New Vlog: The Father Divine Project
In the spring of 1996, Dr. Leonard Primiano (my college Folklore professor) called me with an event he wanted to record on video; did I have any time? The event was the 50th Wedding Anniversary of Father and Mother Divine.
Who?
Over the next two years, Leonard and I would gather over 70 digital video hours of interviews, banquet services, tours, song and dance with Mother Divine and the remaining members of the Peace Mission Movement.
Conceived as a feature-length documentary, we soon realized that to make a traditional and linear documentary we would have to concentrate on one main story and consequently diminish all the others. But there are too many potent strands in this little-known story of Father Divine and his followers – race, faith, gender, electronic media, religious freedom, the elderly, reincarnation, food, political activism, Americanism.
To do justice to the subject, we would need to make a “database documentary” made up of short videos, photo galleries, audio recordings and text, all searchable and open to comments from anyone who came by for a visit. The Father Divine Project has found it’s ideal form – a vlog with an RSS Feed.
This is an ongoing project with zero funding, so please be patient with how things look for now. If you are interested or just curious, please consider subscribing to the video feed.
To view the videos, you will need the latest version of apple’s free quicktime player.
LINKS:
The International Peace Mission Movement
Lev Manovich on Database Narratives
The Labyrinth Project on Interactive Narrative
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