01
April
2011
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14:23 PM
America/New_York

Broadcasting students to host first Mohawk Video Festival on April 14

Capture-Mohawk Video Festival 2011_poster 


Hamilton, ON (March 24, 2011) Third year broadcast television students at Mohawk College welcome participants (local high school and college students), and the community at large to the first Mohawk Video Festival


The Festival features four categories showcasing the work of grades 11 and 12 high schools students plus students enrolled in Mohawk’s School of Media & Entertainment.  “Making It Better”, the theme taken from the two ‘Open Category” groupings, is keynote speaker Rick Green – a treasured Canadian writer, director, actor - well known for his work on History Bites, The Red Green Show, the award-winning documentary ADD and Loving It?! and the comedy troupe, The Frantics.  The Mohawk Video Festival takes place April 14, 2011 at 7:30 pm in Mohawk’s McIntyre Theatre, Fennell Campus. The event is ‘free’ and those in attendance donating $5 to Hamilton Food Share will be entered into a draw for a GoPro HD Helmet Camera.




Hosting the Mohawk Video Festival is Shane Cunningham, a producer at Much Music and former MTV S-Trip Intern.  Performing on stage is Pete Van Dyk and the Second Hand Band who currently have one album released and are originally from the Hamilton area.


Rick Green has worked on projects for radio, stage, and television, plus written articles that have been published in newspapers and industry magazines.  However, Rick Green is probably most known for his role as ‘Bill’ on The Red Green Show, Canada’s longest running comedy series - a show he also co-created, co-wrote and for several seasons directed.   For eight seasons Rick produced and hosted the comedy series History Bites and won a Gemini Award for directing the show.  He wrote, hosted and portrayed ‘Commander Rick’ in TVO’s long-running science fiction series, Prisoners of Gravity.  In 1979, he helped found the comedy group, The Frantics, which was heard on CBC Radio during the show Frantic Times.  


In 2009 Rick wrote and directed the groundbreaking documentary ADD & Loving It?! This particular endeavour makes Rick Green a great example of the Festival’s theme “Making It


Better”.   Through this documentary Rick has been able to change how Canadians view the disorder of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.  For this work he won the CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Foundation’s Celebrity Transforming Lives Award.   ADD & Loving It?! has since given birth to the revolutionary website TotallyADD.com.  


The panel of industry judges will also present awards at the Festival.  The judges are: Eileen Arandiga, Festival Director, CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival; Cindy Wrong, Supervising Producer, E.T. Canada and Project Manager for Global’s Royal Wedding coverage (Mohawk College graduate); Dolores Keating-Mallen, V.P. Creative Director, CORUS Entertainment (Mohawk College graduate); Cindy Csordas, Videographer, CHCH TV (Mohawk College graduate);  Sheena Snively, host MTV Live (Mohawk College graduate); Tyler McNeil, Manager, Network Program Scheduling and Inventory, Network Programming Office CBC Television (Mohawk College graduate); and John Galway, President, Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund.  


The four Festival categories are: the two ‘Open Categories’ whereby participants (grades 11 and 12 high school and Mohawk College Media & Entertainment students) had to incorporate the theme “Making It Better” in a seven minute (or under) video short.  They could choose any genre to tell how a person, place or thing has made something better, is making something better, or could make it better.  The other two categories will showcase third year Television students.  One category will highlight their major third year project, a project begun in their second year, while the other category will feature the winning documentary coming out of the school’s documentary stream.


The Festival was made possible through the generosity of the Festival Sponsors and Partners.  Applied Electronics Limited, the Hamilton Film & Television Office and Hitachi are the Festival sponsors.  Festival partners include the Art Gallery of Hamilton, The Factory: Hamilton Media Arts, CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, Henry’s and Montana’s.


Details about the April 14 event are available on Facebook (Mohawk Video Festival 2011), Twitter (www.twitter.com/MohawkVideoFest) and the Mohawk College web site (www.mohawkcollege.ca).