U.S. Embassy of Thailand Documentary Showcase @ SPU

It was such a great honor to host the film spcialists and filmmakers from the States at SPU for the screening of the documentary titled "Miss Navajo" by Billy Luther. There were SANDRA J. RUCH, BILLY LUTHER and STEVEN STARR over at the university to share their documenatry filming and knowledge in making a documentary with our students. Since it was the American Documentary Showcase week downtown Bangkok organized by the US Embassy, Thailand , they were invited to Thailand and were able to visit some universities and other places for the screening of their documentaries. The showcase is designed to promote American documentaries and their filmmakers at international overseas venues, including U.S. Embassy organized events and/or U.S. Embassy supported international documentary film festivals. A lot of our students from the Faculty of Communication Arts and Digital Media were then inspired by those filmmakers and their documentaries.

Sandra Ruch is the President of Elixir Consulting, Los Angeles, a full service consulting company to help documentary filmmakers with story development, marketing, distribution, festival, and outreach strategies.

BILLY LUTHER studied film at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and worked on projects for the Smithsonian Institution’s New York City National Museum of the American Indian Film and Video Center. A past honoree of Film Independent’s Project: Involve program, Luther was selected for the 2006 Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Corporation for Public Broadcasting/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH in Boston, and
Tribeca Institute’s All Access Program with his feature documentary Miss Navajo. The film had its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and its national television premiere on Independent Lens on PBS, and is the winner of Michael Moore’s 2007 Special Founders Prize. He is in production on the documentaries Grab and The Untitled Indian Marching Band Project. Luther belongs to the Navajo, Hopi and Laguna Pueblo Tribes.

Founder of the award-winning creator sustainability pioneer Revver.com, STEVEN STARR previously managed KPFK-FM, the largest community radio signal in the US, co-founded P2P pioneer Uprizer, user-generated platform LA IndyMedia. Prior to that, Starr was writer/director and/or producer of award-winning indie films such as Joey Breaker and Johnny Suede and co-creator/producer of The State for MTV/CBS. He headed the New York film office for the William Morris Agency with clients such as Ang Lee, Tim Robbins, Larry David, Joseph Papp and Andy Warhol, and started off as a concert promoter for Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Another great event that we have over here at SPU.
For more information on Miss Navajo go to: http://www.missnavajomovie.com/ and http://ir.spu.ac.th/