Gregg Mitman
ENGAGEMENT
THE LAND BENEATH OUR FEET
The Land Beneath Our Feet, a one-hour documentary on history, memory, and land rights in Liberia was released in the fall of 2016 and has screened at more than 50 international film festivals, professional meetings, and universities on six continents. The film has also been taken up widely in Liberia. The Land Authority, a Liberian governmental agency, along with the Delegation of the European Union to Liberia, and numerous civil society groups working on land reform in Liberia have used the film in educating and raising community awareness around land rights issues. The film has helped spark public discussion and debate leading up to the passage of the Land Rights Act by the Liberian legislature and signed into law by President George Weah in the fall of 2018. The law recognizes customary rights to land for the first time in Liberia’s history and is regarded as an important first step in addressing land conflicts in Liberia.
A LIBERIAN JOURNEY
History, Memory and the Making of a Nation
In partnership with the Center for National Documents and Records Agency (CNDRA), the Indiana University Liberian Collections, and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and with support from the National Science Foundation, we developed a public history website meant to inform, raise questions, and invite stories about the lives and landscapes transformed by the arrival of Firestone Plantations Company in Liberia. The website makes available close to 600 photographs and more than 2 hours of rare motion picture footage taken on a 1926 Harvard expedition to Liberia, sponsored by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and puts this material in the service of a country seeking to rewrite a more inclusive history of its past in the wake of a brutal fourteen-year civil war. In addition to the digital collection of historic film and photographs, A Liberian Journey also features a pilot exhibit on Chief Suah Koko—a noted woman leader in Liberia’s history—and oral histories and documents linked to an interactive map. The website was featured by Slate Magazine as one of its top ten favorite digital history websites for 2016.
Winona LaDuke gives the 2017 Tales from Planet Earth Film Festival keynote address.
TALES FROM PLANET EARTH
Tales from Planet Earth is project that has brought together artists, faculty, students, and community members to explore and further the power of storytelling through film as a force of environmental and social change. Through this biennial film festival, along with workshops, classes, and public forums, Tales has connected to more than 17,000 people through nearly 200 film screenings and visits from award-winning filmmakers, scientists and public intellectuals that have helped to expand our definition and understanding of the environment in the past, present, and future.
THE LAND BENEATH OUR FEET
The Land Beneath Our Feet, a one-hour documentary on history, memory, and land rights in Liberia was released in the fall of 2016 and has screened at more than 50 international film festivals, professional meetings, and universities on six continents. The film has also been taken up widely in Liberia. The Land Authority, a Liberian governmental agency, along with the Delegation of the European Union to Liberia, and numerous civil society groups working on land reform in Liberia have used the film in educating and raising community awareness around land rights issues. The film has helped spark public discussion and debate leading up to the passage of the Land Rights Act by the Liberian legislature and signed into law by President George Weah in the fall of 2018. The law recognizes customary rights to land for the first time in Liberia’s history and is regarded as an important first step in addressing land conflicts in Liberia.
A LIBERIAN JOURNEY
History, Memory and the Making of a Nation
In partnership with the Center for National Documents and Records Agency (CNDRA), the Indiana University Liberian Collections, and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and with support from the National Science Foundation, we developed a public history website meant to inform, raise questions, and invite stories about the lives and landscapes transformed by the arrival of Firestone Plantations Company in Liberia. The website makes available close to 600 photographs and more than 2 hours of rare motion picture footage taken on a 1926 Harvard expedition to Liberia, sponsored by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and puts this material in the service of a country seeking to rewrite a more inclusive history of its past in the wake of a brutal fourteen-year civil war. In addition to the digital collection of historic film and photographs, A Liberian Journey also features a pilot exhibit on Chief Suah Koko—a noted woman leader in Liberia’s history—and oral histories and documents linked to an interactive map. The website was featured by Slate Magazine as one of its top ten favorite digital history websites for 2016.
TALES FROM PLANET EARTH
Tales from Planet Earth is project that has brought together artists, faculty, students, and community members to explore and further the power of storytelling through film as a force of environmental and social change. Through this biennial film festival, along with workshops, classes, and public forums, Tales has connected to more than 17,000 people through nearly 200 film screenings and visits from award-winning filmmakers, scientists and public intellectuals that have helped to expand our definition and understanding of the environment in the past, present, and future.
© 2019 Gregg Mitman