This week, filmmaker David Hoffman comes to campus to show three of his documentaries. Hoffman will be available after the showing of all the films for a question-and-answer session. The School of Communications and ElonDocs are the primary sponsors.

“David Hoffman has done a wide variety of documentary work including television work and theatrical work,” said Dr. Brooke Barnett, associate professor of communications and director of Elon Docs.

The three films being shown cover a wide variety of topics: Sputnik, the Russian satellite missions, bluegrass music and guerrilla media.

The first to be shown will be “Sputnik Mania” also called “The Fever of ’57,” today at 7:30 p.m. in the Koury Business Center Digital Theater, room 101.

This documentary shows how the Cold War escalated with the launch of the Russian satellite system, Sputnik. America was shocked that they were beaten in the space race by the Russians and the arms race was exploding.

The film also examines the secret meetings between President Dwight Eisenhower and Premier Nikita Khrushchev that helped avoid a World War III.

‘Sputnik Mania’ is only in selected theaters, so this is really the only chance for students to see it,” Barnett said. “The fact that it’s the 50th anniversary of Sputnik also makes it a nice time to see the film.”

“Guerrilla Media: A Citizen’s Guide to Using the Electronic Media for Social Change” will be shown tomorrow at 4:15 p.m. in McEwen 011. This film features master communicator Tony Schwartz as he shows how individual citizens can overcome the power of the media and indifference by using different, irregular methods to craft messages for radio and television that are both inexpensive and very effective. This concept is termed Guerilla Media.

“Guerrilla Media will be an interactive presentation,” Barnett said. “Hoffman will show clips from the film and then discuss the way the media uses people. Advocacy groups and people wanting to get a message out to general news consumers would be interested in this presentation.”

The Elon chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America [PRSSA] will be sponsoring the showing of this film as well. The organization’s president, junior Bobby Hoppey, said that PRSSA was more than happy to be a sponsor of the film showing.

“We were really eager to get involved with this event,” said Hoppey. “The messages that this film has to offer about how to get messages out across different types of media are a topic that is definitely relevant to the communications field.”

The film also touches Schwartz’s principles and illustrates them with notable case studies from his own career.

Also being shown tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in McEwen 011, is “Bluegrass Roots: On the Road with Bluegrass Musicians.” This documentary is set in the mountains of North Carolina and follows Old Man Bascom Lunsford as he finds talent for his Asheville Mountain Music Festival. The film also presents a look at some of the most extraordinary singers, musicians and talent that the Bluegrass Mountains had to offer.

“This is one of the first films David Hoffman made and it connects to people in this state so that should be fun,” Barnett said.

The film is also sponsored by the Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies.

The School of Communications was able to get Hoffman to come on campus through Elon alum Ikey Little’s friendship with the filmmaker. The main goal of all of this is to show off the variety of subject matter and documentary styles that students can experiment with as well as to show that there are many ways to make a documentary.

“ElonDocs is sponsoring all these films. We are striving to show a wide variety of documentary work and David Hoffman’s work exemplifies that variety,” Barnett said. “Hopefully, this will show students that documentaries can be exciting and entertaining films.”

A&E Editor: RJ Kraft - 09/26/07