Gilbert uses film to tell her stories
Assistant professor of media study says documentary filmmaking is her "calling"

By JENNIFER LEWANDOWSKI
Reporter Contributor

Charlene Gilbert had a gut feeling growing up that she wanted to be a storyteller. She had a penchant for what she refers to as "the life of the mind," reading voraciously and constantly daydreaming.

It seems only natural, then, that what she considers "an organic part of growing up" manifested itself in her career calling as an independent, documentary filmmaker.

Which isn't to say that Gilbert, an assistant professor in the Department of Media Study, didn't struggle to settle into her niche.

Originally drawn to Yale-where she earned her bachelor's degree in English-Gilbert soon learned that wasn't the medium through which she wanted to tell stories. She took up studies in economics and political science, and explored the field of journalism, interning at both the Philadelphia Enquirer and "MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour." These experiences, in part, helped to seal her fate as a documentarian, she says.

Her largest and most ambitious film project to date-"Homecoming: Sometimes I am haunted by memories of red dirt and clay"-was in the midst of production when she received the phone call that ultimately brought her to UB. Roy Roussel, interim chair of the Department of Media Study, tracked her down at the remote shooting location-a farmhouse tucked deep in rural Georgia-to encourage her to apply for a position as an assistant professor.

"I remember being particularly impressed because he had my number and I was living in this small farmhouse," says Gilbert from her office at Harvard University, where she will spend the academic year working at the Radcliffe Institute as a Bunting Fellow. The Bunting Fellowship program at Radcliffe, which hosts between 30 and 40 fellows annually, carries the reputation of serving as America's think-tank for women. "We had a really interesting conversation and heŠreally convinced me that UB was the place to be as an artist and a teacher."

Gilbert joined the UB faculty in 1998, and two years later found herself in the spotlight with the release of "Homecoming," a film that resonates on a personal level for Gilbert.

The film was broadcast nationally earlier this year by the Public Broadcasting System. A companion volume to the PBS documentary, "Homecoming: The Story of African-American Farmers," is scheduled to be published Nov. 20 by Beacon Press. It is co-authored by Quinn Eli.

Born in Montezuma, Ga., Gilbert returned there 30 years later to create a film chronicling the loss of 14 million acres of land by African-American farmers between 1910 and the early 1990s. She explains that the land was, in some cases, stolen outright by the government; farmers also were tricked out of their land through "quasi-legal" methods and excluded from the very federal programs meant to assist them.

"It was an amazing accomplishment that freed Africans were able to acquire 15 million acres of landŠin some of the most difficult and dangerous times in (the South)," she says.

Gilbert was taken aback by the staggering amount of land lost over the time period. The story also hit her on a more personal level-her grandfather had been a farmer and her uncle was facing the threat of having his land taken from him.

"For me, the best way to address the issue was for me to do a film," she says.

Her cousin, Warren James, was one of the youngest farmers in the country at the time, and served to uplift the film's unsettling revelations.

"I didn't want it to be simply a sorrow song; I wanted it to be a story about hoping-to contrast history with the presence of this modern farmer going forward, despite obstacles," she says.

In contrast with that project, Gilbert's latest endeavor-a documentary film on Henrietta Lacks-promises to be something very different, both in journey and completion.

The film will address issues of bioethics and the history of the HeLa cells-named for African-American Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951.

The immortal cell line originated in Lacks and was used in medical research long after her death. Twenty years passed before her family members were privy to that information.

"Consent is one issue-the story allows me to look at the larger contemporary issues around bioethics and patenting of human genes and some of the questions that are being raised by new biotechnologies."

The project is in its earliest stages.

"I'm doing a lot of reading, I'm spending a lot of time in the library, doing a lot of pre-interviews, trying to get a handle on the story and the issues," she explains. "The film may take some interesting shapes-I'm thinking it may be a multimedia project-it may exist as both a film and an interactive Web site (or as) an installation piece. It could be a feature-length documentary film, it could be a short."

Whatever it turns out to be, chances are Gilbert and the public won't know for at least a few years.

"Because documentary films are not profit-making endeavors, it takes a long time to raise money to fund the film-one to three years to raise the money and research the project and develop the concept," says Gilbert, who received $35,000 in funding through the Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations, which awarded her a film/video/media fellowship.

"And then you can spend a year in production, and then another year in post-production-editing and shaping the story," she explains.

Time is needed as well to ensure people see the film. Gilbert estimates between one to three years can be spent securing proper distribution.

Gilbert, who says she feels absolutely blessed for this past year's triumphs, is passionate about her work, and is committed to effecting change through her films.

"I'm very much interested in work that has an impact on the worldŠThrough my work, I am helping to create dialogue about issues, and through that dialogue, positive change and action," says Gilbert, whose smaller film projects have focused on gender issues, power dynamics in gender relationships and the image-making process.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think I would make that kind of impact," she says. "It's m y calling, and I feel that it is a real privilege to do this-making films I want to make."