Katy Chevigny is the filmmaker behind Election Day (P.O.V. 2008) as well as the co-founder of the non-profit media organization Arts Engine, whose production arm, Big Mouth Films, has produced eight feature-length documentaries. This week, Arts Engine celebrates its 10th anniversary with a series of screenings at the Paley Center for Media in New York. Katy writes in to tell us more about the occasion.
It was a little over 10 years ago when Julia Pimsleur and I started our own production company in New York to make documentary films. Our plan then, as it still is now, was to establish a creative, collaborative environment to make documentaries on a range of topics, working with a number of different directors.
Julia had just spent seven years living in Paris, where she learned how to be a producer at the French National Film School. As a result, she was inspired to borrow from the model of many French documentary production companies, in which producers bring a creative vision to their slate of films and work collaboratively with a select group of filmmakers to achieve that vision.
We started Big Mouth with a simple business strategy of developing long-form documentaries for production (our first film was Kirsten Johnson's Innocent Until Proven Guilty) while also producing work-for-hire documentary projects for European production companies. And while our production department was steadily plugging away making this eclectic roster of documentaries, we developed into a non-profit organization called Arts Engine, eventually launching the website MediaRights.org and the Media That Matters Film Festival.
Over the course of the last decade, we have completed eight feature-length documentaries by six different directors. Our two latest films were both lucky enough to find themselves a home on P.O.V.: Andrew Walton's Arctic Son was part of P.O.V.'s 2007 season, and my film, Election Day, will have its broadcast premiere on P.O.V. on July 1, 2008.
Later this week, as part of our 10th anniversary celebration, the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) here in New York City will be showcasing our work in a special four-day (May 1 - 4) retrospective and workshop series. For the first time ever, all eight Big Mouth films will screen, along with highlights from several years of our Media That Matters Film Festival. In addition, on Thursday, May 1, we are offering a special workshop to educators on the uses of social justice media. All screenings and events are open to the public, and the full schedule can be found on Arts Engine's website.
None of us here can really believe that it's been 10 years since we started — but we're looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years have to offer. Marking this decade of work by sharing these films with an audience is a great privilege for us, and we hope that some of you will join us at the Paley Center this weekend!
With Election Day, filmmaker Katy Chevigny takes a look back at the events of November 2, 2004. We caught up with Chevigny last week to ask her some questions about her film and find out why she believes some steps still need to be taken to ensure a fair election on November 4, 2008. Election Day will have its broadcast premiere on P.O.V. later this year.
P.O.V.: Tell us about your new film, Election Day.
Chevigny: Election Day follows eleven people participating in the electoral process over the course of the day on November 2, 2004. Through the eyes of poll workers, international observers, first time voters, former elected officials, campaigners, and voting rights activists, we tried to show what voting means to Americans. In our filming, we saw a lot of flaws in the system, but we also saw a lot of people trying to make it work.
What makes the film unusual is that we shot it all on one day. The chronology of the film starts at dawn and ends well after midnight. I was interested in the challenge of editing together footage from disparate locations and characters and finding themes and contrasts that would make the material add up to more than the sum of its parts.
P.O.V.: The 2008 presidential elections are just around the corner. What lessons can viewers, voters and officials take from Election Day to ensure that the election process is fair in November? What do you think can be done to improve the voting process in America?
Chevigny: There are many, many things we can do. There has not been sufficient political will to make the system better but there are concrete solutions, for sure. Spencer Overton's book Stealing Democracy offers a very pragmatic look at what doesn't work and why. And once you really understand it, the solutions are easier to identify. A couple of clear steps we could take: truly non-partisan poll workers, better training of election workers, and perhaps most importantly, state election commissioners should not be partisan office-holders! This is a blatant conflict-of-interest that should have been eliminated long ago. In terms of combating voter intimidation and the use of deceitful tactics that mislead voters, there is currently a bill before the Senate that would help ensure fair elections. You can track the progress of the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act online. Another practice that blocks citizens from having their votes count on Election Day is voter caging. Notoriously targeted at low-income and minority communities, voter caging happens when an organization or campaign sends mail marked "return to sender" or "do not forward" and then uses the returned addresses to challenge votes cast by citizens whose addresses might have changed since they registered to vote. For more information on this practice and what you can do about it, check out the National Campaign for Fair Election website. I also feel strongly that the math created by the Electoral College is a big part of the reason people stay at home. Let's face it: if you're in a swing state, your vote just DOES count more.
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