Daily Hampshire Gazette from Northampton, Massachusetts • 18

i LIVING C2 Daily Hampshire Gazette gazcttenctoom Wdnoday Sewembct 21 2005 I Filmmaker focuses on local activists KEVIN GUTTING John Bracey a professor since 1972 in the African-American Studies department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is one of the local activists featured in Robbie film Peace Bracey often speaks to student groups about issues of social justice Continued from ftge Cl with archival footage he purchased from news agencies the first images are ofUS armored tanks lumbering across dusty Iraqi terrain at the outset of the war It was important to place the local movement into a broad national context he says local community is a microcosm of many hundreds of communities across the country and the world protesting the Some of subjects are old pros like Grossholtz a Korean War-era US Army veteran been stirring things up as a peace activist for as long as die can remember and John Bracey a professor in the African-American studies department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst whose activism grew out of civil rights actions when he was a student in the 1960s at Roosevelt University in Chicago Many of those whom Leppzer interviewed for the film talked about the relationship between patriotism and peace activism But it was young Sokoloff-Rubin he says who this concept the most A strong young voice Sokoloff-Rubin now a 16-year-old junior at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in South Hadley had her first encounter with activism in 2002 she says when she lived for a year in Brazil and helped her father Jeff Rubin study the growing movement there Rubin a professor at Boston University researches social movements in Latin America Father and daughter returned to Brazil in the summer of 2003 to continue their work always had strong opinions and completely opposed to the she said in a recent interview in her South Amherst home She returned from Brazil with a new conviction to speak out about those opinions realty our she said She was surprised however to discover that the war in Iraq was far from the thoughts of most of her classmates at Amherst Regional Middle Jonatha Brooke John Sheldon of Amherst wrote the original music Air Janeane Garofalo volunteered to record the opening narrative Jean Grossholtz says Leppzer and other documentary filmmakers like him have been crucial to the peace movement because they help get the message to a larger-audience would like the film to reawaken people on the streets so that they would understand that now faced with something worth doing something Grossholtz said School was convinced they needed to learn something about she said So she and a couple of friends organized a debate about the war and a teach-in at schooL Sokoloff-Rubin had met Leppier previously at an antiwar event at the Unitarian Society of Northampton ii Florence where his films were being shown Impressed by his work she invited him to speak at the teachrin at her schooL he told her but only if he could bring along his camera In the end Sokoloff-Rubin and her efforts at the midHin school became an integral part of Peace which was shaped like all his documentaries by events as they unfolded the way documentaries are explained Leppxer is not realty planned spontaneous on the fly as you A filmmaker's roots Leppzer has been making documentaries since he was a young boy living in Winchester In high school he made his first documentary a radio show of the about the seizure of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973 by native Americans That effort earned him first prize in a National Public Radio young festival He went on to study filmmaking ht Hampshire College in Amherst for two years before producing his first video documentary about a protest at the New Hampshire nuclear power plant that was then under construction wanted to make a Leppzer said was my way of being part of a larger movement for Other films followed In 1985 for example Leppzer traveled to Nicaragua to film For about US volunteers harvesting cotton with local citizens during the Contra war The film won honors that year at the San Antonio Cine Festival (Best Non-Fiction Film) and the New England Film Festival Choice) says Leppzer There were others too Blank dual-layer DVDs remain hideousty expensive Fbr testing purposes I bought a three-pack at a retail price of $1599 or $533 each Now of course you can get them cheaper in bulk and there are always sales and rebates to search for Still as a rule duallayer blank DVDs cost more than twice as much as singlelayer discs That will change as sides rise but for now blank discs are costly A small plastic stand included in the box allows you to stand the drive on its side to conserve desktop space With an estimated nice of $199 the Samsung Writemaster TS-H552U costs more than comparable internal dual-layer burners But if you want something easy to install on your own -and even something that can be easily moved from one PC to another including laptops this burner could light your fire i jwithi students) war in Iraq they learned that it is as her fellow tq to oppose the something that realty plays a like the huge role in their lives amount of money that is spent on war instead of books it became important to said Sokoloff-Rubin Longtime activist John Bracey who spoke at the teach-in says he was so taken with the dedication and enthusiasm that day that he agreed to be a part of the film Heartened by the young Braced has been a familiar face at peace rallies in the area since moving to Amherst in 1972 are enough wars to keep you he said And although he has been in a number of films in the past not something he eqjoys "I have no