I hate questions like these... Um, the golden age of Hollywood films from the 1970s ... The French New Wave ... Continental Impressionism.
Directors
And these too ... hmmmm. Alain Resnais, David Lynch, Peter Weir, The Coen Brothers, Jodorowsky, Spielberg (Jaws & CE3K)....
Awards
Winner: Special Mention, AFI Fest; Winner: Best Content, Boston Intl. Film Fest
Festivals
Slamdance, AFI Fest, Boston, Raindance (London), MLK Center (Atlanta), Ozark Foothills, Little Rock, etc.
Kelly Duda's Interests
General
Travel, other points of view, Chaos theory (no, I'm not a science nerd, but I like to observe things), the wind and the moon and the stars ... good conversation, beauty. ... And irony, how can I avoid it in Life.
Music
Ambient, trip-hop, electronica, trance, old-new age as well as new wave, dude, "flock of seagulls!" And other post-punk/ new romantic/ psychedelic-goth bands i.e., Psychedelic Furs, Public Image Ltd., The Cure, Joy Division ... "Love will tear us apart (again)." Blues, roots, the early days of rock-n-roll (I'm from the South, remember?), i.e., Elmore James, Little Walter, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Dale Hawkins and more.... Nirvana. (I have the pics to prove it.), Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, My Bloody Valentine, Filter. Yes, more angst. Gals with guitars that I had a crush on in the 90's.... Liz Phair and Suzanne Vega.... Then there's Leonard Cohen ..."Everybody knows the good guys lost, Everybody knows the fight was fixed, The poor stay poor, the rich get rich, That's how it goes ...Everybody knows." ... Coldplay, Radiohead, The Killers, White Lies.
People often ask me this question... I dred that. Anyhow, if you must know, here are some ... Battleship Potemkin, The Tramp, Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, Un Chien Andalou, The Wizard of Oz, Frankenstein (and the other classic Universal monster movies), Wild Strawberries, Night and Fog, Hiroshima Mon Amour (this is an incredible film), 400 Blows, Breathless, Rashomon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds (original), The Day the Earth Stood Still, It Came From Outer Space, M, North by Northwest, Psycho (i & II), Rear Window, Easy Rider, Blow Up, Lawrence of Arabia, Night of the Living Dead, El Topo, Midnight Cowboy, The Planet of the Apes, 99-44-100% Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Man Called Horse, If, The Exorcist, Jaws, The Godfather (I & II), The Omen (I & II), The Man Who Would Be King, Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part 1), All the President's Men, Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, A Clockwork Orange, Elephant Man, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Brubaker, And Justice For All, Dawn of the Dead (Romero), Halloween, The Thing (Carpenter), Escape From New York, The Road Warrior, Animal House, The Pink Panther movies, The Blues Brothers, Blade Runner, Videodrome, Raiders of the Lost Ark series, Gremlins, Witness, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Stand By Me, At Close Range, River's Edge, Betty Blue, Blue Velvet, The Last Emperor, Dead Ringers, Dead Poets Society, Slacker, Do The Right Thing, Good Fellas, Cape Fear (1991), Fearless, The Fisher King, Barton Fink, Sante Sangre, Edward Scissorhands, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Fargo, Baraka, Chaplin, Contact, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, City of Angels, Titanic, Cast Away, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, The Shawshank Redemption, The Sixth Sense, A.I., Adaptation, Gladiator, Mulholland Drive, Gangs of New York, A Beautiful Mind, 28 Days Later, Spirited Away, Million Dollar Baby, The Constant Gardener, United 93, The Good Shepherd, Sin City, The Departed, Grindhouse, American Gangster, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight.... whew!
Television
"Cops" ... for when I wanna watch the same 30-minute chase scene over and over and over. Do they even make new episodes of that anymore? (Of course it doesn't really matter does it?) ... "Lost" is cool -- especially that opening shot of the title ala "Twilight Zone (a classic)." ... Oh, and I like that show, "The Amazing Race." Again, cut to the chase.
Books
Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Essays," various speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Accomplices To The Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal" by Tom Murton & Joe Hyams. "The Last Crusade" by Gerald McKnight. "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" by Douglas Brinkley.
Heroes
People I look up to ... The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square, the beautiful Anne Frank, MLK Jr. and those who took part in the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott, Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Summer Olympics. Stephen Biko, Nelson Mandela and those you fought against apartheid ... the working poor in America, who as a group, give more money to charity than the rich....
