FESTIVAL DATES: NOVEMBER 10, 13, 14, 2009

YOUTH, through their ability to live, tolerate, and celebrate, have experiences that are both real and imaginative. Their source of inspiration is themselves and their communities. They seek to communicate. They long to share. And they care to change. Youth create narrative, documentary, music videos, and anything else you can imagine. Youth in our program have much to say and they feel that people need to hear.

This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination,
a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.
Robert F. Kennedy

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
“Do It Your Damn Self!!” (DIYDS!!) National Youth Video and Film Festival is a product of the Community Art Center’s Teen Media Program. The Teen Media Program, founded in 1970, has encouraged generations of teens to share their stories. With photography, video and filmmaking as a tool of expression, they have incited positive change in their lives and the world around them. Their experience with media technology and professional production skills have empowered them to move forward with self-assurance and dignity. DIYDS!! is the longest running youth-produced festival in the country, drawing over 800 youth and adults to public screenings every year. The Community Art Center’s Teen Media Program youth understood that, “if you want something done, you gotta do it your damn self.” This audacious motto became the mission of the festival, where youth producers from all over the world are given a venue to be heard and appreciated by wide audience. The festival weekend is a gathering for young people from across the country to unite with their shared interests in media and its use in encouraging and communicating relevant issues.

PRE- SCREENING PROCESS
The curating process of the 13th Annual “Do It Your Damn Self!!” National Youth Video and Film Festival started in Spring of 2009. The three stage process involved teens from TMP, guest curators for RAW Artworks, and DIYDS!! Youth Committee Chairs. After watching over 100 entries, each video was given an overall numerical rating, based on the committee’s response to four key components: clarity of message, integrity of message, meeting the mission of the festival, and technical quality. This complex decision-making process included challenging discussions of all videos which lead us to the most uplifting, yet difficult decision of all, the selection of the final 13th Annual DIYDS!! Reel. This year’s reel, as a whole, captures the essence of what youth means, the real and the imaginative, the child and the adult or the space in between where youth fearlessly justify their state of being.

Cheers to all our youth, keep rousing the hope you create, keep challenging the words you hear, keep demonstrating the change you stand to make.

Community Art Center

THE COMMUNITY ART CENTER
Founded in 1932 by a group of local parents,the Community Art Center’s mission is to nurture children and young adults with limited access to financial resources so they achieve personal and cultural growth, and have a positive impact on their world through joyful experiences in the arts. Through our 75 years in operation we have propelled close to 8,000 Cambridge youth to develop themselves artistically, academically and socially. We achieve this by providing a combined total of approximately 3000 program hours per year through two central programs: the School Age Child Care Program, and the Teen Media Program (TMP).

•The School Age Program, for children 5-12, is a state- licensed child care program offering classes in visual, theater, dance, music and media arts.
•Teen Media Program encourages youth 13-19 to explore the issues in their lives and seek to create positive change through a media arts curriculum.

Over 1400 people participate as audience members at our public events which include seasonal Community Celebrations and our Annual “Do It Your Damn Self!!” National Youth Film and Video Festival.