As part of International Open Access Week, the public is invited to “Opening the Canon: Copyright, Access, and Creativity,” a lively evening of film, conversation, and discovery on October 22nd and 23rdat the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque at 7:00 pm each day. On October 22nd, Bryan Konefsky of Basement Films will guide a discussion on copyright, open access, creativity, and the art of working within a canon. He will also introduce the three films:

· Steamboat Willie: Mickey Mouse’s first sound cartoon, newly in the public domain.

· Steamboat Bill, Jr. starting Buster Keaton, the film that inspired Disney’s steamboat adventure.

· Citizen Mickey by Salise Hughes: A Basement Films gem reimagining the mouse we all know.

On the 23rd, the event will include only a showing of the three films, no discussion. This event will explore how works move from private ownership into the public domain, and what that means for creators, educators, and the public. The event will conclude with an open Q&A session with Konefsky. This event is free and open to the public. Opening the Canon is created through the support of the New Mexico Open Educational Resources Consortium, University Libraries, New Mexico Library Association, and Basement Films, which has been around for 35 years supporting underrepresented forms of media.

International Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.

Open Access Week offers a chance to connect with the global momentum of openly sharing knowledge.

Bio:

Bryan Konefsky recently retired from teaching for 25 years in the University of New Mexico’s Department of Film and Digital Arts. There, he taught critical studies courses that focused on experimental cinema/artists’ films. In the community Konefsky is the founder and director of Experiments in Cinema international film festival and the president of Basement Films (a non-profit arts organization). Konefskyʼs creative work has been supported by organizations such as The Trust for Mutual Understanding, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Konefsky has lectured, curated programming and taught workshops about artists’ films in countries such as Argentina, Cuba, France, Germany, Korea, Latvia, Russia, Serbia, Spain, and the UK.