“We Sing Nonetheless” – A Jewish Bluegrass Journey Across America
“Music documentaries are a tricky genre to pull off. There are classics like “Gimme Shelter” and “The Biggest Night in Pop”—and also wan vanity projects that make you wish you were actually in the audience instead of staring at a screen.
“We Sing Nonetheless” falls into the former category: Boston-based Jewish filmmaker Adam Mazo and creative partner Ben Pender-Cudlip aim to capture the resilience and identity revelations of Jewish Americana band Nefesh Mountain (listen to their wistful, upbeat bluegrass here) with candor and subtlety.”
“Music documentaries are a tricky genre to pull off. There are classics like “Gimme Shelter” and “The Biggest Night in Pop”—and also wan vanity projects that make you wish you were actually in the audience instead of staring at a screen.
“We Sing Nonetheless” falls into the former category: Boston-based Jewish filmmaker Adam Mazo and creative partner Ben Pender-Cudlip aim to capture the resilience and identity revelations of Jewish Americana band Nefesh Mountain (listen to their wistful, upbeat bluegrass here) with candor and subtlety.
Through their filmmaking company Upstander Project, the pair are known for documentaries that illuminate silenced narratives. Their film “Dawnland” chronicled the removal of Native American children by child welfare authorities and the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigation. It won an Emmy Award for outstanding research.
Now, the pair trail married musical duo Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg and their toddler, Willow, on a cross-country journey. The film is in Kickstarter mode, poised for release but still benefiting from extra funds. The band also performs at Groton Hill Music Center on Friday, May 2.”
Continue reading at Jewish Boston.
CROWDFUNDING RADAR: Nefesh Mountain, Laura Mock, and Gloria Anderson
“A major challenge of crowdfunding is that you’re selling something that doesn’t exist yet. You’re selling the idea of an album or a movie or a book in hopes of raising the money to make that idea a reality. But where there is a challenge, there is also opportunity for the savvy crowdfunder. Raising money ahead of the creation of a project provides a chance to market a look at the making of the product as a backer perk or perks. Some of the most successful crowdfunders become that way by connecting with their backers, by providing a behind the curtain look at the process of creation. This week’s three projects all contain perks that include behind the scenes access.
We Sing Nonetheless: A Documentary Film Featuring Nefesh Mountain- (view project here) In many ways, this is a project that’s very existence is a look behind the scenes. Nefesh Mountain is a progressive bluegrass and roots band whose latest album, Beacons, was recently released to favorable reviews. Now filmmakers Adam Mazo and Ben Pender-Cudlip are producing a documentary about the band’s core members, husband and wife duo Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg.”
“A major challenge of crowdfunding is that you’re selling something that doesn’t exist yet. You’re selling the idea of an album or a movie or a book in hopes of raising the money to make that idea a reality. But where there is a challenge, there is also opportunity for the savvy crowdfunder. Raising money ahead of the creation of a project provides a chance to market a look at the making of the product as a backer perk or perks. Some of the most successful crowdfunders become that way by connecting with their backers, by providing a behind the curtain look at the process of creation. This week’s three projects all contain perks that include behind the scenes access.
We Sing Nonetheless: A Documentary Film Featuring Nefesh Mountain- (view project here)
In many ways, this is a project that’s very existence is a look behind the scenes. Nefesh Mountain is a progressive bluegrass and roots band whose latest album, Beacons, was recently released to favorable reviews. Now filmmakers Adam Mazo and Ben Pender-Cudlip are producing a documentary about the band’s core members, husband and wife duo Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg. The film follows Zasloff and Lindberg’s struggles and successes as a married couple with a child managing life as a touring band, as well as how they navigate an increasingly fractured world as a band whose music is heavily influenced by Jewish culture and traditions. Among the backer perks included in the $118,000 Kickstarter project is the opportunity to have either the band or filmmakers carry a disposable camera with them for a few days to capture images of life behind the scenes. Other backer perks include streaming access to the film upon its completion, a copy of Nefesh Mountain’s new album Beacons in digital, CD, or vinyl formats, access to all of the films by the filmmakers’ Upstander Project library, your name in the credits of the film, and an autographed Nefesh Mountain setlist.”
