Bind It As A Sign: Learning the Jewish Tefillin Ritual (30 minutes)
by Joshua Zepeda, MVA 2019
Offering a rare and intimate peek into the world of Orthodox Jewish ritual practices, the film Bind It As A Sign: Learning the Jewish Tefillin Ritual follows a young boy late one night as he and his father meet with a Hassidic Rabbi to learn the precise rules of the Tefillin prayer ritual in preparation for the boy’s impending Bar-Mitzvah.
Changing Hands: Land in Transition (27 minutes)
by Amanda Broder-Hahn, MVA 2019
Bill and Barbara Spencer have been farming together at Windrose Farm in Paso Robles for 30 years. Like 80% of American small-family farmers, they are over the age of 58. They also find it necessary to have a full-time source of income separate from the farm in order to keep up with bills, like another 80% of small-family farmers in the US.
Both have long been engaged in what they consider to be the political act of farming as sustainably as possible. They rotate crops, make compost, and practice a style of diversified farming that is more labor-intensive than the methods currently practiced on a large scale in America. Bill and Barbara, and many other small family farmers like them, see farming on a small scale as a way to grow food while nurturing the soil rather than depleting it—while also growing a community.
Now in their mid-seventies, they have been working toward passing their legacy and land along for years—but as they run out of money and the physical capacity to continue working as hard as they do, this aspect of their work becomes increasingly urgent. Through interview and observational footage, this film demonstrates their values at work, and the value this work creates as well as the challenges inherent in preparing to pass on such a legacy.
Webs of Compassion (29 minutes)
by Rebecca Truszkowski, MVA 2019
Webs of Compassion is a documentary focusing on the altruistic and empathetic culture of social service providers working at Transition House, a shelter for homeless families in Santa Barbara, California. Through emotional one-on-one interviews, as well as glimpses into daily activities, the documentary highlights the complexity of the inner workings of Transition House and explores the cultural atmosphere of the organization. This documentary studies how the social service providers see their contributions making an impact on the families, as well as in the larger picture of homelessness. Webs of Compassion reveals why certain social service providers work in the service of others, how they do so, and explores how they feel about their efforts.
Due to the rising issue of homelessness, individuals working with organizations such as Transition House bear the burden of this epidemic. They face the challenge and responsibility of helping individuals get off of the streets, providing the support they require, and working to transition each individual into a safe and secure living situation. The documentary reveals that despite the diversity in cultural influence, the social service providers share a commitment to build a culture of care and support in Santa Barbara. Webs of Compassion explores this desire to work in social service.
The Modern Mambabatok:
Lane Wilcken and Filipino Tattooing in the Diaspora (30 minutes)
by Kayla Sotomil, MVA 2019
The Modern Mambabatok follows the story of Lane Wilcken as he travels the United States practicing traditional Filipino hand-tap tattooing. The film showcases Wilcken’s engagement with the Filipino diasporic community as an educator of indigenous Philippine culture and as a mambabatok, traditional tattoo practitioner. Through Wilcken’s personal and professional journeys, audiences gain insight into the history of ancient Filipino hand-tap tattooing, its near extinction, and its recent revival and practice in the Filipino diaspora. The Modern Mambabatok chronicles this resurgence of traditional hand-tap tattooing and how batoks, hand-tap tattoos, are used to express Filipino and Filipino American identity today.
To Be Anything: Animating Possible Selves (24 minutes)
by Marissa Dimitrion
To Be Anything: Animating Possible Selves explores the creative processes of two young animators and the capacity of artistic storytelling to challenge dominant social dialogues and create new possibilities of being. Aaron, a freshman, having been born in the Caribbean and later moving to the United States, must come to terms with the imposition of his racial identity. He not only strives to tell stories that both serve to represent Blackness and himself as a Black animator, but he also wants to free himself from the categorical thinking of race in a profound way, one in which his protagonists can achieve unbounded universal resonance. Jenn has worked hard and always had the desire to be “the best”; working three jobs to support herself, she worked towards a "dream" job at Pixar. After she burnt out, her "dream" became a “search for calm,” one that would include a work-life balance, animating for a non-profit organization, and living serenely in a tiny house in the Pacific Northwest. Both Aaron and Jenn have sought to dismantle cultural constructs using potent, emotional storytelling to communicate, not only with their audiences, but with themselves.
It Takes a Village, Polyamory in the Family (30 minutes)
by Maleia Mikesell
It Takes a Village is an intimate portrait of a courageous polyamorous quad raising their children in a hetero- and mono-normative Western society. This quad consists of two married couples living separately, all of whom are bisexual and have loving and meaningful relationships with one another. Each couple has been married since 1999 and has between two to four children. This film explores the topics of what it means to be polyamorous in current Western society, the support that they receive from one another, the difficulties they face, and how they overcome those challenges. The film participants explore an equivocal reflection on topics such as the contentious and fluid boundaries between polyamory as an orientation, identity, and lifestyle. Glimpses into their daily lives are revealing of just how unexpectedly wholesome this phenomenon actually can be.
Obligation & Self: Chinese International Students
and the One-Child Policy (25 minutes)
by Qihao Wang
The one-child policy, a birth planning policy introduced in 1982 and intended to control the population growth in China, was officially suspended in December 2015. Within its over thirty years of enforcement, family structures and social structures in China were shaped significantly. With only one child, many families in China do everything in their power to prepare their only child to do well in Chinese society, including sending them to study abroad.
Obligation & Self: Chinese International Students and the One-Child Policy is a documentary about the experiences of several Chinese international students in the U.S. who were born under the one-child policy in China, and the tension between their individuality and their parents' expectations. Following its main characters, this film focuses on their experiences as the only children in their households and examines how they define cultural concepts of obligation and how those obligations influence their life choices.