Virtual A/V Geeks continues vintage film screenings online

The Virtual A/V Geeks series returns to brighten and haunt your screens on Fridays this fall! Film archivist extraordinaire and NC State alumnus Skip Elsheimer joins forces with NC State librarians and special campus guests to present and discuss unusual and exemplary classroom instructional films, newsreels and documentaries spanning the last 80 years. 

Events in this series are free and open to the public. To attend, either visit the Libraries' event page immediately before the show for login credentials, or go to the A/V Geeks Facebook page where the event will stream live.

The series kicks off its fall 2020 slate of screenings with “So You’re Going to College” on Aug. 21 with special guest Chester Brewer, Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program. After screening 16mm educational films from the 1950s and 1960s that prepared incoming students for the college experience, Brewer and Elsheimer will discuss how that experience has changed over the more than half century between then and now. 

The series takes a more political turn on Friday, Sept. 4 from 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. with “Vote, and the Choice is Yours.” Natalie Bullock-Brown from the Department of Communications joins Elsheimer for a special screening of “Vote—and the Choice is Yours,” a 1964 gem produced by the North Carolina Film Board featuring interviews with Fayetteville State College students discussing voting and other democratic processes.

Elsheimer feels that the film offers a lens onto voter suppression during both the Civil Rights Era and the present day. “People of color in Fayetteville are asked if they would be voting in the upcoming election in the early 1960s,” he says. “It's a fascinating look at our past with hints of how voters are being disenfranchised now.”

In past semesters, the A/V Geeks series has been held in the auditorium in the Hunt Library. Because of the campus coronavirus response this spring, Elsheimer and the Libraries moved the series online. Although he misses the intimacy of viewers all being in the same room, Elsheimer has found some advantages to holding the series online. One benefit is that the events are now easily recorded so that people can watch them later—all the spring 2020 episodes in the series remain viewable on the Libraries site. Also, because the live events can be simulcast to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch, the viewing audience has expanded well beyond campus.

A/V Geeks continues throughout the fall as Interdisciplinary Studies professor Darrell Stover visits later in September to talk about educational films made by Black filmmakers and for Black audiences. In October, vintage films about how diseases are transmitted will bring a new perspective to the coronavirus pandemic as Assistant Professor of Infectious Disease Cristina Lanzas, from the Department of Population Health and Pathobiology, guests. The fall season concludes on an environmental note during NC State's Energy Week as campus Sustainability Office staff discusses movies about alternative energy sources.

The fall 2020 Virtual A/V Geeks season is as follows:

"So You're Going to College"
Friday, Aug. 21, 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Guest: Chester Brewer, Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program

“Vote, and the Choice is Yours”
Friday, Sept. 4, 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
Guest: Prof. Natalie Bullock-Brown, Department of Communications

“Let’s Get Traveling!”
Friday, Sept. 18, 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Guest: Darrell Stover, Interdisciplinary Studies

“The Germs You Spread”
Friday, Oct. 9, 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Guest: Cristina Lanzas, Assistant Professor of Infectious Disease in the Department of Population Health and Pathobiology

“Last Time We Were Green: Clean Energy”
Friday, Oct. 16, 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Guests: NC State Sustainability Office