINE

February 1, 2012 –

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• We accept any short film, narrative, experimental, animated or documentary under 30 minutes in length
• Please upload your film on www.vimeo.com and send us the link. If you don’t want to go public, vimeo gives you the option to keep your film private. Privacy options are available so you can have complete control over who sees your videos.  To share the password-protected video, you can send an email to diversityinplace@gmail.com with the password inside.
• Fill the online submission form

ENTRY FEES

Standard Fee: 25$

Student Fee: $20

Please make check payable to Hawai`i Academy of Performing Arts (HAPA) and send to: Diversity in Place Film Festival, c/o The ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nu`uanu Avenue, Honolulu,  Hawai`i l 96817-5121 l Phone: 808.206.0848 l Fax: 808.521.2923l Email diversityinplace@gmail.com

Online payment available.  Standard &  Student. Please note that there will be a $2 convenience fee included on all online payments.

For entries paying the Student Fee, a copy of a current student ID MUST be included with the submission.

NOTIFICATION DATE
Approximately 1-March-2012

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

DIPFF, an intersection between a film festival and a conference, explores the potential applications of film as one of the most ideal formats through which we can understand people’s relations with place and promote awareness and a critical outlook on how we, all of us, experience place so as to have a better understanding of how it works, affects people’s lives and people intervene in its making. Held each April in Honolulu, Hawaii, DIPFF presents a wide variety of films from emerging and professional filmmakers. Different from an usual film festival, it is not only themed, but  also hosts a keynote speaker who will give an introductory lecture, and the filmmakers are invited to discuss extensively their work during the Q&A session. Yet, though following this conference format, instead of asking for papers, we call for films and videos as visual essays on the yearly theme.

Contact person: Vera Zambonelli (Founder and Creative Director)

Hawai’i is recognized as the most diverse state in the nation, but the rest of the U.S., as well as urban centers worldwide, are following our lead. Urban and regional planners are looking at how attitudes and the built environment encourage or discourage this trend. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on an upcoming film series that explores the issues. The 3rd Annual “Diversity in Place” film series opens April 28th at the UH Manoa Center for Hawaiian Studies. The films continue Friday April 29th at Marks’ Garage. Check www.diversityinplace.org for information and a full schedule.

Aired today {April 19} on 88.1 FM at 7:30 am and 8:30 pm & 89.3 FM between 8-9 am and at 1:30 pm

audio file: dive0419.mp3

Honolulu, HI (April 7, 2011) – The 3rd Annual Diversity in Place Film Festival <<Cosmopolis at the Grassroots>> showcases films that explore the inevitably increasing diverse social and built environment we live in and the role that place plays in enabling and/or constraining the emergence of cosmopolitan practices to occur, develop and be nurtured. This two-day event consists of screening and discussions on Thursday April 28, from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, 2645 Dole Street, and Friday April 29, from 5:00 to 8:00 (doors open at 4:45) at the ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Avenue, in downtown Honolulu.

On April 28th, the first day of the film fest, we will be featuring Finding Our Way, A documentary film with and about the Burns Lake band and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, two First Nations bands located in north central BC, Canada directed by Leonie Sandercock and Giovanni Attili. Finding Our Way questions how non-metropolitan communities that have been divided, indeed segregated, along Native/non-Native lines for more than a hundred years can find their way towards reconciliation, reparation, and productive co-existence.

The second day, April 29th, we will begin by screening the shorts film submissions’ selection, which presents a wide variety of stories from a variety of places. From Bonnington Square set right in the heart of London, where in the early eighties the one hundred houses of the Square were all squatted, forming a bohemian community from all around the world, to the exotic fruit and vegetables at Brighton Oriental Food Store and Iceland mini-mart’s cheap and cheerful offerings, a market place that brings together products and people from all corners of the world and acts as an arena of cross-cultural pollination embodied in the daily ritual of food buying.

But also, Kona’s (Honolulu, Oahu) painful transformation in He Aha Ka Waiwai?, and the Genderbusters drive around resolving the gender-binary dilemmas of folks all over San Francisco. One Storey makes us reflect on the effects of displacement upon intimate relations, while Life in Bubbles portrays the dilemma and the inner-struggle of those who were born into a privileged position in a state that fails to provide social amenities, justice or peace for the majority of its people in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Then, we will feature Imagining Home by Sue Arbuthnot & Richard Wilhelm, a film that traces the complete transformation of Columbia Villa, a historic, cherished, and maligned Portland, Oregon public housing neighborhood enduring poverty, gang violence, and racial discrimination—yet hoping for a new chance.

On both evenings, a moderated discussion led by Vera Zambonelli with filmmakers Leonie Sandercock, Sue Arbuthnot and Richard Wilhelm follows the screening.

The festival is free and open to the public.

