SUMNER — A young filmmakers’ workshop that is part of the K-12 curriculum for the new documentary, “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” is recruiting students for its summer 2020 class.
The Sunflower County Film Academy, which launched in 2018, teaches high school students from the Mississippi Delta the aesthetics of filmmaking using professional-grade equipment.
The purpose of the free workshop is to encourage more minorities to engage in the digital media production field.
The workshop is tentatively scheduled for June 23 through July 4, pending updates and restrictions by local officials due to COVID-19.
Applications may be completed online, and the deadline to apply is Friday, April 17. The class of 10 students will be taught by filmmakers, Dr. Pablo Correa of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Sunflower County native Robert “RJ” Fitzpatrick.
“What originally began as the Fannie Lou Hamer’s America Young Filmmakers’ Workshop is an influential program filled with dedicated partners whose goal is to educate, revitalize, and uplift the Delta,” said Fitzpatrick, a Ruleville native specializing in digital media arts. “By focusing on youth, the workshop has managed to continue the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, who as an adult, worked with people of all ages including the young people whom she loved.”
Fitzpatrick and Correa were both videographers for the film, “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” currently being considered for public broadcast.
The academy will recruit students from Tallahatchie County, and the workshop will be hosted by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center (ETIC) and Patrick Weems, its executive director.
Weems offered the facility because the academy connects with their mission of “mentoring teens using the arts and storytelling to help process past pain and to imagine new futures moving forward.”
De’Vante Wiley, youth organizer for ETIC, helped organize the event.
“We’re excited to partner with the Sunflower County Film Academy to offer Tallahatchie County students the opportunity to dive into the digital media production field while learning more about their local, regional and state history,” Wiley said. “This is a great opportunity for them to use art as a tool to learn, express themselves and discover their inner talents.”
“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” is a multimodal project that honors the late civil rights icon, and includes an original documentary and a digital curriculum, “Find Your Voice: The Online Resource for Fannie Lou Hamer Studies.”
The project continues Hamer’s legacy of bringing educational opportunities to the historically underserved Delta. Hamer, a Sunflower County native who was influential in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and spearheaded several humanitarian aid efforts, brought the first Head Start program to Sunflower County in the early 1970s.
The “Find Your Voice” curriculum also includes 18 new lesson plans written by two Fannie Lou Hamer historians and six teachers from the Mississippi Delta, a children’s book, an animated movie by BrainPOP, and a Driving Tour of Hamer-related sites.
Dr. Davis Houck, one of the "Find Your Voice" curriculum designers and a researcher for the film, will be on hand to assist students during the workshop.
The 17 students who participated in the 2018 workshop, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, produced their first video, “Out of Many,” after the first week. Their final class film, “Find Your Voice,” premiered at the 2019 Crossroads Film Festival in Madison.
Eight students from that class also worked on the film, “I Snuck Off the Slave Ship,” which was an official selection at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Three students from the first class will serve as interns this summer where they will be taught to teach future workshops.
“I am excited that we get to bring back previous students as interns,” said Correa, who teaches Media Techniques and Digital Media Production courses at Willamette University. “One of our main goals was to empower the students to consider careers in digital production, help tell stories from their community, as well as continue to teach the generation ahead to do the same. The interns will help mentor new students by sharing their enthusiasm and experience. Additionally, interns will create a film documenting the summer program, continuing to hone their media production skills.”
Correa is also the web designer and a curriculum developer for the Find Your Voice online resource.
“As an instructor, I feel as though the program has been impactful to my life first off, but also to the lives of each person involved,” Fitzpatrick said. “And each day we perform our duties with the workshop, we see the power in each student and individual grow and progress for the better.”
The 2020 workshop is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Phil Hardin Foundation, Mississippi Humanities Council, the C Spire Foundation and HOPE Enterprises and Credit Union.
About Fannie Lou Hamer
Born Oct. 6, 1917, Mississippi-sharecropper-turned-civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer was the voice of voting rights during the 1960s to mid-1970s. Known for her powerful speeches and impassioned pleas for equal rights, Hamer delivered an emotional plea that was nationally televised at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Following her appearance, Hamer became one of the most sought-after speakers of her time. Hamer died on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59 following a vicious jailhouse beating years earlier.
IN THE PHOTO: Sunflower County Film Academy instructor Joy Davenport (left) helps students set up their equipment as it arrives for a 2018 workshop. (Photo special to The Sun-Sentinel)
