Recent political developments in the world show us that different cultures need to know and understand each other better. Even though technological developments like the Internet, satellites, cable television and conglomeration of big media entities have made mass communication more effective and faster, we cannot easily say that these developments help to bring world cultures together. As a result, mass audiences are not very much able to see what few productions do speak to these issues in a constructive manner. The main aim of this documentary film project is to serve as a small step towards helping different cultures to understand each other better. This documentary film conveys the basics of Mevlevism by following the formal gatherings of a Mevlevi den in Istanbul, Turkey. A den or tekke is a place where Islamic people gather and perform their religious activities. During these gatherings they do the sema, they pray, they listen to music, and they discuss spiritual matters. Sema is the entire ritual they perform as part of their ceremonies including listening to music, singing and chanting to attain a state of religious emotion and ecstasy or vecd. The documentary film is structured around a twelve year old girl, Elif, who is learning the basics of Mevlevism. The interviews conducted with regulars from the den explain to the audience why people are attracted to this belief system. Filming the ceremonies at the 550-year-old Mevlevi temple in Galata, Istanbul accentuates the historic background of this belief system. The Night of Reunion is the day in which Mevlevis celebrate the passing of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the founder of Mevlevism and provides the climax of the film. Elif performs on that night, a very important moment in her spiritual life.

This research is a small part of a bigger field of research made before by other authorsregarding the humans in the urban public space. It has a small context compared to otherstudies, but a big impact inside the community. It aims at finding answers to questions thatother researchers asked before, but under different circumstances and they displayed them through different ways such as documentary films (The social life of small urban spaces 1980, How to live in a city 1964).After experiencing the city life of Malmö and some questions have been raised, the concept of resilience intersected with the interest of social public life in a neighbourhood. In order to have the theoretical framework to answer the research question, the thesis follows a literature review, where the concepts of resilience, urban resilience, resilient urban design and social resilience have been explored.Next, after exploring the city of Malmö, some case studies have been chosen and studiedthrough direct observation in different months starting with March and various times of theday. In the methodological approach section the methods are explained as well as a detailed presentation of the biggest tool used for this research: observational drawing. The tools used for the observation are field notes, observational drawings and photographs. The cases are spread throughout the city and are located in neighbourhoods with different urban tissues. The results reveal all the observational drawings made during the field visits and the field notes written. They show how people use the spaces in all three case studies depending on the weather or other external factors.The discussion reveals the complexity of the relation between concepts and the empiricaldata, following the initial aim of the research throughout the discussion. This thesiscontributes with important outcomes to the field of urban studies creating awareness about the urban context and its influence on people. The findings of this study show a diversity and creativity of users in using the public space.

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This informal presentation will include discussion with the filmmakers about the background and production of the film "Banjo Romantika," as well as sneak peeks at a selection of key scenes from the film. For more information, visit http://music.virginia.edu/colloquium-lee-bidgood-and-shara-lange-banjo-romantika

College of Public Health seminar faciliates real-world interdisciplinary collaboration with Radio/TV/Film students and ocuses documentary filmmakers on crucial issues for their communities.

This paper explores the use of documentary-style video to support and explore Troubling Design in the field of the gender biased health care system. Women have been neglected within the health care system for centuries and their physical concerns are often not taken seriously by a respective doctor. This research project aims to co-design a film with women suffering from endometriosis. This approach is a way to produce evidence of women’s experiences and contrasts it to the evidence within research and the health care system to explore the connection and potential of documentary film for co-designing practices within the field of Troubling Design. At the same time, the documentary film is a story-telling tool to represent these women's neglected voices and communicate their narratives to the public. It attempts to highlight the advantages of the medium film within complex settings, such as the health care system. Thereby, it translates different ways of knowing about endometriosis to varying stakeholders involved while suggesting possibilities for an improved handling of the disease within the medical encounter. The study represents how qualitative research can inform the creation of a documentary film that reflects specific users’ experiences and solutions for their health care situation while offering the option for a more ethical approach to research at the intersection of filmmaking.

This paper examines the concept of brand-funded documentaries that center on the issue of climate change and uses Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle to better understand how the films use rhetoric in communicating their message. A rhetorical analysis was conducted using four brand films from Amazon, Corona, Patagonia and REI and the results are intended to demonstrate the best methods of persuasion and the most effective rhetoric utilized in brand-funded documentaries. Because brand-funded documentaries not only make an argument about a particular issue, in this case climate change, but also must communicate a particular brand’s values and commitments, examining the rhetoric in these films proves particularly interesting and informative both for advertisers and filmmakers. The research shows that using emotions such as fear, awe, sadness, and joy serves to complement information dissemination in documentaries and allows for stronger engagement with audiences.

With the advent of the blockbuster and its visual effects, film has grown to accept these effects and the technology behind them, namely green screen mattes, as cornerstones to the post-production process. The propensity of green screen in all types of productions, especially those involving actors and their performances, raises questions about the methodology and workflow behind its common practice. Using real-life environments and people to create narrative scenes, this project explores the utilization of matte backgrounds to inform the rehearsal and performance aspects of cinematic story-telling.

Iranian documentary filmmakers negotiate their relationship with power centers every step of the way in order to open creative spaces and make films. This dissertation covers their professional activities and their films, with particular attention to 1997 to 2014, which has been a period of tremendous expansion. Despite the many restrictions on freedom of expression in Iran, especially between 2009 and 2013, after the uprising against dubious election practices, documentary filmmakers continued to organize, remained active, and produced films and distributed them. In this dissertation I explore how they engaged with different centers of power in order to create films that are relevant to their society. To focus this topic, my research explores media institutions, their filmmaking practices, and the strategies they use to produce and distribute their films. This research is important because it explores the inherent contradictions in the existence of a vibrant documentary film community in a country that is envisioned as uniformly closed and oppressive in the West. The research is also personally motivated, because I have close connections to the Iranian documentary film world, where I previously made films and produced television programs. I conduct the study with a multi-faceted approach, utilizing participant observation in the field in a four-month period, in-depth interviews with key players, personal reflections, and textual analysis of the films. I focus on about twenty filmmakers and their films, chosen from a pool of more than 500 documentary filmmakers, giving a cross section of this community based on their age, sex, and their professional history and success within Iran and internationally. / Media & Communication