For more than two decades, the Arkansas Prison system sold blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis & AIDS. Thousands of unwitting victims who transfused a medication called Factor 8 made from this blood died as a result.
Follow along as award-winning filmmaker Kelly Duda uncovers a tragedy many consider a crime. Through exclusive interviews & key documents as well as never-before-seen footage, he builds a formidable case that cries out to be heard. FACTOR 8 takes the viewer into the underbelly of the good ole boy South, and like a Grisham novel, delivers disturbing subplots, amazing coincidences & a possible conspiracy. Charges of cronyism & cover-up reach all the way to the administration of then-Gov. Bill Clinton.
Add death threats, burglary & a murder to the story & a suspected campaign of fear & intimidation surfaces. Even now, families are grieving. People are still dying, and nobody has ever been held accountable. FACTOR 8 is one citizen's attempt to set that right.
QUOTES
"In the early days of AIDS, we at the CDC were surprised that the hemophiliac community was infected so rapidly. This shocking documentary tells why."
-- Dr. Donald Francis,
Former head of AIDS Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
"FACTOR 8 is about to take its place in history as one of the most tragic pharmaceutical drug stories since Thalidomide. Kelly Duda's dedication to the truth is an inspiration--this expose wears his heart on its sleeve, refusing to let the victims die in vain."
-- Natalie McMenemy,
American Film Institute
"Knocked my socks off. FACTOR 8 makes me wish I was in the business of producing documentaries. Where's the criminal investigation?"
-- Steve McEveety,
Exec. Producer of BRAVEHEART (Academy Award -- Best Picture),
Producer of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
"The political pressure to keep this film SILENT is very strong. It makes you wonder what else there is they haven't told us."
-- Dr. C.D. Mazoff, PhD, HCV Advocate
"Kelly Duda is a journalist in the truest sense -- standing up for society's forgotten, despite all odds and at great personal sacrifice. FACTOR 8 is an inspiring triumph over greed and corruption."
-- Jim Gilliam,
Producer of IRAQ FOR SALE, WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price
"This is a film of huge importance for the haemophilia community in Britain and across the world. It highlights yet again the extreme urgency of the call for an independent public inquiry into the causes of the worst ever treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service."
-- Lord Morris of Manchester, United Kingdom
"Kelly Duda's film screams to be known about. The blatant abuse of power, the criminal subjugation of prison inmates, and the complete absence of government oversight and accountability make for a compelling, must-see story."
-- William Gazecki,
Producer/Director of WACO: The Rules of Engagement (Academy Award nominee)
"FACTOR 8 investigates a chilling trail of tainted blood that reached as far away as Japan. It is a relentless pursuit of the truth by a remarkable documentarian."
-- Keiko Ibi,
Producer/Director of THE PERSONALS: Improvisation on Romance in the Golden Years
(Academy Award Best Documentary Short)
"If young documentarians would choose subjects as important as that of Kelly Duda's FACTOR 8, we might be well on the way to making the world a better place."
-- Penelope Spheeris,
Director of THE CROOKED E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron,
The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy
"At last, Kelly Duda's stunning film, FACTOR 8, gives the story of the tainted blood tragedy its due. Through interviews with inmates, prison health officials, and Canadians who contracted diseases from Arkansas blood, Duda explores the greed and politics that underscored this tragedy."
-- Mara Leveritt,
Author of DEVILS KNOT: The True Story of the West Memphis Three
"Duda's presence throughout the film reminds the viewer that he is just a citizen in his home state asking a few questions. But the roadblocks he hits along the way are truly disturbing. FACTOR 8 is an impressive work of investigative reporting, an important film and an insane example of what the media chooses to illuminate or ignore."
-- Sara Jo Marks, International Documentary
"FACTOR 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is a relevant and demoralizing work ... and stands as a chilling indictment of government indifference to the lives of foreigners and inmates."
-- Philip Martin, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
"FACTOR 8 is a terrifying lesson on the lengths the powerful will go to in order to make a buck."
-- David Koon, Arkansas Times
"Kelly Duda's film is a mind-numbing expose' of man's inhumanity toward man, motivated by political and financial greed. Everyone everywhere should see it and be outraged."
-- Roger Endell,
Former Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction (Forced out of Arkansas after serving less than a year as director because he wanted to reform the system.)
"FACTOR 8 is a serious public service piece ... Very powerful."
