Documentary filmmaker plans lecture at COA

A good documentary must include both factual information and personal vision, according to Dewitt Sage, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and producer. Sage will open the fifth annual Key Issues of the College of the Atlantic Summer Series at 8:30 p.m. July 25. He will discuss the documentary genre and show segments of his most recent films, “A Distant Harmony: Pavarotti in China” and “Broken Minds.”

“Broken Minds,” which will run Oct. 30 as a segment on “Frontline,” the PBS documentary news program, explores the issues surrounding schizophrenia, particularly as it relates to twins. Although Sage interviewed seven sets of twins for his documentary, “Broken Minds” focuses predominantly on the lives of Orono twins who suffer from “discordant schizophrenia” (when only one twin is diagnosed as having the illness). Sage will show the first 20 minutes of the documentary July 25.

On a lighter note, Sage will show 13 minutes from “A Distant Harmony,” the story of Pavarotti’s 1986 visit to China and the unexpected relationship that developed between two cultures through the common language of music. What began as a musical tour ended in a political happening when Pavarotti was invited to sing for an audience of 10,000 in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, the high holy ground for the paramount leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.

For more information about the lecture or the lecture series, call COA at 288-5015.