Lipscomb’s HumanDocs film series continues quest to educate

Lipscomb’s HumanDocs film series continues quest to educate

To co-curator Ted Parks, Lipscomb’s documentary screening series HumanDocs means far more than an earned chapel credit. Now, students who attend an installment of the series, typically nestled in a time-friendly slot on a Wednesday night, do earn a credit, but like most chapel opportunities, the impact goes far beyond the met requirement. The HumanDocs film screening series aims to teach its attendees about issues facing our world through the art of the documentary, which fits right in with the genesis of the documentary form. “My sense is that documentary has always been a form that has had an alternative distribution to commercial film,” Parks said, “and it’s always, from what I know about it, been used to raise consciousness about issues.” Parks says that at the beginning of the documentary, filmmakers were more able to pursue the issues and topics that they were passionate about because of the leniency of not working within the confines of commercial requirements. “Documentary filmmakers are not in it to make a buck,” Parks said. “They’re in it because they want to tell a story that they think will impact the world, and I really like that part of documentary film in contrast with commercial filmmaking.” Parks, an associate professor, said that HumanDocs was born out of his Hispanic Cinema class. He would have students volunteer at the Nashville Film Festival as part of the course, which got Parks wondering if Lipscomb could forge a more formal bond with the festival. “I wanted to try to develop a closer relationship between Lipscomb and the Nashville Film Festival, so talking to my colleague and...

HumanDocs returns for first movie of season with ‘Big Men’

Briefly: Big Men will serve as HumanDoc’s first film of the season Wednesday night. The documentary, selected for the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, will screen for free in Shamblin Theatre at 8:30 p.m. A panel will follow. “Over the course of five years, director Rachel Boynton and her cinematographer filmed the quest for oil in Ghana by Dallas-based Kosmos,” Janel Shoun-Smith wrote for Lipscomb’s website. “The company developed the country’s first commercial oil field, yet its success was quickly compromised by political intrigue and accusations of corruption. As Ghanaians waited to reap the benefits of oil, the filmmakers discovered violent resistance down the coast in the Niger Delta, where impoverished Nigerians have yet to prosper from decades-old oil fields.” The news story says the film “provides an unprecedented inside look at the global deal making and dark underside of energy development — a contest for money and power that is reshaping the world.” For more information on the screening, visit Lipscomb’s website. Photo courtesy of...