-- Alexandra Pelosi,
Producer/Director of JOURNEYS WITH GEORGE, Diary of a Political Tourist. (Daughter of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi)
"Duda is as tough on the pharmaceutical companies and the health regulators as he is on any of the political figures or public officials involved."
-- The American Spectator
"FACTOR 8 is here to herd the pigs responsible for this mess out into the light. It's an ugly story, but it's a story that everyone should hear."
-- Film Threat
"FACTOR 8 is hard-headed journalism practiced by a filmmaker who sometimes seems like a pit bull with a bureaucratic bone."
-- John Anderson, Variety
"Duda is a bit of a maverick. Everything he does is infused with a sense of urgency and speed but juxtaposed by a slightly unnerving smirk."
-- New Statesman (UK)
"Brubaker," starring Robert Redford, based on the real life story of Warden Thomas Murton who tried to reform the Arkansas prison system.
"Standing against corruption is often a solitary crusade, at least in the beginning. Mr. Duda has undertaken that crusade in FACTOR 8. His is a film that politicians, officials and--above all--the citizens should see. And, having seen, should act."
-- Mark D. Murton, son of Thomas Murton, the former warden of the Arkansas prison farms, who co-authored ACCOMPLICES TO THE CRIME & inspired the Robert Redford movie BRUBAKER.
Links to Radio interviews with Duda about the Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal:
Did you say you've seen the figures on the profits we made all those years
I'd say look here, don't you think you could give us back a little of it?
Who I'd like to meet:
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves"–-Edward R. Murrow
"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."
--Henry David Thoreau
"The time is always right to do what is right."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
"You can kill the revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution."--Fred Hampton
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."—George Orwell
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."--Arthur Schopenhauer
"Anger is an energy."--John Lydon
"Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence."-- Robert Kennedy
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. ... It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man (or woman) is he (or she :) who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanks for thinking of me! Im feeling reeeeaaaalllly ready! just listening to the sound of the tick..tick..tick...:) I will certainly keep you posted.. Sending you a big hug..
Thanks for the add. ¶ People hear only what they want, so facts alone won't wake them; they'll need inspiration too. An echo of an echo of Buddha or Jesus becomes encrusted in ritual, and loses context and content. Still, we write what we can. Try to hear the questions behind people's questions. ¶ This world's diverse evils have a common root: Bullies, liars, thieves, and murderers — in market, government, and elsewhere — believe we're all separate, motivated only by self-interest, greed, fear. They want us to share that belief, for they use it to justify themselves, to keep us apart, to control politics and the economy, perpetuating war, poverty, and ecocide. Their power comes not so much from cabals as from trojan memes, ubiquitous propaganda, implicit in ads and in their framing of the news. ¶ But they're mistaken about our motives. You and I have found love inside ourselves and our friends. It's in everyone, if only we can wake them, for we're all one flesh and blood. Let's spread that vision, for until we do our other advances will be minor and temporary. The bureacracy of brutality cannot stand if we open the eyes of its workers. ¶ What is human nature? Our task is not just to describe what we see, but to choose what we hope to become. The ideological battle between love and fear shapes the world, and its outcome is not yet written. Watching, voting, shopping are not enough. If you haven't already, join the global conversation, in whatever way feels right for you. Worldwide enlightenment has no precedent, no rules; we must discover and erase them en route. Make love not war is as serious as Orwell and as light as "Chocolat." ¶ For a start, just talk with people; that may not sound like much, but really it's huge. Spread the word. Each of us knows only part of the song, but keep singing, hoping, resisting, questioning. Hand in hand, we may heal this world yet. — Eric
i shall write you a private message as to why i am so unlike so many others here...however, to quote "My Dinner with Andre," there are "pockets of light" in this world and there is one (or several ones?) in little rock, ive found...it took SO long to find it, probably because one must be openly fearlessly weird enough to discover such a beautiful thing... this may be the coffee talking though. but i would like very much to have a dialogue with you about this. there is SO much to say, really. about my literary family... the oddness of minnesota (as i've experienced it)...(for example, the minnesotan lutherans v. arkansan lutherans, the arkansan lutherans being like baptists...)...and there is my incredibly strange connection to damien echols...and, not least of all, my personal history, which includes all of the above... i am flattered that you are actually interested! and what about YOU? what really makes ANYone intelligent and empathetic?
i absolutely MUST see your film. "Darkansas"- that is going to stick. i love it. there are some pretty sensible explanations for how i turned out this way. plus, i'm originally from minnesota...
