CLEVELAND – The Sunflower County Film Academy has partnered with the Delta Arts Alliance in Cleveland to host their future young filmmaker’s workshops.
The four-week 2023 program will be held June 5 through June 30, Monday through Friday.
The first week will be held at Delta State University and the remaining three weeks and a public screening of the final class film will be at the historic Ellis Theatre, where the Delta Arts Alliance (DAA) is headquartered.
“Delta Arts Alliance is thrilled to partner with the Sunflower County Film Academy,” said DAA Executive Director Lauren Powell. “We are excited to have students at the historic Ellis Theatre learning to make movies and having an opportunity to share their work in their communities.”
The Sunflower County Film Academy (SCFA), was founded in 2018 as part of the K-12 curriculum for the award-winning film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, which was broadcast nationally on PBS and WORLD Channel in February 2022. Prior workshops held in Indianola (2018) and Sumner (2021) were taught by the film’s production crew.
Previously funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area (MDNHA-Delta State University), the Phil Hardin Foundation and others, the SCFA is open to high school students in the Mississippi Delta. Students can apply online and the deadline is April 14, 2023
The workshop includes classroom discussions about Mississippi’s civil rights activists, including Hamer, but mainly provides hands-on instruction in the art of filmmaking. Students use production-grade equipment to shoot, produce and edit their own short movies and videos which are later submitted to local film festivals.
The primary purpose of the workshop is to interest more students of color in the Digital Arts field and to complete a short film as a team. Lunch and snacks are provided, and students are paid a small stipend at the end of the workshop. Students will share their class film with the community at a public screening on June 30.
“The screening is an opportunity for students to showcase their work and share their experiences and expressions with their family and friends,” said Monica Land, administrator for the SCFA. “We are so delighted to partner with a pillar in the community like the Delta Arts Alliance because their mission parallels our mission – to help students grow artistically.”
Founded in 2004, the Delta Arts Alliance (DAA) hosts numerous after-school programs for local students in the artistic and culinary fields. Their mission is to serve as a bridge to connect diverse cultures through their contributions to the arts, create a common vision and develop strategies for making the arts a more prominent part of daily life in the Mississippi Delta.
Powell’s husband, Ben, of Broken Arm Studio, organizes film workshops for younger students at the DAA and will lead the 2023 Sunflower County Film Academy.
“I'm thrilled for the opportunity to help grow the independent film community here and tell more stories with young filmmakers from the Delta,” he said. “I look forward to collaborating and helping young filmmakers develop their creative storytelling skills.”
Other instructors for the 2023 class include local filmmakers Professor Ted Fisher of Delta State University, Glenn Payne of Dead Leaf Productions and Carrie Simon and Hayne Rawls Jr. of Ardent Flame Media Group.
“With so many dedicated professionals on our team, it is our hope that this workshop introduces students to other career options such as broadcasting and filmmaking, fields sorely under-represented by people of color,” Land said. “Additionally, students in the Delta are so creative and so talented. This gives them a positive outlet to express and nurture that creativity.”
“Filmmaking is such an immersive art form with many opportunities to offer,” Powell said. “DAA is excited to have films back at The Ellis and we are eager to see the stories told by these amazing students.”
Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a multimodal project that honors the late civil rights icon and Mississippi Delta native. The centerpiece of the project is an original documentary that allows Hamer to tell her own story in her own words.
Hamer was influential in the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, she spearheaded several humanitarian aid efforts in the Delta and brought the first Head Start program to Sunflower County in the early 1970s. Hamer died on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59.
The SCFA continues Hamer’s legacy of bringing educational opportunities to the historically underserved Delta.
