A couple of years ago, Vivian Bowman Edwards took a class at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies that taught aspiring filmmakers how to use their home camcorders to make documentary films. One product of the class was Bowman’s film Searching, the story of her husband Steve’s hunt for a high school friend lost in Vietnam in 1968. Class instructor Nancy Kalow was so impressed with Edwards’ class project that she advised the first-time filmmaker to submit her work to the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival, where it was shown in 2001. Later, it was also accepted to the Lussass Film Festival in Paris, and it has been archived at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. Bowman will be sharing her experience in documentary filmmaking at the Cary Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m., in a workshop, “Documenting Personal History,” focusing on helping people produce oral histories of their own families, using their home camcorders. The event is free, so come on down and get your doc on. Call 467-3866 for details.
