Pressroom
For Immediate Release January 30, 1998
CPB Funds Television Projects on Literature, Music
Washington, DC, January 30, 1998 -- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) will award grants totalling more than $4 million for 18 education and programming projects, ranging from documentaries on modern Southern literature and Broadway musicals to programs on mothers and Native American celebrations. These projects were selected for funding from the 155 proposals submitted to CPB in September 1997.
Grants will be used for the research, development, production and completion of programs that will air on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), for multimedia projects on the Internet and for publications and public broadcasting meetings.
Tell About the South: Voices in Black and White, to be produced by the James Agee Film Project in Charlottesville, VA, will be a three-part series on the history of modern literature from the American South. William Styron, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, Shelby Foote, Alice Walker, Rita Dove, Pat Conroy and Maya Angelou are among the important Southern writers who have agreed to participate in this project.
CPB will provide funds for the research and development of Broadway! The American Musical from Ghost Light Films, Inc., in New York. This six-part series on the history of Broadway and the people who created and controlled show business, from the 1860s to the present, will also examine the labor movement in the 20th Century and the evolution of mass media. The production team for the series includes Michael Kantor as the producer and director.
Other projects selected for funding are the following:
Africans in America Outreach: A Primary Source Web Site and Teacher Training Initiative, (WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston, MA) -- Funding will support an educational outreach component for the six-part series, Africans in America, scheduled to air on PBS this fall. The outreach plan includes a web site, teacher training workshops, and ten master teachers, who will lead additional workshops at the regional, state and local level.
The Boys Choir of Harlem and Friends, (Moving Pictures Inc., Staten Island, NY) -- A one-hour documentary that will feature The Boys Choir of Harlem in a large scale musical performance. It will also take a behind-the-concert look at choir members past and present, the choirs founder and director, and life in Harlem.
Free Thought, Free Speech, Free Love: The Story of Emma Goldman, (Nebraskans for Public Television, Lincoln, NE) -- Funding for research and development of a one-hour documentary film on the life of free speech advocate and anarchist Emma Goldman (1846-1940). The story will focus on the years of Goldmans ascendancy as a radical in the United States -- 1885 through 1919.
INPUT 98 Producer Fellowship Grants, (South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV), Columbia, SC) -- Funds will be allocated for fifteen fellowship grants to independent and public television station producers for participation in INPUT (International Public Television Screening Conference) in Stuttgart, Germany in May 1998.
A Kalahari Family, (KALFAM Productions, John Marshal, Producer, Watertown, MA) -- A series of three one-hour documentaries about indigenous people from a remote region of Africa called Nyae Nyae in the northern Kalahari Desert. The people, who call themselves Ju/hoansi, were the last independent, self-sufficient hunter/gatherers in Southern Africa.
The Kay Toliver Files, (Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE), Los Angeles, CA) -- A sixteen-episode videotape series to be used in national, regional and local pre-service and in-service teacher development programs designed to improve mathematics instruction in the U.S. Four episodes in the series have already been produced. Funding will be provided for editing the twelve remaining episodes.
The Kennedy Center Presents, (WETA and The Kennedy Center, Washington, DC) -- Support for the 1998-99 season of this series of performance specials that showcases the best of the Kennedy Centers world-class performing arts in theater, music, dance and opera.
Kinaalda: Navajo Rites of Passage, (Indian Summer Films, Albuquerque, NM) -- A one-hour documentary profiling a young Navajo girls participation in a four-day ceremony that advances her into adulthood. This celebration, known as Kinaalda, is one of the oldest and most sacred of all Native American coming-of-age ceremonies. This project was submitted in response to CPB's "Celebrations" solicitation.
Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, (William Greaves Productions, Inc., William Greaves, Executive Producer, New York, NY) -- A two-hour biographical portrait of the life and times of Ralph Johnson Bunche, an African American who was founder and diplomat of the United Nations and the winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a truce between the Arabs and Israelis.
A Show of Mothers, (Center for New American Media, New York, NY) -- A one hour program exploring the bond between mother and child as told through interviews with mothers from across the nation. This project was submitted in response to CPB's "Celebrations" solicitation.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, (Social Media Productions, New York, NY) -- A 90-minute documentary on the true story of nine black youths who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. The young men were tried before a jury and sentenced to die; however, the Supreme Court later overturned their convictions, making this a seminal civil rights case.
2001: An Earth Odyssey, (Andrea Simon, Arcadia Pictures, New York, NY) -- Funds for the research and development of three one-hour programs that will explore social, historical and spiritual issues surrounding the last one thousand years and the approaching Millennium.
The Scribbling Women Multi-Media Education Initiative, (The Public Media Foundation, Valerie Henderson, Executive Director, Boston, MA) -- This project involves a long distance learning curriculum offered on a website and a series of curriculum workshops, all focused on short works of fiction by ten American women writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These works have been aired on National Public Radios NPR Playhouse over the past four years.
Sleepwalking to Armageddon, (Frontline: WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston, MA, George Crile and Artyom Borovik, Co-Producers) -- A two-hour documentary on the continuing danger posed by the Russian and American nuclear arsenals. The program will feature General Lee Butler and General Igor Sergeev, two men who played key roles in the Cold War nuclear build-up and who now are in the forefront of efforts to abolish the weapons.
Talking Back: Video Letters to P.O.V., (The American Documentary Inc., New York, NY) -- Funds will be provided for three segments that will give viewers the opportunity to respond to P.O.V. films. Using video letters, e-mail and phone calls from viewers, these segments have been aired since 1993 as part of the regular season following select programs.
Willoughbys Wonders, (Alvin F. Poussaint, MD, Director, and Susan Linn, Ed.D., Associate Director, The Media Center of Judge Baker Childrens Center, and WGBH, Boston, MA) -- A new weekly, half-hour childrens educational television series for a 6-10 year old audience. Using the game of soccer as a metaphor for life, this series is designed to foster the social, emotional and physical health of its viewers across ethnic and gender lines.
CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967 to oversee the development of public radio, television and online services for the American people. The Corporation is the industrys largest single source of funds for national public television and radio program development and production. CPB, a grantmaking organization, funds more than 1,000 public stations.
About CPB
CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967 and is steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100 locally-owned and -operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.