Sharing Stories: Melinda Levin Receives UFVA Life Member Award

melinda levin never stands still for long. She is full of ideas and energy, with a compelling enthusiasm for her work as an educator, a documentary filmmaker, and a longtime member of the University Film and Video Association (UFVA).In 2023, Levin received a Life Member Award for her continuing dedication to the organization, which has included positions as a board member, conference host, conference vice president, and president. She also has served as president, academic vice president, and secretary of the associated nonprofit University Film and Video Foundation. She recently retired from her role as professor of documentary media at the University of North Texas and holds emerita faculty status at that institution. She is the media director of the Innermost House Foundation and the CEO and founder of a currently unnamed media technology platform for geo-specific storytelling and reporting. Her expertise has been acknowledged by the National Association of Student Affairs Administrators, the Telly Awards, the Council on International Nontheatrical Events (CINE), and the Broadcast Education Association, among many other entities. Her passion for her art shows no decline: she is currently directing an international episodic docuseries about trauma and profound healing modalities. This series is titled River Beneath the River and is being filmed in Washington, DC, Alaska, Montana, Slovakia, South Africa, and New Zealand.Levin's involvement with film began at an early age on the made-for-TV movie Crisis at Central High (Lamont Johnson, 1981), starring Joanne Woodward and Charles Durning. The movie portrayed the federally mandated integration of students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Levin answered a call for young extras, dressed in 1950s-style wardrobe. “My mom took me down there three days in a row,” says Levin. But at the end of the first day, when her mother came to pick her up, “she couldn't find me,” Levin says (personal interview). “I'd got permission to hang out with the camera crew and watch what they were doing.” In the course of one day, Levin's interests switched from acting to working behind the camera.When Levin was in her mid-teens, her family moved to Southern California. “I spent a lot of time in Hollywood,” says Levin, “steeping myself in that vibe.” While attending Ventura College for a year, before she moved on to university studies, she worked as a producer and camera operator at various area television stations. Her work included news packages, coverage of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, political reporting, and oceanic environmental coverage around the Channel Islands off the Santa Barbara coast.Levin thought she would become a “narrative fiction person,” but she also had a discernable interest in factual, journalistic, and documentary storytelling forms. Attending Montana State University (MSU) for a bachelor of science in film, she needed an elective, and there happened to be one remaining class she could squeeze into: Documentary History.The subject was taught by Dr. Paul Monaco, who was deeply involved in the development of the MSU film program and was the longtime department chair. On the second day of the course, Monaco screened several documentaries from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. “I remember sitting there in the dark room,” says Levin, “thinking, my life just literally changed . . . I could feel it in my chest.”From that point on, Levin focused on documentary production. “I like the dance that happens,” she says, contrasting her subjects with fictive characters. She has a reverence for “real humans who are being vulnerable right in front of the camera.”Finding those subjects—and developing parallel themes and storylines—can be an enthralling process for Levin. “There have been times where I very clearly had an idea for something I wanted to document,” she says. “But more often than not, and I don't take it for granted, things have just appeared.” While researching an installation art project in New York City, she spent time in a soup kitchen on 44th Street in midtown Manhattan: “This man came up to me and introduced himself, told me that he'd been coming to the soup kitchen for a while . . . asking what I was doing.”The spontaneous subject was Curtis McClellan, who catalyzed a fascinating film: “He had such a rich, amazing background. After years in the military, studying for the ministry, and other jobs, he was living on the streets in mid-town Manhattan. And we became really good friends.” Over a two-year period, Levin visited him many times: “At times I stayed on the streets with him. We walked miles around the boroughs, and even journeyed down below Grand Central to visit underground communities. I continued learning why he chose to remain unhoused . . . defining his own family and community in the blocks around 42nd street. We ended up making a documentary together, one that I never thought I would do.”Levin was able to record McClellan's life and surroundings, from napping on a train to dancing on a sidewalk, with her Hi8 camera—the kind that was small enough to be unobtrusive and nonthreatening for people unused to being in front of the lens. “The camera was just kind of portable,” the filmmaker says. “It almost got stolen a couple of times, but I would send it out with Curtis