Ithaca College

Patricia Zimmermann, professor of Screen Studies and codirector of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival,  was one of three featured keynote speakers at a special symposium at the University of Washington entitled “Opium:  Fifty Years of Opium and Conflict in the Shan State of Burma, a Visual Retrospective.”

The symposium was dedicated to analyzing and assessing the East Asian and Southeast Asian documentaries of British filmmaker Adrian Cowell, who spent thirty years documenting the opium trails. The University of Washington Libraries film archive is the depository for Cowell’s  documentary work and materials.

Zimmermann’s keynote was entitled “Adrian Cowell and Opium: Visualities of Ethnography, Journalism, Direct Cinema Documentary , and Participant Observation.”

The symposium and Zimmermann’s presentation was sponsored by the University of Washington Libraries  and the Southeast Asia Center in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington