Upcoming Events
MDOCS hosts a variety of public events throughout each academic semester. These events are all free and open to the Skidmore community as well as non-Skidmore community members. Stay tuned as we are frequently adding to this page.
Screening and Panel Discussion: Love in the Time of Fentanyl
Tue, Jan 31 @ 6:00pm, Spring Street Gallery (110 Spring Street, Saratoga Springs)
A collaboration between WMHT, MDOCS, and our Co-Creation Initiative community partner
Harm Reduction Works. Join us for a free screening + community-driven conversation
of the Indie Lens Pop-Up film Love in the Time of Fentanyl, followed by resource sharing by local partners and an optional Narcan training. Doors
open at 5:30pm. Seating is limited. Please RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/LTF13123
Screening and Panel Discussion: Love in the Time of Fentanyl
Screening and Panel Discussion: Love in the Time of FentanylSat, Feb 4 @ 3:00pm, Albany Barn (56 2nd Street, Albany)
If you missed the Saratoga screening, please join WMHT, MDOCS, and Harm Reduction Works for a free screening in Albany of Love in the Time of Fentanyl. Followed by a panel discussion with members of VOCAL-NY, Harm Reduction Works, and more. An optional Narcan training by Project Safe Point will take place at the end of the event. Doors open at 2:30pm. RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/LTF2423
Screening and Panel Discussion: Losing Ground (1982)
Tue, Feb 7 @ 6:00pm, Gannett Aud -Skidmore College
A groundbreaking, filmic exploration of the tensions among passion, desire, reason,
aesthetics, and partnering written and directed by Skidmore alumna Kathleen Collins.
Losing Ground is one of the first feature-length motion pictures directed by a Black American Woman,
the film has recently been inducted by the National Film Registry.
Followed by a panel discussion with Ruby Fludzinski (Documentarist), and Samantha N. Sheppard (Cinema and Media Studies, Cornell).
Sponsored by Media & Film Studies, Tang Teaching Museum, and MDOCS
MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative Community Pitch Session
Tuesday, Feb 28 @ 6:00pm, virtual
The final pitch session of the Mellon-funded Co-Creation Initiative will take place on Tuesday, February 28th. Community organizations and collectives are invited to "pitch" or share a non-fiction story or documentary project idea for consideration by a selection committee. We welcome Skidmore faculty, staff, and students to join us. Come hear about the Co-Creation Initiative, our current partners and collaborations, and the pitches of potential new Co-Creation Initiative community partners. Find out how you can get involved with these collaborations between the Skidmore community and projects from the surrounding region. To attend, register here. For more information about the Co-Creation Initiative, contact Angela Beallor-Press.
Alumni Meet-and-Greet
Thu, March 23 @ 5:00pm, 2nd Floor DHall
MDOCS brings back the Skidmore alums behind two powerful new documentaries, both distributed by PBS’s prestigious POV (see descriptions in event below). Join us for a casual pre-screening conversation with the alums to learn more about their life after Skidmore and how they've navigated the film industry thus far.
Featuring Skidmore alums: Sanjna Selva ’21, Call Me Anytime (Director, Columbia MA in Journalism ’22, NYC); Adam Simon ’19, Not Going Quietly (Assistant Producer, People’s TV, Washington D.C.); Aster Gross ’15 (Creative Producer, People’s TV, NYC); and Amanda Roddy ’14 (Director and Producer, NYC)
Skidmore students RSVP here.
Screening and Panel Discussion: Call Me Anytime, I'm Not Leaving the House (2022) and Not Going Quietly (2021)
Thu, March 23 @ 7:00pm, Gannett Aud - Skidmore College
Two powerful new documentaries, both distributed by PBS’s prestigious POV -
Not Going Quietly (2021) follows Ady Barkan (Politico's "Most Powerful Activist in America") as his life is upended when he is diagnosed with ALS. After a confrontation with powerful Senator Jeff Flake on an airplane goes viral, catapulting him to national fame, Ady and a motley crew of activists ignite a once-in-a-generation political movement, barnstorming across the country to empower people to confront their elected officials with emotional, personal stories to demand health-care justice.
Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving the House (2022) presents an even more intimate slice of life in the shadow of big political news, as two Ukrainian sisters – one recently emigrated to Brooklyn, the other in war-besieged Odessa – long to be reunited and reminisce about their homeland.
Followed by a Q&A with the Skidmore alums who created and worked on them: Sanjna Selva ’21 (Director, Call Me Anytime) + Amanda Roddy ’14 (Producer, NotGoing Quietly), plus Adam Simon ’19 & Aster Gross ’15 both members of the team at People's TV, which produced Not Going Quietly.
Skidmore students RSVP here.
Sponsored by Skidmore's MDOCS, Media & Film Studies, Health and Wellness, and Career Development Center
Contemporary Mohawak Voices: Past, Present, and Future
With Tom Sakokwenionkwas Porter, Mohawak Elder and Kay Ionataiewas Olan, Mohawk Storyteller
Mon, Apr 3 @ 5PM Filene Recital Hall - Skidmore College
The event will bring together Tom Sakokwenionkwas Porter, Mohawk Elder and founder and spiritual director of Kanatsiohereke, a reconstituted Mohawk community on ancestral Mohawk lands in Fonda, NY, and Kay Ionataiewas Olan, local Mohawk Storyteller and educator. Together they will share Mohawk cultural and religious teachings as well as the story of the founding of Kanatsiohareke in 1993. The guiding mission of Kanatsiohareke is ELSIRAC (CARLISLE backwards), or reversing the effects of the infamous Carlisle Indian School by fostering a community where Native traditions and identity thrive.
Sponsored by Religios Studies and MDOCS
Co-Sponsorerd by Anthropology Department, Sustainability Office, Tang Teachining Museum, Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Black Studies
Screening and Panel Discussion: Outta The Muck
Tue, Apr 11 @ 7:00pm, Davis Aud - Skidmore College
Family, football and history come to life in an intimate portrait of the Dean family,
longtime residents of the historic town of Pahokee, Florida. Take a journey back home,
with filmmaker Ira McKinley, to the land of sugarcane, as he reconnects with his niece
Bridget and nephew Alvin and explores their shared family history that spans seven
generations. Told through stories that transcend space and time, Outta The Muck presents a community, and a family, that resists despair with love, remaining fiercely
self-determined, while forging their own unique narrative of Black achievement.
Presented with co-directors Ira McKinley and Bhawin Suchak in attendance for Q&A.
Sponsored by Skidmore's MDOCS and Media & Film Studies
The Golden Acorn Awards
The Golden Acorn AwardsWed, May 3 @ 6:00pm, Filene Aud - Skidmore College
The Golden Acorn Awards celebrate student media-making, in all disciplines, all across campus. While some Acorns honor some of the MDOCS course projects from this year that faculty find most innovative, risk-taking and real, the Skids Choice Awards also celebrate student creativity beyond documentary and from outside of the classroom. These could be works created independently or in non-DS courses, in a variety of genres and mediums, from your music videos to projects you make for fun or social media. All submissions will be reviewed and enjoyed by our panel of student and faculty judges, and awards come with $$$.
To be considered, send us your work by Sun, April 23 @ midnight.
The awards show is on Wed, May 3 @ 6pm
*Doors open at 5pm to view full-length works
Instructions for submitting: Write to mdocs@skidmore.edu with your – 1. Name; 2. Title of your work; 3. Brief description of the type of project (course assignment, independent project, etc.); and 4. Share link to download the file from box.com or other file-sharing site (Google Drive).
You can also stay posted on upcoming MDOCS events on our Instagram page.