and say, ‘keep it for two days, take whatever you want.’”The resulting twenty-five-minute film, 1996’s Standing on the Edge Watching, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with McClellan in attendance. The documentary was reviewed for the Journal of Film and Video by Lilly Boruszkowski, who wrote, “Levin stands on the edge of Curtis's life and experiences and watches, not telling us directly what to make of it all” (58–59). “I have a deep personal curiosity about other lived experiences,” Levin says. “I'm a witness, sharing other people's stories.”Levin now often focuses on the interface between culture and “the physical, geological, and biological environment on the planet.” She is meticulous in her research, collaborating with biologists, anthropologists, and archeologists. Not all of her findings show up onscreen, “but it's that stuff that you do so you can actually be sure you're doing the story correctly.”The New Frontier: Sustainable Ranching in the American West (2010) is an example of Levin's fastidious documentary technique, depicting several ranchers who work with, rather than against, environmental activists to develop biodiversity, revitalizing wetlands, grasslands, and watersheds. The interviews are complemented by shots of the environment, sometimes harsh, always photogenic.Codirected with Irene J. Klaver, The New Frontier was selected by the American Documentary Showcase, funded by the US Department of State, to represent US culture and diversity at embassies and for foreign audiences across the world. This film, along with other projects and initiatives, has provided opportunities for Levin to travel and share her stories abroad. She is an Invited Member of the United States Speakers Bureau, giving her a wide perspective on global culture, ecology, and the representation of dissimilar societies.“In one instance, the State Department sent me to Vietnam and Thailand,” says Levin, “interfacing with US officials but also high-level academics, filmmakers, and members of the Thai royal family. One of the great things about that experience . . . was the US Department of State officials from the embassies saying, ‘we don't know what you're going to be asked about your films, your country, or your politics; you can answer or say anything, as long as it's not a policy question.’ That was such an amazing icebreaker. I took that moment to let people know they were welcome to ask me any questions about the media and the United States, and that I would answer as honestly as I could. That was a gift to all of us.”Levin also was invited to collaborate with educator and researcher Dr. Sudha Arlikatti, who was specializing in disaster resilience with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO wanted to learn how women could be empowered by telling their stories. “These were communities battling internal strife, outward bound terrorism, and terrorism within the community toward women in particular,” says Levin. The filmmaker understood how important it was for the underrepresented female participants to own their stories and be able to tell them the way they wanted to, “which could be a direct binary against the dominant story.”According to Arlikatti, these stories about northern Afghanistan indicated that this work had an impact in, as described to Levin by her colleague, “some of the ‘outer regions’ of the Taliban's focused influence . . . claiming truth and agency within and up to the limits of societal norms for women.” Corresponding proposals were utilized in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties of the Republic of Ireland.Levin's worldwide perspective has culminated in a cloud-based social media platform that she describes as a “geographically anchored . . . seed vault for storytelling.” The platform will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enable users to crowdsource and disseminate immersive, geotagged, personalized storytelling experiences and share them globally: “The stories could be told with images, they could be video, and they could be scientific data. They could be poetry; they could do music. But it's very specifically anchored to place.”When it goes live, visitors to the site will be able to discover location-based narratives. User engagement will be enhanced via augmented and virtual reality. Levin says that the platform “disrupts traditional social media paradigms by fostering a decentralized, user-driven ecosystem where every geographical place becomes a unique digital canvas for community-driven stories.” Narratives about climate change issues and ancestral knowledge and wisdom will be emphasized in an age of disinformation and media oversaturation.Levin is pushing back on the current social media practices, “working to build out a very ethical platform.” She uses the seed vault analogy because “when you hear that term, it's almost like it's something you do because there's a threat, there's a danger. This is a theme for human storytelling right now, all over the planet, so our stories of place are held, and can be consumed by each other.” Levin feels that when a story is attached to a specific place or person, “we become it. It has more [of a] sense of agency in our lives. We become indebted to that same place or person because we've told a story about it. So, the telling of a story grounds us, and the consuming of other people's stories expands us.” She hopes that the