Shut Up and Sing

October 17, 2006, 8:00pm – 10:00pm

About This Event

Shut Up & Sing travels with the Dixie Chicks from the peak of their popularity as the national-anthem-singing darlings of country music and top-selling female recording artists of all time, through their infamy after the anti-Bush comment made by the group’s lead singer in 2003. Oscar-winning documentary director Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck follow the Dixie Chicks from 2003-2006 when they were under political attack and received death threats, all while continuing to live their lives, have children, and of course make music. At a time when the United States is fighting for democracy and freedom overseas, Shut Up & Sing raises questions about our own right to freedom of speech and documents the difficulty of having a genuine public debate on international policy in the political climate leading up to the Iraq War. The film also illustrates musicians’ power to influence and inform the public discourse on significant policy issues. Michael Rechtshaffen praises Shut Up & Sing in The Hollywood Reporter: “A bracingly candid documentary portrait of the artists in a career-defining transition, the film simultaneously offers a unique perspective of a nation at a similarly significant crossroads. It also happens to be a lot of fun.”

Please join us for a provocative panel discussion and Q&A session immediately following the film.

Featured Panelists:
Barbara Kopple, Co-Director and Producer, Shut up & Sing
Judd Legum, Research Director and Editor of ThinkProgress.org, the Center for American Progress
Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, "Rural strategists" and co-author of Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out

Moderated by:
Anna Soellner, Director of Outreach and Special Events, Center for American Progress

Location

Regal Cinema Gallery Place Stadium 14
701 7th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

Resources

Video

• Introduction
  
• Panel Discussion
  

Biographies

Barbara Kopple, a two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker, is the co-director and co-producer of Shut Up & Sing. She recently directed the narrative feature Havoc, written by Stephen Gaghan, about a group of wealthy teenagers coming of age and searching for an identity in Los Angeles. Ms. Kopple produced and directed Harlan Country USA and American Dream, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 1991, Harlan Country USA was named to the National Film Registry by Congress and designated an American Film Classic.
Ms. Kopple has produced and directed prolifically, including I Married...., a series for VH1 about the spouses and families of rock stars; Bearing Witness, which tells the story of women war correspondents in Iraq and around the world; the award-winning feature nonfiction film Wild Man Blues, about the European tour of Woody Allen; and Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson, for which she was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing. Other films directed by Ms. Kopple include No Nukes, a "rockumentary" shot during five days of concerts at Madison Square Garden and distributed by Warner Brothers; and Defending Our Daughters, an investigation into women’s human rights issues in Bosnia, Pakistan and Egypt and winner of Voices of Courage Award. Ms. Kopple also directed a series of specials for the Disney Channel, including Friends for Life: Living with AIDS, the first show about AIDS to air on that network. Ms. Kopple also directs episodic television and commercial spots.
Ms. Kopple has been awarded the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award, New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award, the Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Award, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Filmmakers Trophy & Audience Award. Ms. Kopple currently serves as a board member for the American Film Institute and the American University Center for Social Media, and actively participates in organizations that address social issues and support independent filmmaking. She was born in New York and studied clinical physiology at Northeastern University.

Judd Legum is the Research Director at the Center for American Progress and the Editor of ThinkProgress.org. Judd has a bachelor’s degree in public policy analysis from Pomona College and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. While in law school, he was a research assistant for former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. His writings have appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The DC Examiner, The Nation, and Salon. Judd has also been a guest on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC and BBC television, and many radio programs, including NPR’s Marketplace, The Al Franken Show, and The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly.

Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a longtime veteran of rural politics in Virginia, partnered with Steve Harding to write Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out (Touchstone, 10/06) “Rural strategists” Mudcat and Jarding first collaborated on Mark Warner's successful rural campaign for governor of Virginia in 2001. Since then, Mudcat has served in the capacity of rural liaison for Sens.Bob Graham and John Edwards. Well known among Democrats, Republicans, and the national press for his colorful, no-sacred-ground, tell-it-like-it-is approach to the problems of rural America, Saunders's politics are well aligned with country culture. Besides working for many years with the legendary Wood Brothers Racing team of NASCAR's Nextel Cup, Saunders is well known among the Nashville bluegrass crowd as well as in national hunting circles. A native of Southwest Virginia in the Southern Appalachians, Saunders still resides in Roanoke, Virginia.

Anna Soellner is the Director of outreach and special events for the Center for American Progress. She also directs cultural programs at the Center including the Reel Progress program. She served in the office of Martin Lee, chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, where she was a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar. In that capacity, Anna was the foreign media liaison and assisted in developing party relations with foreign governments and NGOs to promote democracy and rule of law in Hong Kong. Before leaving for Hong Kong, Anna worked in the Office of Legislative Affairs and Public Liaison at the U.S. Treasury Department and for Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.