Directed by Abby Ginzberg & Frank Dawson
USA | Documentary | 2016 | 66 min
Film Source: Filmmaker
Sponsors: Champlain College / Peace & Justice Center of Vermont
Showtime: Thursday, October 27 | 7:30 p.m. | FH
Awards: Best Documentary – Pan African Film Festival
Director Abby Ginzberg will be in attendance.
In recent years, impassioned political demonstrations have appeared on campuses across the country, from Mississippi to New Jersey, California to Washington, D.C. Many of them have been motivated by the racial discord and issues of discrimination that affect both colleges and society at large. Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg’s documentary about black student activism in the late 1960s offers excellent historical context for this continued civil unrest. Covering the protests at San Francisco State in 1968, as well as the takeover of the student union at Cornell University in 1969, Agents of Change features a wealth of archival material and contemporary interviews with many of the major players. Ginzberg, who appeared at VTIFF 2014 with her Peabody Award-winning documentary Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa, returns to Vermont with this timely, empowering look at a series of past incidents that continues to reverberate in today’s young activist circles. ~SJ