The University of Maine at Farmington plans to host Spring 2022 Libra Professor Huey Coleman for an artist talk at the Emery Community Art Center, located on campus on Academy Street.

Coleman’s talk will begin at noon Wednesday, March 23, and is free and open to the public. Masks are required at all university indoor spaces.

The Libra Professorship Program brings scholars of national and international prominence to University of Maine System campuses to provide students and members of the community with outstanding faculty models for teaching, research and public service, according to a news release from the university.

A celebrated Maine documentary filmmaker, Coleman will show selections from his feature length documentary film portraits on Maine Franco-American musicians, jazz legend Marina McPartland, literary icon Henry David Thoreau, and Mt. Katahdin.

For more than 40 years, Coleman has been making films on artists, education, the environment and Maine. In 2021, he was recognized by the Thoreau Society with the Walter Harding Distinguished Achievement Award in Scholarship.

His films have been shown at film festivals throughout the U.S. and on PBS. His seventh feature-length documentary film, “Henry David Thoreau: Surveyor of the Soul,” was shown at the Maine International Film Festival, the Vermont International Film Festival and broadcast on Maine Public Television and Vermont PBS.

“In Good Time: The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartland” was selected as a “Must have jazz DVD of 2011” by DownBeat Magazine and won the Manny Berlingo Award, Best Feature Documentary, Garden State Film Festival.

“Wilderness and Spirit: A Mountain Called Katahdin” was shown at the Environmental Film Festival, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.

“Honest Vision, A Portrait of Todd Webb” was awarded a Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival and was broadcast in Europe.

Coleman is a founder and director of the Maine Student Film and Video Festival, which is now in its 44th year. He has been an artist in residence in animation and film and video production in more than 100 schools in New England, including youth of the Penobscot Nation and students in the Multilingual Program at Portland public schools.

As the UMF Libra Professor, Coleman is teaching a documentary film course in the Farmington University art department this semester. He is an adjunct instructor in communications and new media at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland.

For more information, contact Ann Bartges, director of UMF Emery Community Arts Center, at ann.bartges@maine.edu or 207-778-7461.

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