Continue reading at No Depression.
‘A vehicle of genocide’: These Mass. towns were founded on the killing of Native Americans
“As she dug for clues about her ancestors in the pages of Petersham, Massachusetts’ local history , Jennifer Albertine struck the underbelly of the town her family has called home for 11 generations.
The present-day boundaries of Petersham are nearly identical to those outlined in a 1733 grant , in which colonial Massachusetts carved out a chunk of Nipmuc land, divvied it up into roughly 50 to 100-acre parcels, and doled it out to 72 volunteer bounty hunters as a bonus for scalping 10 Abenaki nearly a decade before.
“A Nipmuc person lost that connection — that connection that I have to the land,” Albertine said. “That’s heavy to think about.”
“As she dug for clues about her ancestors in the pages of Petersham, Massachusetts’ local history , Jennifer Albertine struck the underbelly of the town her family has called home for 11 generations.
The present-day boundaries of Petersham are nearly identical to those outlined in a 1733 grant , in which colonial Massachusetts carved out a chunk of Nipmuc land, divvied it up into roughly 50 to 100-acre parcels, and doled it out to 72 volunteer bounty hunters as a bonus for scalping 10 Abenaki nearly a decade before.
“A Nipmuc person lost that connection — that connection that I have to the land,” Albertine said. “That’s heavy to think about.”
In 1724, at the request of Captain John Lovewell, the Massachusetts government offered 100 pounds — about the annual salary of a schoolteacher at the time — for each male Native American scalp brought to its council in Boston.
Months later, Lovewell’s men massacred 10 Abenaki next to a lake that now bears his name: Lake Lovell in New Hampshire.
Lovewell trudged to Boston, assured the council the victims were over the age of 12, and paraded their scalps around town before weaving a wig out of their hair and departing for another bloody expedition in Maine.
In the decade that followed, soldiers, bounty hunters and their children demanded land previously promised for over half a century of capturing and killing Natives across New England.
In 1733, the government fulfilled that promise for Lovewell’s men, handing out parcels in an area northwest of Worcester. These lots comprised “Volunteer Town” — a nod to the bounty hunters’ murderous initiative — and in 1754, the town was incorporated as Petersham.”
Continue reading at WGBH.
New film at Old State House highlights Cambridge’s ties to colonial ‘scalp bounties’
““Bounty,” the newly installed film at Boston’s Old State House, is only nine minutes long, but its powerful and disturbing message looms much larger for audiences. Whether tourists or locals, visitors to the Old State House usually expect to tour the 1713 building to glimpse the legislative history of Massachusetts, particularly the events and public debates surrounding the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre and other aspects of Revolutionary history. Now part of Revolutionary Spaces, which also oversees the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House is sharing the history of brutal attacks on New England’s Indigenous peoples as part of Massachusetts colonial policy – a legacy that is surprising and unnerving to those used to a purely celebratory telling of the colony’s story.”
““Bounty,” the newly installed film at Boston’s Old State House, is only nine minutes long, but its powerful and disturbing message looms much larger for audiences. Whether tourists or locals, visitors to the Old State House usually expect to tour the 1713 building to glimpse the legislative history of Massachusetts, particularly the events and public debates surrounding the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre and other aspects of Revolutionary history. Now part of Revolutionary Spaces, which also oversees the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House is sharing the history of brutal attacks on New England’s Indigenous peoples as part of Massachusetts colonial policy – a legacy that is surprising and unnerving to those used to a purely celebratory telling of the colony’s story.
