Rebecca Celli, a senior at Colorado College, created the Silenced Film Series in response to the restriction of films due to the Hollywood establishment, government censorship, or the marginalization of narratives in mainstream media.
“The film industry is hyper-filtered, and people assume that it’s because film isn’t a form of art,” Celli said.
Celli wanted to have a series of events to acknowledge inequality in the film industry and celebrate the films that are otherwise unappreciated. She first heard about “silenced films” from directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. Lessin and Deal produced a controversial documentary, Citizen Koch, about a wealthy pair of brothers funneling of corporate money into politics.
The documentary was signed onto PBS with the original movie title Citizen Corp.
When Lessin and Deal changed the movie title to Citizen Koch, PBS dropped the film because one of the Koch brothers is on the board of PBS.
The directors were forced to crowd fund for money; the movie was silenced.
Celli was struck by this story. “I emailed the directors and reached out to help them with their Kickstarter campaign,” she said.
Celli knew she had an upcoming final assignment for her Community for Collaborative Engagement in Leadership program. She said, “For my project, I wanted to have a film series to recognize this film (Citizen Koch), but also talk about other censorship and arts distribution.”
Through this series, she hoped to affect Colorado College and the broader Colorado Springs community. “To incorporate the larger Colorado Springs community, the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute co-hosted the event,” Celli said. Films for Justice and Femco were also involved in the production of the series.
Celli said that the turnout to the first three film series events has been really great.
The last event of the series is on March 23 at 7 p.m. in Cornerstone.
Colorado College alum Holly Carter will speak about her organization BYkids, which is founded on the idea that young people can tell honest stories through film.
This project has paired filmmakers with youth around the world to create short documentaries and educate Americans about global issues.
“Within the silenced film framework, I understood Holly’s work as the silver lining,” said Celli. “Silencing happens frequently, but non-profits are doing amazing work to give voices to those who don’t have it. This project exceeded my expectations. My goal was to get people talking and start a conversation about films in a social justice framework.”