Inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival Celebrates Diversity on Screen Sept. 5-7

“Works from filmmakers with ties to Jamaica Plain will be screened during the inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival, Sept. 5-7, at the Loring Greenough House.

Founded by Alice Hutton, the co-director of programs for the Loring Greenough House, and Yenaba Sesay Davies, the three-day festival will take place on the property of the Loring Greenough House. Attendees are asked to bring their own seating; all films are ticketed.

Hutton, who has a journalism background, contacted filmmakers with Jamaica Plain ties about eight months ago when she first conceived of the idea for the festival: “[I] thought, ‘What's the best way to throw the umbrella as wide as possible?' So I just made a lot of calls,” she told the Boston Globe…

Saturday evening will showcase Dawnland, directed by filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research. It centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children and their interactions with state child welfare authorities in Maine.”

Continue reading at Rock 92.9.

The first-ever Jamaica Plain Film Festival highlights voices from the neighborhood

“The first Jamaica Plain Film Festival will take place Sept. 5-7 at the Loring Greenough House, showcasing dynamic works by filmmakers with neighborhood ties.

Festival founder Alice Hutton moved to Jamaica Plain in March 2020 from London. In 2021, she joined the Loring Greenough House, where she serves as co-director of programs. The community-centered, evening events invite locals and food trucks to gather in the garden and grounds of the 18th-century Sumner Hill former residence; this year, it runs through October.

Hutton was encouraged by the Thursday series’ popularity to organize the three-day film festival, with the help of co-founder Yenaba Sesay Davies. Films are ticketed and will be screened on the property’s lawn; attendees are asked to bring their own seating, such as blankets or low-seat, folding chairs…

Saturday evening will feature “Dawnland,” directed by local filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research and centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children being forcefully displaced by state child welfare authorities in Maine.

Upstander Project — a Boston-based organization that produces impact-centered documentary films, including “Dawnland,” and likewise educational and advocacy work — will speak prior to the screening, with Mazo, who lives in JP, joining for a Q&A following. The North American Indian Center of Boston will also present at the pre-screening Beer Garden reception to educate attendees about the status of Native American rights in Massachusetts. “Because of our work with ‘Dawnland,’ I’ve grown very connected to making sure that we’re being better neighbors and collaborating with folk from the Massachusetts tribe at Ponkapoag,” said Mazo. “[That we’re] learning and teaching those stories, as well, which is really critical to the work that we do.”

Continue reading at The Boston Globe.

Jamaica Plain Film Festival Highlighting Local Filmmakers This Weekend

“The three-day Jamaica Plain Film Festival (JPFF) is this weekend and will be screening the work of local filmmakers from Jamaica Plain, other parts of the city, and New England.

Award-winning journalist JPFF co-founder Alice Hutton said, “We hope to showcase the incredible talent in Jamaica Plain and New England, provide a platform for diverse, marginalized voices and open up space for people to come together in difficult times.”

The festival is taking place Sept. 5-7 in the gardens of the Loring Greenough House where Hutton is also the programs director. The festival is being co-presented with Imag9ne Media. The Hive beer garden and Streetcar will host pre-film receptions on the lawn…

Some of the films being screened include:
• Salma’s Home is the feature debut of Jamaica Plain-based Palestinian-Jordanian director, Hanadi Elyan, on three generations of Jordanian women. Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker.
• Dawnland is an Emmy-winning documentary on stolen native children in Maine, by Jamaica Plain-based director Adam Mazo, and The Upstander Project. Q&A afterwards with Mazo.”

Continue reading at Jamaica Plain News

“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.

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. 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.”

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.

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.

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.