The exhibit, housed in the Old State House’s council chamber, tells the story of so-called “scalp bounties” – one that has a direct connection to Cambridge as a whole and, in particular, to History Cambridge’s headquarters at 159 Brattle St. The adopted son of Sir William Phips, the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Spencer Phips entered politics in his own right in 1721 when elected to the provincial assembly. His family connections had set Phips up for political and economic prominence and, several years after his graduation from Harvard in 1703, he bought a large tract that encompassed much of what is now East Cambridge and settled there with his family.”
Continue reading at Cambridge Day.
Considering History: The Troubling Story of Scalp Bounties
“In 1755, Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Royal Lieutenant Governor issued a scalp bounty proclamation, offering substantial cash payments to any white colonists who brought in the scalps of indigenous men, women, and children. This was just one of approximately 70 scalp bounty proclamations issued in New England in the century before the American Revolution; U.S. governments issued at least another 50 throughout the new nation in subsequent decades. These planned genocides are a profoundly painful part of American history, but are often little remembered or discussed.”
“In 1755, Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Royal Lieutenant Governor issued a scalp bounty proclamation, offering substantial cash payments to any white colonists who brought in the scalps of indigenous men, women, and children. This was just one of approximately 70 scalp bounty proclamations issued in New England in the century before the American Revolution; U.S. governments issued at least another 50 throughout the new nation in subsequent decades. These planned genocides are a profoundly painful part of American history, but are often little remembered or discussed.
Earlier this month, I was invited by the folks at Revolutionary Spaces, the organization that manages both the Old State House and the Old South Meeting House historic sites on Boston’s Freedom Trail, to view the new short film Bounty. Created by Penobscot Wabanaki Native American filmmakers Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana, and Adam Mazo, with the support of the Upstander Project, this 8.5-minute film screens on a continuous loop in a second-floor room adjacent to the Old State House’s central attraction, a recreation of the Council Chamber where the Massachusetts Colony’s Royal Governors met with their Councils — and where they signed the scalp bounty proclamations that are the subject of this bracing and powerful film.”
Continue reading at the The Saturday Evening Post.
Insider Interview: Bounty with Upstander Project
“Revolutionary Spaces recently sat down with the Upstander Project team, including co-presidents Adam Mazo and Mishy Lesser, to discuss their film Bounty, which follows Penobscot families as they read a scalp bounty that was signed in the Old State House’s Council Chamber. Bounty is currently screening in the Old State House.
What is Bounty? Why is it set in the Old State House?
Adam Mazo: Bounty is a filmic testimony of the immeasurable resistance and survivance of Indigenous Peoples. The film is the cornerstone of a media ecosystem which includes a nine-minute documentary film, several educational videos, a four-lesson comprehensive Teacher’s Guide, digital timeline, and the Bounty Rewards Archive. In the film, Penobscot parents and children resist erasure and commemorate survival by reading and reacting to one of the dozens of government-issued bounty proclamations that motivated colonial settlers to hunt, scalp, and murder Indigenous people.”
“Revolutionary Spaces recently sat down with the Upstander Project team, including co-presidents Adam Mazo and Mishy Lesser, to discuss their film Bounty, which follows Penobscot families as they read a scalp bounty that was signed in the Old State House’s Council Chamber. Bounty is currently screening in the Old State House.
What is Bounty? Why is it set in the Old State House?
Adam Mazo: Bounty is a filmic testimony of the immeasurable resistance and survivance of Indigenous Peoples. The film is the cornerstone of a media ecosystem which includes a nine-minute documentary film, several educational videos, a four-lesson comprehensive Teacher’s Guide, digital timeline, and the Bounty Rewards Archive. In the film, Penobscot parents and children resist erasure and commemorate survival by reading and reacting to one of the dozens of government-issued bounty proclamations that motivated colonial settlers to hunt, scalp, and murder Indigenous people.”
Continue reading at Revolutionary Spaces.
