Separate, But Equal — the film:

In this documentary, Wilson poses the question without using a single image of a fire hose, growling dog, or burning cross to help make his point.  Henry Clay Anderson’s photographs and the stories surrounding them serve to reshape the image of African Americans in Mississippi during legal segregation.  His rediscovered photographs document a virtually ignored and neglected chapter in African-American history: the proud, dignified community of middle-class blacks that existed throughout the South at the dawn of the civil rights movement.  The photographs contained in this film are works of art, but they are also historical documents.  And, thankfully, they have been acquired by the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC and will be on permanent display in 2016.

Henry Clay Anderson, a professional photographer who lived and worked in Greenville, Mississippi, established Anderson Photo Service in Greenville in 1947. Throughout the ’50’s and ’60’s, he photographed every aspect of his relatively prosperous black community, recording the daily lives of the men and women who built the Greenville schools, churches, and hospitals that served their segregated society. He photographed family gatherings, weddings, funerals, and events at the black high school. He photographed nightclub musicians, itinerant entertainers, and a wide range of professionals at work.

Program Description

Reshaping African American History and Building Community Esteem

Wilson uses his film and its subject matter as a window into the lives of African-Americans during legal segregation in Mississippi — a world that has been overlooked in the aftermath of the civil rights movement – the community of black middle class Southerners who considered themselves first-class Americans despite living in a deeply segregated society.

Through Anderson’s photos of life in Greenville, Wilson shows how a cooperative system can create empowerment in the community and beyond.  He addresses the importance of education and economic development as a means to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, per Booker T. Washington in Up from Slavery. Wilson also examines how the power of place can be a factor in community development and how that factor can affect other aspects of our lives. He also examines the role that news publications play in the interconnectedness of, and divisions within, society and how that has helped and hurt the African-American community.

Bios

Shawn D. Wilson (Writer and Director)
Co-author of Separate, But Equal:  The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson, Wilson has spent the past 10 years working as a filmmaker and producer. His clients included The Historymakers where he produced dozens of interviews with influential African Americans, including Lynn Nottage, and Marc Morial. He is also research consultant to the Smithsonian NMAAHC. “Separate, But Equal” marks his directorial debut.

Ilyana Kadushin  (Producer and Composer)
A co-founder of Lythion Music, Kadushin produced and scored “Separate, But Equal”.  She is globally known as the voice of best-selling audio book series “Twilight”, and has toured and spoken at fan symposiums and book store events as that voice. A dedicated activist for progressive causes, Ilyana and her company have written and performed their music live to benefit organizations like:  Amnesty International, True Body Project, Wildlife Federation, Hands Up Not Hands Out (Ilyana is an ambassador) and Rock’NRenew.

Program Description

The Observing Self: How living in our highly mediated culture can lead to increased self-consciousness and isolation, and what to do about it.

“Why do I have 600 Facebook friends yet feel so alone?”

From a lead column in the New York Times Magazine lamenting the “Twitterati’s unnatural self-consciousness” and their blurred “lines between the authentic and contrived self,” to the existential loneliness depicted by many celebrated modern novelists (Jonathan Franzen, the late David Foster Wallace, etc.) to recent sociological studies, it’s more and more evident that we are leading increasingly isolated lives, even though we are more technologically connected than ever. Zweig’s powerful multi-media presentation explores this paradox and offers launching points for ways to combat the alienating nature of our mediated culture while still living within the mainstream, or even the vanguard, of our technologically-dependent world.

“I love my iPhone, but the best way to enjoy it is to know when to turn it off.”

Through an interdisciplinary approach, Zweig examines how, today, we are living in an “observational reality” rather than the historically dominant “experiential reality.” For the first time in history people are spending more hours of their day immersed in Fiction (television, movies, the internet, social media, ubiquitous advertising, even the news) than living “in the moment” (i.e. engaged directly with others or the environment). A 2009 study showed that American teenagers are spending nearly eleven hours a day immersed in media. This is a fundamental change in how humans have lived for all of history. And, living this highly mediated life — which, for many of us, means being immersed in Fiction for the majority of our waking hours — inevitably alters the way one perceives oneself and reality itself.

Zweig addresses how our minds work differently when we are observing media (yes, even interactive media like the web) than when we are engaged directly with each other or our environment, and how this can lead to an altered sense of self — the most extreme version of which is depersonalization, a dissociative disorder where one literally views oneself from afar, as if in a movie or a dream.

Rigorously researched and academically lauded, Zweig’s theory, Fiction Depersonalization Syndrome (and its broader hypothesis The Observing Self), has exploded within the academic community since it was introduced as the thoughts of the protagonist in his 2009 novel, Swimming Inside the Sun. Zweig has been invited to lecture about his hypothesis at numerous prestigious scholarly meetings, including the Media Ecology Association’s annual convention at the University of Maine, the Junge Philosophie Conference at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Darmstadt, Germany, and the Institute of General Semantics annual symposium at Fordham University in New York City. The hypothesis has gained the international support of renowned academics from a variety of fields, including neuroscientists, communications theorists, psychologists, philosophers, and anthropologists. It has been referenced in multiple scholarly papers and PhD dissertations. Lastly, Fiction Depersonalization Syndrome has been added to the curricula at several universities for classes starting fall 2010.

Bio

David Zweig is the author of the acclaimed novel, Swimming Inside the Sun, called a “terrific debut from a talented writer” by Kirkus Reviews.  Heralded as a “symphonic pop prodigy,” Zweig has released two critically praised record albums, All Now With Wings and Keep Going, both charting in the Top 50 on college radio.  He is currently developing a book and documentary centered on his groundbreaking philosophical hypothesis Fiction Depersonalization Syndrome.

He and Darius prove that idealism and creativity can result in tangible progress. Part revolution, part revelation, this film proves to people of all ages how life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride.

In this multi-award-winning documentary, fifteen-year-old Darius Weems and eleven of his best friends set off across America with the ultimate goal of getting his wheelchair customized on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. The result is a rarely seen testament to the explosive idealism of today’s youth, as well as a vivid portrayal of adventure, of brotherhood, and of the character and strength it takes to shed light on an uncertain future.

Not only does Darius Weems bravely face his own inevitable fate with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), but through his unflinching humor and his extraordinary laugh, he sparks a revolution in the lives of everyone who crosses–and then shares–his courageous path.

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