Hello Cool Projects: Street Nurses to Segregated Proms
by Katherine Dodds
BEVEL UP
Having the “bevel up” refers to the direction a needle should go into the vein so it causes less harm. Bevel Up: Drugs, Users and Outreach Nursing is a film that follows the street nurse team as they treat residents of Vancouver’s poorest neighborhood. Their approach: compassion and harm reduction. The extremely effective and compelling 45 minute educational documentary is designed to be used in workshop or other teaching settings. (The interactive teaching DVD has 3.5 hours of extra features.) It also has been having a festival life, selling out theatres to broader audiences. The film was a unique collaboration between the BC Centre For Disease Control Street Nurse Program, Canada Wild Productions, and the NFB, and is directed by award-winning director Nettie Wild (FIX: story of an Addicted City, A Place Called Chiapas, and many more).
We at Hello Cool World are really excited about beginning to work with the film, its makers, and fans to create an on and offline outreach strategy to engage audiences with the film. We’re going to be putting out an e’Zine devoted to this topic later that explores the film and the broader socio-economic issues that factor into addiction and providing health care for marginalized populations. In the meantime, if you are a health care practitioner or student interesting in using the film contact us at outreach@BevelUpOutreach.com. And anyone wanting to join the Bevel Up mail list can sign up.
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI
We’re consulting with Paul Saltzman and Patricia Aquino on their new film, Prom Night in Mississippi. The film has just been accepted into Sundance. (Congratulations Paul & Patricia!) As Mark Achbar and I were discussing the last cut of the film, he mentioned that Paul gave him is first job in film many years ago. It’s a happy kind of irony that we are now giving them branding and launching assistance.
Heather and Jeremy. Their first public date as an interracial couple. Photo from Prom Night in Mississippi, 2008.
The film’s timing couldn’t be more perfect, even though the situation it follows is outrageous. Prom Night in Mississippi will premiere days before Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president, and first African-American president of the USA. Meanwhile in Charleston, Mississippi, actor Morgan Freeman’s hometown, the high school held its first mixed prom (yes, you read right). It wasn’t without some opposition, though it didn’t hurt that Mr. Freeman paid for the party. What’s shocking is that it took so long! Watch our Hello Cool World blogs for more information on this film and how to see it in the weeks to come.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES INSPIRE CANADA'S SUNDANCE DOCS by: Marc Glassman Dec 8, 2008
Prom Night in Mississippi and Nollywood Babylon were produced in utterly different ways by filmmakers whose interests and experiences could hardly be more divergent. Yet the two Canadian films have made the grade and are among the 16 docs chosen out of over 700 submissions to be screened this January in The World Cinema Documentary section of the Sundance Film Festival.
For veteran director Paul Saltzman, Prom Night in Mississippi represents a surprising return to his former métier, which he abandoned nearly twenty years ago. Wholly self-financed, Saltzman's doc started as an intimate journey back to the deep South, where he worked as a civil rights worker in 1965.
The extremely effective and compelling 45 minute educational documentary is designed to be used in workshop or other teaching settings. (The interactive teaching DVD has 3.5 hours of extra features.) It also has been having a festival life, selling out theatres to broader audiences. The film was a unique collaboration between the BC Centre For Disease Control Street Nurse Program, Canada Wild Productions, and the NFB, and is directed by award-winning director Nettie Wild (FIX: story of an Addicted City, A Place Called Chiapas, and many more). 
