Moving Picture Institute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Moving Picture Institute (MPI) is an American non-profit organization and film production company based in TriBeCa, New York and West Hollywood, California. It was founded by human rights advocate Thor Halvorssen in 2005. Its current president is philanthropist Frayda Levy.
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[edit] Mission and Purpose
The Moving Picture Institute is dedicated to promoting the principles of what it considers "American liberty," from a right-leaning, free enterprise background. MPI facilitates developing filmmakers through a major internship program, provides support to filmmakers with demonstrable capacity to succeed in the entertainment industry, and promotes narrative features, documentary features, and shorts that communicate the MPI's conservative, free enterprise principles. MPI funds films from development through post-production; it also funds developing filmmakers and serves as an intern placement service.
MPI was founded on the premise that film, more effectively than any other medium, can bring their ideas of freedom to the public.
The films of the Moving Picture Institute are marked by a distinct conservative, free enterprise viewpoint. Documentary materials are generally released to conservative outlets such as National Review, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Cato Institute, Objectivist Center and similar organizations with the hopes that they will become viral within the conservative Internet community. The MPI's projects explore issues from the position that the media is tainted with a liberal bias. Some issues the MPI has championed include abolishing public health care, exploring "the dark side of environmentalism," and similar issues normally associated with the conservative right.
From their website:
"To date, MPI has helped develop, fund, produce, or promote a range of feature-length films dealing with topics such as higher education's liberal bias, environmental activism's role in perpetuating Third World poverty, anti-communist humor's cultural history, and Hungary's and Estonia's revolutions against totalitarianism."
[edit] Key Personnel
Rob Pfaltzgraff'
[edit] Major Productions
MPI is involved in the production and promotion of the following high-profile documentary films:
- Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney's Mine Your Own Business, which initiates a discussion about the environmentalist movement and its impact on economic growth in impoverished parts of Romania, Chile, and Madagascar.
- Colin Keith Gray and Megan Raney Aarons's Freedom's Fury, which tells the story of the famous 1956 Olympic semifinal water polo match between Hungary and Russia. This so-called "Blood in the Water Match" took place in Melbourne, Australia mere weeks after Soviet forces brutally suppressed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Narrated by Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz, the film was produced by Kristine Lacey, Lucy Liu, Thor Halvorssen, Amy Sommer, Quentin Tarantino, and Andrew Vajna.
- Ben Lewis's Hammer & Tickle, which provocatively analyzes humor's role in undermining Soviet totalitarianism, showing the truth of George Orwell's remark that "Every joke is a tiny revolution." In 2006, Lewis's documentary won the Zurich Film Festival's award for "Best New Documentary Film." It has since screened on British and French television.
- Evan Coyne Maloney's Indoctrinate U, which exposes ideological conformism and political correctness in American higher education. The film addresses speech codes, doctrinaire teaching, divisive gender and racial politics, biased hiring practices, and other phenomena that undermine free expression, intellectual diversity, and academic freedom on American campuses. Written and directed by Evan Coyne Maloney, the film was produced by Stuart Browning, Blaine Greenberg, and Thor Halvorssen.
- James and Maureen Tusty's The Singing Revolution, which tells the story of the remarkable peaceful protests that liberated Estonia from Soviet control. Official Website for The Singing Revolution.