platform will inspire people, providing the technology to tell their own stories: “In a way, I see it as a culmination of my life's work.”Levin has told many stories in different modes, from different perspectives. She has reflected on her own life as well: The Last Lesson (2001) concerned her father's fight with lung cancer, which eventually spread to his brain. The eight-minute documentary was commissioned by KERA-PBS in the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas for the series Frame of Mind. “This film is a very intimate portrait,” says Levin. “I originally did not want to make this film at all, but when the PBS station kept approaching me about it, I got frustrated in my sadness, and became somewhat angry at what I thought at the time was an unreasonable and thoughtless request. I asked my father for guidance. He told me lovingly that he had been waiting for me to ask him to make a film together.” Levin documented his life sporadically over a two-year period: “I was very close to my father, and he remains to this day the most impactful ‘teacher’ I have ever had.” She explains that the film was titled The Last Lesson “because this was my first real experience with a loved one's battle with terminal illness, and the daily losses of ego, agency, ability, and at the same time, expansive growth toward the ineffable. It was his last lesson to me, and one I have leaned on through the more recent cancer diagnoses of my mother, my brother, a dear friend, and my husband.”Though many of her films are traditionally structured, others have impressionistic elements. “They are more observant of place as a character,” she says. “They either really frustrate people, because you don't have something to anchor onto, or [people] really glom onto it. You quickly learn about [an audience] based on the reactions.” When Levin focuses on the environment, “it's different in an almost cartographic sense, a very holistic way. I'm really bad at taxes and numbers, but I can take in a lot of information and see patterns quickly, which is a gift.” Not all audience members will absorb those patterns: “sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And that's okay.” That is a key to Levin's permanency—trying disparate approaches to appeal to different kinds of viewers.“I work in a lot of different capacities, and larger documentary film is still one of those,” says Levin. She always asks herself and her former students which medium best suits the subject at hand: “Does it need to be a podcast or blog? What really does it need to be?” For Levin, documentary film provides just one opportunity to ask people to share the truth.New potentials opened up for her when she attended her first UFVA conference in 1988, in Boseman, Montana. While there, she met many outstanding media professionals and academics, including Professor Ben Levin, who was teaching at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2024, they celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Although Levin had attended many different conferences, she found that the UFVA was unique in the way that it welcomed and supported young academics. She thrived in this accommodating environment. “It's an academic organization that doesn't hesitate to hold a high bar,” she says. “But it's also nurturing and supportive to various stages that students and faculty are in. I really admire that. And so it was worth me giving a lot of my time, often behind the curtains.”Levin says she feels honored to receive a Life Member Award from the UFVA: “Some of the people who are truly my heroes are life members of that organization. It's a nice legacy.” Levin has advice for the next generation of academics entering the UFVA: “Ask questions and listen more. There's such a wealth of knowledge and experience. Learn from that.” She has seen the association grow and diversify over the past few decades, in its membership and in the disciplines it covers: “Diversity is so needed and so useful. The embracing of other storytelling modalities is really important.”Since retiring from the University of North Texas, Levin has focused on the geo-specific storytelling platform, her documentary series, and a new graduate program she has developed with fellow UFVA member Jack Lucido. “This program,” she explains, “endorsed by some top tech and ethics creators, is designed to put media, design, and global ethics together for those seeking new ways of engaging with AI, circular economy, historic and planetary ethics, and new ecosystems for media production and consumption. Higher education has changed radically in the past few years, with many old ‘hard and fast rules’ being imploded. We are following that lead and have designed a new graduate program that is adaptable, online, hybrid, and forward-thinking. We are currently in nascent discussions with several different institutions of higher education about bringing this program on-board.”“I retired early from academia so that I could go on to do other things,” she says, the realization still sinking in. “For a long time, I would describe myself as an academic professor and a committed documentary filmmaker,” Levin says. “Now I see myself as a witness to other people's stories, which can take a lot of different forms for me. Storytelling and story consuming is what makes us almost uniquely human. It's so critical to how we understand ourselves and our place on the planet.”