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...