To commemorate American Archives Month in October, the University Libraries' Special Collections Department hosted an open house. Titled Discover Arkansas in the Archives: Archives Month 2010, the event began with refreshments and a reception, followed by Tom W. Dillard, head of Special Collections, giving an overview of the past year's acquisitions of manuscripts, rare books, and maps.
The featured presenters were teenaged documentary film makers Sarah and Emma Bailin of Little Rock. The Bailins have been making films and documentaries since they were eleven years old and own and operate their own production company, DoubleTroublets Productions. Together they have produced fifteen documentaries and short films, which have been screened at more than fifty film festivals around the nation. Their documentaries have also aired regularly on the Arkansas Educational Television Network and the Manhattan Television Network, New York.
The Bailins' presentation was followed by a screening of their documentary film Return to Sender (2008), the story of Arkansas role in the months following the Cuban Mariel Boat Lift in 1980. The film focuses on the effect that Cuban refugees who were housed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, had on the political landscape of Arkansas. Return to Sender is the third documentary in the DoubleTroublets Productions’ It Happened Here: Arkansas History Collection and has garnered more than twenty state and national film awards and screenings, including official selection at the Los Angeles Film Festival and best documentary in the Senior Division at the Tampa Film Festival in Florida.