particular interest in looking at myself on film I II get copies and I even watch Bracey said But he says was beart-1 by fee young students Ybu never know percolating at that age I wanted to help give them encouragement let them know not by themselves That made it Leppzer says he planned to have high school and middle school students in his film But when a group of them spoke at a ralty at UMass in early March 2003 part of a nationwide student protest against fee prospect war in Iraq he quickly decided to include them of a sudden these high school kids got up and started articulating Then the middle school kids pit up and spoke with such said Leppzer realized I wanted to include how these young people could be so informed and passionate about these he said blew me Kathleen Mellen can be reached at kmellengazetteneicon great recipe? Call 584-3200 and enter Selection 5100 to open the GazetteLine's Recipe File Then Get Cookin' I tl 94019 584-3200 including Act of Con-the story iff Colrain pacifists Randy Kehler and Betsy Comer whose borne was seized after they protested militaiy spending by refusing to pay federal taxes The film narrated by Martin Sheen who volunteered his time had its world premiere in 1997 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City Utah A little goes a long way Blinding for independent documentary filmmakers is always tight Leppzer says especially for those who make films that promote social change Most of fending comes from grants donations and freelance wort he does for other filmmakers and production companies He also speaks on college campuses and to schools libraries and community groups gotten good at going for little" he said with Flor Peace Leppzer convinced musicians to donate their music including 2005 Grammy Award winner Steve Earle as well as Pete Seeger Ani DiFranco and 0 to her when he was filming Peace guess be liked that spirit and energy so he traipsed around and find me" she said stand out to me those who are active outspoken who represent various segments of the Leppzer said From the anti-war protests in the Pioneer Valley New York city and Washington DC to the homes and offices camera captures their stories He was there when Grossholtz helped to shut down the intersection of King and Main streets in Northampton as one of 500 protesters at a die-in and when she marched at a demonstration in New York City chanting to the throngs is what democracy looks He filmed at the Amherst Regional Middle School teach-in focusing his camera on the youthful face of Sokoloff-Rubin Want a Books Available at ATKINS AA FARMS Counthif Mahket Comer of Rte 116 ft BayRd South Amherst I OPEN EVERYDAY I 8AM to 8PM 253-9528 External DVD burner eliminates set-up worries Long-term tenacity Grossholtz first took to the streets herself in the 1950s as an undergraduate at Pennsylvania State University where she spoke out against racism and then as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she rallied against the US growing commitment to President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam was not very popular at she sail I shut up about It was that tenacity she thinks that attracted Leppzer am By JOHN MORAN The Hartford Courant Maybe you didn't get a DVD recorder or when you bought your computer Or maybe just like an upgrade to a spiffy new duallayer DVD burner the kind that can store roughly double the data of regular discs But perhaps the idea of opening up your computer and installing new hardware makes you nervous an idea: Buy an external DVD burner that you can install by simply plugging it into a USB port in the back of your PC A good example is new Writemaster TS-H552U an external rewritable DVD burner that operates at speeds of up to 16X for regular DVD burning and 5X for double-layer burning An external drive be worth much if it were difficult to set up but the Samsung Writemaster skips nimbly over that potential problem Setup suitably quick and easy GazetteUMl COMING FRIDAY IN Hampshire Life THE GAZETTE'S WEEKLY i MAGAZINE FOR THE PIONEER VALLEY Best Cover Story Shopping BasijitT'v time to take a look at the new crop of alarm clocks and some old reliables as well One plug goes in the wall socket another into a USB 20 port in the back of the PC Done USB 20 is required If your machine doesn't have such ports they can be added by installing a special card The card very expensive But it will necessitate opening up the PC case to install something to consider if that's what you were trying to avoid by buying an external drive in the first place always a pleasure to see a product operate as advertised and the Writemaster lived up to its claims Burning speeds were satisfyingly quick making the process (d copying data relatively painless Dual-layer burning was accomplished at an acceptable 5X only about one-third fee speed of regular DVD burning but roughly twice as fast as first attempt at a dual-layer DVD drive Making a dual-layer disc was identical to burning an ordinary DVD except that you can squeeze an extraordinary 85 gigabytes onto a single disc a lot of acreage for a single platter of plastic great for storing and sharing large amounts of digital video Better yet once burned those dual-layer DVDs can be read by any ordinary DVD drive But fee downside: Hot Buttonz The Incredible Hulk video game provides smashing bashing fen for everyone says who knows one First Person Being confined to a cozy tiny actually -kitchen have to mean you eat well Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser writes about a scene on her Northampton street that could have come from the classic Way for Florence artist Sally unusual works are creating a stir ALSO CALENDAR LISTINGS PUZZLES DVD AND MOVIE REVIEWS AND MORE IHMK i I- a ft.