Bound together by stories: Māoriland Film Festival 2024
“Ōtaki is a small town on the southern side of Te Ika-a-Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa. Like many small towns in New Zealand, Ōtaki centres on a quiet main street of family-owned cafes, takeaway restaurants and two pubs, with the Ōtaki Civic Theatre on one end and Te Wānanga o Raukawa Māori University on the other. Drive in one direction and you will hit State Highway 1 to Wellington; drive in the other and you will reach Ōtaki Beach, a thin strip of sand facing out onto the Cook Strait and the Tasman Sea beyond. Over recent decades, Ōtaki has become a hub for Māori cultural identity and language, sixteen percent of its residents and half of the Māori population speak Te Reo Māori—well above the national average of three and 20 percent, respectively.1 In 1921, an Australian production company established a film studio in Ōtaki to make the most of the region’s varied scenery and form ‘Maoriland Films’ as a subsidiary of The New Zealand Moving Picture Co Ltd to shoot short actualities and Charlie Chaplain impersonations.2 Māoriland Film Festival, the largest Indigenous-run film festival in Aotearoa, now in its eleventh year, draws its title from this remnant of early film history.”
Continue reading at Senses of Cinema.
“Ōtaki is a small town on the southern side of Te Ika-a-Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa. Like many small towns in New Zealand, Ōtaki centres on a quiet main street of family-owned cafes, takeaway restaurants and two pubs, with the Ōtaki Civic Theatre on one end and Te Wānanga o Raukawa Māori University on the other. Drive in one direction and you will hit State Highway 1 to Wellington; drive in the other and you will reach Ōtaki Beach, a thin strip of sand facing out onto the Cook Strait and the Tasman Sea beyond. Over recent decades, Ōtaki has become a hub for Māori cultural identity and language, sixteen percent of its residents and half of the Māori population speak Te Reo Māori—well above the national average of three and 20 percent, respectively.1 In 1921, an Australian production company established a film studio in Ōtaki to make the most of the region’s varied scenery and form ‘Maoriland Films’ as a subsidiary of The New Zealand Moving Picture Co Ltd to shoot short actualities and Charlie Chaplain impersonations.2 Māoriland Film Festival, the largest Indigenous-run film festival in Aotearoa, now in its eleventh year, draws its title from this remnant of early film history.”
Continue reading at Senses of Cinema.
It’s Our Time: ‘Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya’ Comes to SIFF
The iinnii (Blackfeet for buffalo) and Indigenous filmmakers are having a moment. 4th World Media Lab alumni Ivy and Ivan MacDonald (Blackfeet siblings and filmmakers) and Daniel Glick’s (Thunderheart Films) award-winning feature documentary, Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, will be playing at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) Cinema Uptown May 16 and 18, with the filmmakers, their families, and a new cohort of 4th “World Indigenous filmmakers in attendance. Opening this feature is the short film Tahnaanooku’, written by Indigenous filmmaker Justin Deegan (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation, Oglala, Hunkpapa) and co-produced by Seattle-based Tracy Rector. It is part of the second season of the Reciprocity Project, which includes Indigenous shorts from around the world that explore a return to land, languages, and reciprocal relationships.”
“The iinnii (Blackfeet for buffalo) and Indigenous filmmakers are having a moment. 4th World Media Lab alumni Ivy and Ivan MacDonald (Blackfeet siblings and filmmakers) and Daniel Glick’s (Thunderheart Films) award-winning feature documentary, Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, will be playing at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) Cinema Uptown May 16 and 18, with the filmmakers, their families, and a new cohort of 4th World Indigenous filmmakers in attendance. Opening this feature is the short film Tahnaanooku’, written by Indigenous filmmaker Justin Deegan (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation, Oglala, Hunkpapa) and co-produced by Seattle-based Tracy Rector. It is part of the second season of the Reciprocity Project, which includes Indigenous shorts from around the world that explore a return to land, languages, and reciprocal relationships.”
Continue reading at the South Seattle Emerald.