Originally released in 2015, our film “Enough to Live On: The Arts of the WPA” will be streamed online…free…at THIS LINK from June 24 through July 15, 2020.
Why are we doing this?
First, 2020 is the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Works Progress Administration…the “WPA” and, in particular, the WPA Federal Art Project: a program founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, which put thousands of unemployed painters, writers, actors, dancers, photographers, and musicians back to work during a time of national crisis, to help America recover from the grip of its Great Depression and to rediscover the original purpose of our democracy…which is that all power does and ought to reside in the hands of citizens.
Just as importantly, Enough to Live On can remind us how, in 1935, we defined strong, effective, and positive presidential leadership, at a time in 2020 when our country seems so frequently to be directionless. Lastly, as America now lives through a great period of social upheaval, where so many of our citizens feel, and rightly, that they are not part of our evolving democracy… Enough to Live On will remind us of a time when we brought ourselves together, through collective action and common purpose, to dig America out of the worst crisis in its history.
Enough to Live On is about the power of creativity. It is about the use of executive power for a higher good. It is about the will and determination of a people to rise above anarchy in the furtherance of the progress of its democracy.
The answer to the question “Why would you stream for free what you can sell?” is really simple: it’s “Why wouldn’t we?”
Watch now for FREE on Vimeo at THIS LINK.
217 Films New Documentary “Civilisation and America” To Be Released in August 2020
Connecticut-based independent filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton of 217 Films announce the expected August 2020 release date of a new film project – their eighth in 14 years and their seventh “essay in film” – celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first American public television broadcast of Lord Kenneth Clark’s epic thirteen-part television series Civilisation. A landmark TV series that has had a lasting impact on America and Americans since it first premiered here in 1970…as we struggled with our national conscience during the Vietnam War.
This new film is titled “Civilisation and America.”
“As our editing progresses, we’re happy to announce that renowned British author and Clark expert James Stourton will appear in our film,” said Michael Maglaras, the film’s writer and director. “We’ve also secured the important cooperation of the BBC, and, as a result, this film will include segments from Clark’s original Civilisation footage.”
Of great importance is the commentary in the film by David Attenborough, whose idea it was to challenge Kenneth Clark to give the world his views on what constitutes the true definition of the word “civilisation.”
“I’m delighted to be participating in this new film about Kenneth Clark,” said James Stourton, author of Kenneth Clark: Life Art and Civilisation…the definitive biography of Lord Clark. “This film will focus on the impact that Civilisation had on American cultural life when it was first broadcast in the United States in 1970 — an impact and a message still meaningful today about the value of our collective Western tradition.”
Civilisation, produced by the BBC, had its first United States screening at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1969, thanks to the vision of its then director J. Carter Brown, and was quickly taken up in 1970 as one of the first important television programs of what was then the new Public Broadcasting Service. Fifty years later, and with an America facing new political and social challenges, Lord Kenneth Clark’s thirteen hours of Civilisation reminds us not only of the permanence of art and the permanent value of the human spirit in its creation, but also of the value of institutions and Clark’s belief that society “must be made to work.” Also featuring interviews with Americans whose lives were affected by Civilisation and by the series’ brilliant writing, camera work, and innovative use of music…and using archival footage of an America struggling with itself during the height of the Vietnam War…“Civilisation and America” will again remind us of the value of the arts in American society and in the lives of American citizens.
