February 18, 2016
Two film festival entries win John Michaels award
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The 2016 Big Muddy Film Festival at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will honor two 2015 documentaries with the John Michaels Film Award.
“Then Then Then,” described as a “primer on civil disobedience, 1968-1972,” by Canadian filmmaker Daniel Schioler, and “The First Secret City,” by filmmakers Alison Carrick and C.D. Stelzer, earn this year’s award. The films, along with others in that category, are part of the 38th annual Big Muddy Film Festival, Feb. 23-Feb. 28. Most of the festival’s venues are the Student Center Auditorium and Morris Library’s John C. Guyon Auditorium. For a second year, films will screen during weekday afternoons in addition to evenings and weekends.
The category honors films that reflect and increase awareness on social, community and environmental issues. The award honors the late John Michaels, an SIU Carbondale graduate student who earned his master of fine arts degree while here and was involved in community organizing and activism.
“Then Then Then” is described as a 30-minute, short documentary that utilizes archival footage from 1968 to 1972, along with music, to examine civil disobedience in the search for social change during that period. The film’s screening is 2 p.m., Feb. 27, in the Student Center Auditorium.
“The First Secret City,” a 120-minute film, looks at the history of the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis, a company that refined the first uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The film examines the environmental impact on the St. Louis community.
The film’s screening is at 4 p.m., Feb. 27, also in the Student Center Auditorium.
A complete list of the screenings is available at bigmuddyfilm.com/.