Documentary Fest in Columbia

Okay, let’s catch up with what’s been going on around campus for me.

Now, I realize it has been more than one month since my last post, but I am committed to posting whenever I possibly have the time available for something like that. By the time May comes around, I will be able to post weekly once again.

So, in the past few weeks I have been going through multiple tests and essays through Spanish and both my English classes. In Spanish, we just finished a section on conjunctions and adjectives used in the subjunctive form. In English 1000, I just finished writing a 1500-word essay about how people get most of their news through shows like The Daily Show or more through your average national evening news show. In Journalism 2000, we just finished our topic on race coverage in the news and how the journalistic media today fails to fix the single story on certain cultures and people of color. Now, we are starting a topic on gender in society which is a very important topic in today’s society. In English 1310, we just finished reading our first book of American literature and are now moving on to the second book. Thankfully, for both of my English classes I don’t have to take any final exams.

On the weekend of February 28th to March 3rd I volunteered as a filmmaker liaison at the annual True/False Film Festival. My job was to sign in filmmakers and give them welcome bags which were filled to the brim with complimentary free coupons to restaurants in town. I met some very interesting people such as the director of the documentary, "Amazing Grace", which shows the live taping of the late great singer Aretha Franklin sing her “Amazing Grace” album in a Baptist church in Los Angeles. I met another filmmaker who was from Rio, Brazil. She was having an extremely hard time acclimating to the cold of the Midwest. “How can you live like this?” she said, “I was in Berlin a couple of weeks ago and it wasn’t this cold. I cannot wait to get back home to celebrate Carnival.” All I could do was give her advice of wearing as many layers as possible until she was warm. The last person I talked to was in my personal opinion, awesome. I got to meet Comedy Central’s Nathan Fielder from the TV show, Nathan for You. Fielder was in town to promote his hour and a half long documentary, "Finding Frances" which is actually just a really long episode of his show. I only talked to him for a couple of minutes, but I definitely learned a lot about how to become a writer on a TV show. Fielder explained to me the people he hired to be writers on his show were personal friends he trusted and understood his type of comedy. He did say though that more and more people are starting to hire journalists as writers in order for shows like Fielder’s to have great research before creating an episode. I do have to say, it was a very wonderful experience to volunteer for such an event. Thousands of documentary film makers roamed the streets of Columbia going to documentaries based on current events or historical figures. After my volunteering hours were over every day of the fest, I would go watch a film. The following films I saw were: "Finding Frances" which is about one of Nathan Fielder’s previous guests on his show looking for a long lost high school love, "Mike Wallace is Here" which is a biopic of former 60 Minutes head anchor Mike Wallace as he climbs the steps of being an actor to becoming one of America’s most trusted journalists, "Apollo 11" commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing with never before seen, digitally remastered 70mm film of the mission in its entirety, and finally my personal favorite, "Cold Case Hammarskjöld". "Cold Case Hammarskjöld" was a documentary about the former U.N. Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld and how his death is a supposed international conspiracy. (I will be sure to share the trailers for the films I saw.)

My upcoming spring break will not happen until the 23rd of March. I have been preparing a trip with a group of three other MU students in which we will spend out spring break volunteering at Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. Our job during spring break will be to remove invasive species of weeds such as, garlic mustard and trees of heaven. The drive to get there will take about 7 hours and we will be living in the park at a cabin on the Park’s property.

I will be sure to write another entry in April to cover how my trip went.

Until next time, see ya!