VOICE OF AMERICA – LOWELL THOMAS & THE RISE OF BROADCAST NEWS is featured at the 2019 BZN International Film Festival on Saturday, June 8th in the Hager Auditorium of the Museum of the Rockies at 3 pm. It’s an extraordinary story about Lowell Thomas, whom many call “The Father of Broadcast News,.”
Even if he had not been the major pioneer in that regard, he was an incredible adventurer and film director and producer, bringing footage from forbidden countries such as Afghanistan and Tibet long before any others, and in the case of Tibet, just in time before their ancient culture was radically disrupted and dispersed by the Chinese Communist invasion.
Lowell Thomas and his stalwart cameraman, Harry Chase, were the only ones to film T.E. Lawrence during the WWI Arab Rebellion against the Ottoman Empire.
Lowell was largely responsible for Lawrence’s fame after presenting pioneering multi-media productions using photographs and film to more than 3 million theater goers.
Rick Moulton directed VOICE OF AMERICA – LOWELL THOMAS & THE RISE OF BROADCAST NEWS.
The work of television pioneer, Arlene Francis, went far beyond her 25 years on the famed game show, “What’s My Line.” From hosting NBC’s first morning show, “Home,” to decades in radio and acting in Broadway shows and feature films, Francis’ career covered all bases. Narrated by Cherry Jones with stories from Arlene’s friends, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Walter Cronkite and many others, this film retraces the career and life of Television’s first leading lady.
Although largely forgotten to history, Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the very earliest pioneers in moving pictures, exploring and innovating from the late 1890s til the 1920s, when Wall Street and Trust capitalism squeezed her out of the art and business of filmmaking.
Pamela Green’s film resurrects her work and re-establishes her place in film history.
To this day, Alice Guy-Blaché is the only woman to have ever built her own film studio.
Although French, Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the pioneers of The Western genre. Hers were distinguished by the strong women who were featured in principle roles.
Although she had originally written The Fool and His Money for an inclusive cast, because the actors of European descent declined to participate, Alice Guy-Blaché became the first writer/director/producer of an all African American cast.
David Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. The author of four previous novels, most recently Prudence, and two books of nonfiction, he has also written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate, and The Washington Post, among others. He has a Ph.D. in anthropology and teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California.
David Treuer’s latest book, THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE: NATIVE AMERICA FROM 1890 TO THE PRESENT, is published by Riverhead Books.
Here is an edited extract from The Heartbeat at Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, referenced in this interview, which was published in The Guardian.
Julian Brave NoiseCat is an enrolled member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen in British Columbia. He is a graduate of Columbia University, and received a Clarendon Scholarship to study global and imperial history at the University of Oxford. He was formerly the native issues fellow at The Huffington Post. He writes for The Guardian, The Nation, The Paris Review, CBC, Vice, Pacific Standard, Dissent, Jacobin, Fusion, Indian Country Today, Salon, High Country News, Canadian Geographic, Frontier Magazine, World Policy Journal as well as other publications.
Julian Brave NoiseCat, a contributing editor of the newly unveiled Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, points on a giant map at a launch event in Toronto, Wednesday August 29, 2018. The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada includes a four volume print atlas, an online atlas, an app, and a giant floor map. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch)
IN SEARCH OF THE CANARY TREE: THE STORY OF A SCIENTIST, A CYPRESS, AND A CHANGING WORLD, published by Basic Books, chronicles the six years Lauren E. Oakes, PhD, spent beginning in 2010, as a young Stanford University scientist, doing doctoral research in South East Alaska, studying the mysterious die-back of ancient yellow cedar trees. Hers was a multi-disciplinary approach. In addition to the grueling field work studying thousand of trees, and countless other plants in the changing forests, she also interviewed local folks, including native Tlingit weavers, timber operators, other scientists, and just regular folks who enjoy the forests for recreation. There were many surprises along the way, which she shares with us in this interview.
In her latest book, FEMINISM’S FORGOTTEN FIGHT: THE UNFINISHED STRUGGLE FOR WORK AND FAMILY, Fordham University Associate Professor of History, Kirsten Swinth, corrects many myths and misconceptions about Second Wave Feminism, demonstrating that it isn’t feminism that has betrayed women, but the society that failed to make the far-reaching changes for which feminists fought in the period 1963 to 1978.
Lowell was largely responsible for Lawrence’s fame after presenting pioneering multi-media productions using photographs and film to more than 3 million theater goers.
Although French, Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the pioneers of The Western genre. Hers were distinguished by the strong women who were featured in principle roles.
It is published by Harvard University Press.