This event is made possible thanks to the generosity of the University of Hawai’i Diversity and Equity Initiative, the UHM GRC Livable Cities and Digital Media Studio, The ARTS at Marks Garage, The UH Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the UH Graduate Student Organization, and the University Students of Urban and Regional Planning. For further info, contact Vera at veraz@hawaii.edu.

For complete screening program, click here.

]]> http://diversityinplace.org/2011/03/15/cosmopolis-at-the-grassroots/feed/ 0 verazambonelli Picture 21 http://diversityinplace.org/2010/04/13/stay-tuned-new-call-for-entries-coming-up-soon/ http://diversityinplace.org/2010/04/13/stay-tuned-new-call-for-entries-coming-up-soon/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:45:32 +0000 Vera Zambonelli http://diversityinplace.org/?p=655 Read More

APRIL 28-29, 2011 Cosmopolitanism as a mode of practice and competence involves the ability of individuals to navigate different cultures and their respective systems of meanings. Yet rarely is the role that place plays explicitly considered as being crucial for the emergence of this mode of practice and competence to occur, develop and be nurtured.  Hence, though cosmopolitanism does not happen in a vacuum, it is usually abstracted from everyday life and usually associated with elite traveling across several borders.

Alternatively, this year call intends to solicit films that look at very localized forms of cosmopolitanism and tell stories of everyday experiences of cosmopolitanism as they occur in our everyday spaces and places. Cosmopolis at the Grassroots asks for films that raise awareness of the inevitably increasing diverse social and built environment we live in -a view from the grassroots- as to document and value the everyday creative efforts towards the making of Cosmopolis of familiar places where we, all of us, can be at home.

In an innovative way toward mutual learning, this event, an intersection between a film festival and a conference, explores the potential applications of film as one of the most ideal formats through which we can understand people’s relations with place. Different from an usual film festival, it is not only themed, but  also hosts a keynote speaker who will give an introductory lecture, and the filmmakers are invited to discuss extensively their work during the Q&A session. Yet, though following this conference format, instead of asking for papers, we call for films and videos as visual essays on this year theme.

This event reaches out to scholars, teachers, students and practitioners alike who are searching for alternative methods to conventional data analysis and academic writing to create, investigate, manage, and disseminate knowledge.

On how to submit, please click here

This initiative is led by Vera Zambonelli, Associate Director of the Filmmaking for Social Research Program at the Globalization Research Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Fur further info, please contact us: diversityinplace@gmail.com

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Cities have a way of developing reputations based on subsets or personalities. If you ask people around the world about Chicago, many still cite Al Capone while sliding their arms back and forth like a tommy gun. You’d be hard pressed to bring up Philadelphia without someone raving about that Cheez Whiz laden steak sandwich. And let’s not even mention Detroit. Despite urban stereotypes, cities are a blend of continuously evolving neighborhoods and places. Each area and institution uniquely contributes to the creation of a city’s culture.

The University of Hawaii’s Urban and Regional Planning department offers a chance to explore these unique parts with the Diversity of Places Film Festival. The festival showcases a series of films that demonstrate how places are defined, and challenges us to re-evaluate how we experience our own communities.

“These films ask … who has the right to make or remake places and why?” said organizer Vera Zambonelli, who will be leading the event. “We want to promote awareness and critical outlook on how we, all of us, experience place.”

The festival is split into three parts, starting with a number of short films on topics ranging from the works of a non-profit bike shop in Philadelphia to a coming of age documentary on South Asian women living in Queens. The award winning film A Village Called Versailles follows, telling the story of a Vietnamese American community in New Orleans struggling not only to recover post-Katrina, but fighting to block the government’s efforts to place a toxic landfill next to their neighborhood. The evening culminates with a moderated discussion featuring filmmakers Leo Chiang, Brittney Shepherd, Eva Moss and Misa Tupou.

The ARTS At Marks Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Ave., Sun 4/4, 3PM, FREE, [www.diversityinplace.org], 521-2903

A diversity of places compounds our current urban realities. These include nourishing places as well as unsettling, even frightening, places.  Some places are inclusive civic spaces open to all; others are private, exclusive and controlled places. Places for children and places for adults; sacred places where we go for spiritual uplifting; restaurants and other places where we go to eat; places for women, and places where women may not feel too welcomed or simply “out of place” are also sites inscribed by social diversity.

Observing all such places raises the question of what creates the appropriateness of the use and social inscriptions of a place. More specifically, who has the right to (re-)make and use such places and why?   When does a place create/transmit sense of safety, or its opposite? For example, consider the idea of home, which usually evoke a sense of care, familiarity, and safety. Yet, it may also become a place of terror, as the too many incidents of domestic violence may suggest. In other words, place is embedded with a multiplicity of experiences, meanings and emotions. These may be experienced individually or shared among a group of people, who may vindicate ownership and use it in spatializing their identity.

Hence, given this mushrooming diversity of places, the main objective of this project and related film festivals is to promote awareness and a critical outlook on how we, all of us, experience place so as to have a better understanding of how it works, affects people’s lives and people intervene in its making.