center for documentary and ethnographic media

Mimesis Documentary Festival returns to Boulder for its fourth year

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 19:38:22 +0000

Mimesis Documentary Festival returns to Boulder for its fourth year Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/07/2023 - 13:38

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)

Many artists consider their mission to be documenting life—whether through 19th-century French realist painting or film.

The Mimesis Documentary Festival, now in its fourth year, celebrates those creators.

The festival, which is hosted by the College of Media, Communication and Information’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media, invites the general public and ��Ƶ Boulder community to attend screenings, workshops and more from Aug. 15 through 20.

If you go

What: Mimesis Documentary Festival

When: Aug. 15-20

Where: Venues throughout Boulder as well as virtual screenings

Who: Festival passes ($80) and virtual passes ($30) are available to the public. Free tickets are available for ��Ƶ Boulder students.

Learn more and purchase tickets →

These events are available both online and in person, around Boulder at the Dairy Arts Center’s Boedecker Cinema and B2 Center for Media, Arts & Performance. This year features more than 60 documentaries—some as short as three minutes, others lasting for more than an hour—curated from more than 200 submissions from more than 30 countries.

Given the eclectic selection of films, there are two different schedules: one for documentary blocks—which include multiple documentaries in a shared timeslot—and one for documentary arts. These films extend beyond the screen, often involving sound, installation and other interactive elements.

“We call it documentary arts because it’s really about expanding the documentary form beyond the single screen,” said Eric Coombs Esmail, director of the center. “We want to bring documentary back into an arts space, where it always really has belonged.”

The festival prides itself on spotlighting artists and focusing on underrepresented and culturally specific subjects. Many submissions are what would commonly be considered “experimental,” so rather than organizing the festival around perceived genre, the Mimesis team finds threads of continuity and intersectionality of themes when putting together the program.

“The goal is always to pair films not just because they resonate with each other, but because we think that by putting them together, both projects will be amplified,” he said. “We’re trying to provide the best possible platform for these artists’ work to really shine and have relevance.”

For example, the opening night programming is a combination of a feature documentary, “Rebel Objects,” and the 16-minute “Visão do Paraíso (Vision of Paradise).”

This year showcases two individual artists—artist-in-focus Jessica Beshir and featured artist Saeed Taji Farouky.

Beshir’s 2021 documentary, “Faya Dayi,” is her feature debut and part of Friday night’s lineup. She will host a conversation after the screening, as well as a masterclass on Saturday.

Farouky is a filmmaker of Palestinian and British descent whose work focuses on conflict, human rights and colonialism; his film, “A Thousand Fires,” will screen Saturday evening. He is also set to host an artist walk through the ghost town of Caribou, Colorado, Sunday morning.

“It’s exciting to have something where we go out into the world and see how a documentarian sees a city,” Coombs said.

Notably, three ��Ƶ Boulder films will be showcased, including “Junk,” a student film by Lily Fletcher (Jour, CritMedia). Cinema studies faculty member Laura Conway will present her film, “Venus in Ferns,” in the same documentary block as Riley Bartlett (EngLit’19), who created “The Caladium Garden.”

In addition to CMCI, the Dairy Arts Center and the B2 Center, festival supporters include ��Ƶ Boulder’s Departments of Critical Media Practices and its Research and Innovation Office, festival partners and individual donors.

Tickets are available online through the Mimesis website. Space is limited, so members of the public must obtain a pass and reserve tickets prior to attending in-person or virtual screenings.

The Mimesis Documentary Festival, which is hosted by the College of Media, Communication and Information’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media, invites the general public and ��Ƶ Boulder community to attend screenings, workshops and more from Aug. 15 through 20.

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Mimesis Documentary Festival Returns to Boulder

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 22:44:22 +0000

Mimesis Documentary Festival Returns to Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/28/2022 - 16:44

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)

The third annual Mimesis Documentary Festival will be held in Boulder from Tuesday, Aug. 2, to Sunday, Aug. 7. The festival, which is open to the public and University of Colorado Boulder community, is hosted by the College of Media, Communication and Information’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media (CDEM).

Mimesis is a unique festival that highlights socially relevant subjects explored largely through documentary film. Many of the workshops and screenings are available both online and in person, and special events will take place in Boulder at the Dairy Arts Center and B2 Center for Media, Arts & Performance.

Eric Coombs Esmail, CDEM director, said the festival is special because it “builds on Colorado’s tradition of avant-garde media art and grounds it firmly in the 21st century.”

Notably, 80% of the projects come from open submissions in a variety of categories, like traditional documentary, ethnographic and emerging/students. This year, there were more than 200 submissions.

The opening night feature, Song of Salt, is set in the isolated mining town of Trona, California, on the outskirts of Death Valley. In Emma Baiada and Nicolas Snyder’s documentary, viewers can glimpse the struggles and celebrations within a tight-knit community as it faces the present realities of an eroding economy.

This feature will be screened online and at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, at the Dairy Arts Center’s Boedecker Cinema. Baiada and Snyder will host a conversation about their film following the screening.

Another notable screening is Aleph, a travelogue film created by 2022 Artist in Focus Iva Radivojević that follows its protagonists across 10 countries and five continents. The Boedecker Cinema will screen the film at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 5, followed by a conversation with Radivojević. On Saturday, Radivojević will also present a masterclass discussing film elements at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 6.

