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Inviting Arkansas - Index

Inviting Arkansas - invitingarkansas - Index

In the Spotlight Benjamin Meade, Chair of International Documentary Institute at Hot Springs
Photography by Nancy Nolan
Benjamin Meade, along with wife Dianne,
is a documentary filmmaker formerly based in
Kansas City. With seven feature-length documentary
films in the can, Ben is “retiring” to
Hot Springs and taking the role of new Chair
of the Board of Directors for the newly monikered
International Documentary Institute at
Hot Springs. The Institute is formerly known
as the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute.
While the mission of the organization
will remain to provide unique educational
and cultural opportunities and to advance the
documentary genre as a meaningful art form,
there are now two separate distinctions to the
venture: the documentary festival and the Institute.
“The festival will remain the same, as a tenday
event,” Ben explained “but the Institute
needs to operate all year to cultivate filmmaking
talent, growing into an educational facility
with sound stage, editing suites and living
quarters for visiting filmmakers and educators
to attract and keep filmmakers in this state.”
After “spousal approval” of a new home
in the area, the couple plans to retire in Hot
Springs. Since becoming the Chair of the
Board, he has implemented a capital campaign
for the Institute and a complete renovation of
the Malco Theatre in downtown Hot Springs.
As a young adult, after completing film
school and experiencing a disenchanting
4-day stint in Hollywood that left him disgusted
with star-driven narrative films, Ben
began making only content and information
driven documentaries. The colon cancer survivor,
marathon runner, and self-proclaimed
workaholic (a sentiment to which his wife
agreed) holds a Masters degree in American
History and Ph.D. in Theatre and Film. He
started a filmmaking program at Abila University,
a small liberal arts school, as well as organized
a documentary filmmaking class at The
Arkansas School for Math and Science (ASMS).
Two of his recent graduates at ASMS received
full scholarships for documentary filmmaking
schools after only one year of Meade’s instruction.
His films have been screened in more than
30 countries worldwide, acquired distribution
through the Sundance film channel and shown
on Bravo television. Humbly, he proclaimed
that “we’ve been lucky, but we work hard.”
American Stag, a documentary of his that in its
initial distribution ran into a few censorship
roadblocks due to misinterpretation of the satirical
look at pornographic “stag films,” was
originally screened (and well-received) in Hot
Springs. “People in Hot Springs certainly ‘get
it’ when it comes to excellent documentary
filmmaking and the subsequent appreciation
of the art,” he remarked.
Ben’s “fresh-eyed” approach to what many
Arkansans take for granted allows him to capture
common scenarios in uncommon ways,
lending to his successful capturing of things
often overlooked in communities. “There’s a
documentary film ready to be made on every
corner of this state,” he laughed.
Appropriately, Ben will start production in
September 2008 in Hot Springs on a documentary
about the most notorious gangster in US
history, Owney Madden. As the first feature
length film expected to come out of the Institute,
Ben recognizes he’s setting a precedent
for filmmakers across the country and world
in considering Hot Springs “the” place to produce
documentary films.
The Institute in Hot Springs is a center
solely dedicated to dealing with providing
filmmaker education and artisan cultivation
of documentaries in the entire country, and
the festival is the oldest documentary film festival
in the world. Naturally, Ben has high, yet
achievable, expectations for the organization.
“Maybe one day,” he dreamed aloud, “instead
of The Natural State listed on Arkansans license
plates, it will say ‘The Documentary
State.’” He concluded, “Let Hollywood be the
filmmaking mecca for star driven films, and
Arkansas be the filmmaking mecca for documentary
films.”
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Inviting Arkansas