“Jazz in China” Winner of American INSIGHT’s 2022 Free Speech Film Festival

From L to R: American Insight Board Member Karen Curry, Eugene Marlow, Ph..D. (Producer/Director of "Jazz in China"), Jiefei Yuan, documentary Associate Director, and Bob Craig, Jazz DJ, WRTI, Philadelphia Eugene Marlow’s feature length documentary “Jazz in China” is the winner of the 2022 American Insight sponsored “Free Speech Film Festival.”

American INSIGHT’s Free Speech Film Festival celebrates the passionate innovations of independent filmmakers, and champions the ideas, perspectives and voices that prove vital to the future of Free Speech, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law around the world.

American INSIGHT’s Free Speech Film Festival is a goodwill, grassroots, sustainable program that unites judges, students, scholars, educators and the general public in conversations about the past, present and future of Free Speech.

The mission of the Free Speech Film Festival is to promote Free Speech, not war.

According to Margaret Chew Barringer, American Insight Founder & Chairman, “When we first saw the submission from Director Eugene Marlow we didn’t know this very democratic form of music could exist (and THRIVE) in such a place. This astonishment was just one of the many reasons ‘Jazz in China’ is the 2022 Free Speech Award-winning Film.”

She added: “Over several weeks of judging approximately 100 entries from 17 countries, ‘Jazz in China’ never fell out of first place.”

“Most people don’t know that jazz even exists in China,” noted Bob Craig, popular host for WRTI, Philadelphia’s jazz and classical music radio station. “The film chronicles the 100-year story of how this very democratic form of music improvisation exists and thrives in a country with a long tradition of adherence to central authority.”

Click the image to see the “Jazz in China” trailer.

Jazz in China - Play Video

The Free Speech Film Festival Award Ceremony was moderated by American INSIGHT Board member, Karen Curry, former NBC and Dr. Eugene Marlow receives the American Insight "Free Speech Bell" from Karen Curry, American Insight Board Member. The first prize also came with a $1,000 honorarium.CNN Bureau Chief. She was joined onstage by Bob Craig, longtime WRTI Jazz host,  Dr. Eugene Marlow, the director of the 2022 Free Speech Award winner and Jiefei Yuan, documentary Associate Director.

American INSIGHT’s annual Free Speech Film Festival Award Ceremony was held Saturday, November 19th, 2022 in Philadelphia, where Dr. Marlow was awarded the symbolic Free Speech Liberty Bell and $1,000 honorarium by Ms. Curry.
 
Topics submitted to the American INSIGHT Free Speech Film Festival in 2022 included censorship, resistance, inequality, courage, change, and hope. Independent filmmakers from 58 countries around the world have entered their films as a response to the subject of Free Speech: You Define It!

The six 2022 Official Selection films are:

  •  Jazz in China directed by Dr. Eugene Marlow
  • My Grandmother Is an Egg directed by Wu-Ching Chang
  • Common Grounds? directed by Raed Truett Gilliam
  • Chinese Cancan – Lulu, a Chinese Woman directed by Coralie Van Rietschote
  • Strength Among Us directed by Taha Ovaci
  • Urania Leilus directed by Andrew Serban

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D., teaches courses in media and culture at Baruch College (City University of New York, since 1988). “Jazz in China is his latest documentary project based on his 2018 acclaimed book. Previously, his documentary short “Zikkaron Kristallnacht: A Family Story” was an “official selection” at 17 domestic and international film festivals and was the recipient of the John Culkin Award from the Media Ecology Association. Dr. Marlow has earned awards for video programming excellence from numerous film festival competitions.

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