“We don’t send any special invitations or curate in advance,” Esmail said about the artist in-focus selection process. “We try to pick an artist who is relevant in the contemporary documentary landscape.”

Attendees may also see installation-based documentary art pieces and participate in workshops.

In addition to CMCI, the Dairy Arts Center and the B2 Center, festival supporters include the Departments of Anthropology and Critical Media Practices, the Research and Innovation Office, and festival partners and individual donors.

Tickets are available online through the Mimesis website. Space is limited, so members of the public must obtain a pass and reserve tickets prior to attending in-person or virtual screenings.

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Tickets Now Available for Second-Annual Mimesis Documentary Festival

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 19:51:28 +0000

Tickets Now Available for Second-Annual Mimesis Documentary Festival Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/30/2021 - 13:51

Tickets are now available to the public and ��Ƶ Boulder community for the second-annual Mimesis Documentary Festival, to be held Aug. 4-10 in Boulder, Colorado. The festival is hosted by the College of Media, Communication and Information’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media.

Presented in conjunction with Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center and the ATLAS Institute B2 Center for Media, Arts and Performance, the festival brings together a week of screenings, installation-based documentary arts pieces, workshops and conversations with some of the most dynamic voices in documentary and ethnographic media to explore the pressures and possibilities of contemporary global culture.

Mimesis will highlight more than 80 projects selected from open submissions in traditional, ethnographic, docufiction, experimental and emerging/student categories. Moderated artist conversations will be presented throughout the week, as well as a screening of a new installment of Flaherty x Boulder, curated in partnership with The Flaherty organization’s programmers-in-residence program. While some special events and featured programs will be presented in-person only at partner venues, Mimesis’ organizers are proud to offer both physical and virtual viewing options for the majority of this year’s programming.

The 2021 Mimesis Documentary Festival is a nonprofit project of the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media to help secure and promote Colorado’s place in a local, regional and international community of nonfiction creators and scholars. Artist-centered, community-driven and dedicated to promoting transparency and inclusion, the festival’s organizers are committed to programming 80% of projects from open submissions, offering complimentary virtual screening passes and feedback upon request to all artists, and waiving submission fees for ��Ƶ Boulder students.

The Mimesis Documentary Festival is brought to life with major support by the Stewart Family Foundations and additional support from festival partners, the College of Media, Communication and Information, the Departments of Anthropology and Critical Media Practices, the Research and Innovation Office, ATLAS Insitute's B2 Center for Media, Art and Performance, and by the ongoing support of our donors, audiences and artists. A limited number of free tickets are available for students through the ��Ƶ Student Pass, as well as 50% discounts for faculty and staff through our ��Ƶ Community Membership program. Please email the festival to receive a unique purchase code to receive your ��Ƶ Community Membership or ��Ƶ Student Pass. Please indicate whether you are faculty, staff or a student, as well as your expected year of graduation (if applicable). Tickets for in-person events are limited!

Learn more, view programming and purchase tickets at mimesisfestival.org.

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Film Buffs Unite! ��Ƶ Boulder’s First Mimesis Documentary Festival brings Filmmakers, Documentary Enthusiasts Together

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:52:15 +0000

Film Buffs Unite! ��Ƶ Boulder’s First Mimesis Documentary Festival brings Filmmakers, Documentary Enthusiasts Together Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/05/2020 - 15:52

Saebryn Peel

The Mimesis Documentary Festival will bring filmmakers together for an immersive week of film screenings and discussions.

The virtual presentation, to be held Aug. 12 through 18, will feature short and feature-length programs available for online streaming, as well as live events and other interactive experiences accessible to both filmmakers and the general public.

The festival provides a great opportunity for those in the public to view documentaries that might otherwise be difficult to access, says Eric Coombs Esmail, director of the College of Media, Communication and Information’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media, which is hosting the festival.

“Some of the films we are showing will be entirely unique to most audiences,” Esmail says. “Mimesis is about pushing the boundaries of what documentary can be, and having impactful experiences of unique and underrepresented subjects through art.”

One highlight of the festival will be “The Unwriting of Disaster,” part of a new year-long series called Flaherty x Boulder, which showcases important works of historical and contemporary documentary media art.

Mimesis Documentary Festival was created as a non-fiction, media-focused platform for creators, artists and scholars to share their work while engaging with others. It is sponsored by ��Ƶ Boulder units including CMCI, the Departments of Anthropology and Critical Media Practices and the Research and Innovation Office––as well as through individual contributions.

All current students, faculty and staff can receive free admission to the entire festival. Send a request to mdf@colorado.edu from your colorado.edu email address to be provided with a code to use at checkout. For others in the public, tickets for the festival can be purchased on the festival's website. Participants can purchase individual event tickets for $10 each, or you can buy an all access pass for $25.

The Mimesis Documentary Festival will bring filmmakers together for an immersive week of film screenings and discussions. The virtual presentation––free to all ��Ƶ Boulder students, faculty and staff––will be held Aug. 12 through 18.

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center for documentary and ethnographic media

Mimesis Documentary Festival returns to Boulder for its fourth year

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Mimesis Documentary Festival Returns to Boulder

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Tickets Now Available for Second-Annual Mimesis Documentary Festival

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Film Buffs Unite! ��������Ƶ Boulder’s First Mimesis Documentary Festival brings Filmmakers, Documentary Enthusiasts Together

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Film Buffs Unite! ��Ƶ Boulder’s First Mimesis Documentary Festival brings Filmmakers, Documentary Enthusiasts Together