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Jonathan Demme & Daniel Wolff in Napa January 18th

12/19/13

Filmmaker Jonathan Demme and Author Daniel Wolff have spent the last eight years documenting post-Katrina New Orleans. They will present New Home Movies from the Lower Ninth Ward at The Theater at 500 First Street. Proceeds support the Oxbow School Scholarship Fund.


Jonathan Demme is among Hollywood’s first rank of filmmakers, with credits that include Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, Beloved, The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won an Oscar, and a trilogy of Neil Young documentaries. Tackling challenging and controversial subjects, he’s directed eight different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Demme is also an activist, whose concern is reflected in such projects as Artists for Democracy in Haiti, the documentary New Home Movies from the Lower Ninth Ward on post-Katrina residents of New Orleans and its follow-up, the portrait documentary I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful.

Daniel Wolff is an accomplished talent as an author, poet and filmmaker. His writing has appeared in numerous diverse publications, ranging from Vogue to Education Weekly, and his non-fiction books include How Lincoln Learned to Read and an award-winning and best-selling biography of crooner Sam Cooke. He’s also received credits on such documentaries as The Agronomist, about slain Haitian civil rights leader Jean Dominique, and several projects on post-Katrina New Orleans, including I’m Carolyn Parker—the catalyst for his look at the lives of everyday American heroes in his text, The Fight for Home.

Cocktails & Screening with Jonathan & Daniel $125

New Orleans feast with Jonathan & Daniel $500 (seating is limited)

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At Oxbow, I got to try inquiry-based learning for the first time. This allowed me to control the amount of rigor and the depth of research in my topic, as well as picking a topic that I found most interesting. From going through this new process of learning, I feel excited to go back to the rigor of my sending school to apply the inquiry-based perspective to my classes.

— Meave Cunningham, Fall, 2015

It's been a whirlwind week, but also a time when I sang the praises of Oxbow to my colleagues. I've been thinking much about how Oxbow is an exemplar of true education. That art centers the curriculum is hardly surprising, and for those of us who work within the traditional educational mold Oxbow offers a gold standard of focused project based learning. Beyond the school's approach to immersive experience are the intangibles which make Oxbow different. The sense of community and of working together, even as each student retained their strong individual presence is palpable. The feeling of warmth and trust between the adults and the nearly adults in the Oxbow community could be felt throughout the campus. The openness of the architecture and interconnectedness of the three studios in themselves speak of the Oxbow philosophy and identity. More than form follows function, the physical attributes of Oxbow have a distinct warmth and invite exploration.

I'm sure that the ongoing challenges of leading and reinventing your school might sometimes keep you from having the time to see Oxbow with the fresh eyes of a visitor, but your steady presence and vision are really visible in every detail. Thank you for inviting me to one of the most profound experiences in my career.

— Ken Rush, Visual Arts Department, Packer Collegiate Institute

At Oxbow, the eye and the hand are inseparable from the mind and because their peers are also artists, students adopt fresh attitudes toward their work.

— Charles Altieri, Rachel Anderson Stageberg Chair, Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley

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