After starting in festivals in Europe and the US, Our Schoolfinally had its premiere in Romania – a homecoming of sorts for the film and an event that we have been anticipating for almost six years.
We shot in a small town in Transylvania, a very real place in Northern Romania. Our intention was to begin to understand, and hopefully improve, race relations between majority Romanians and the Roma ethnic minority by showing under a magnifying glass the story of three spirited Roma children involved in a school integration project in Targu Lapus. After four years of production and two years of editing we ended up with a paradigmatic story of hope, squandered opportunities, and infuriating cultural and institutional inertia. And racism, quite a bit of racism. Some intentional, some merely reflexive, yet all of it profoundly familiar to all Romanians (ourselves, the filmmakers, included). This is precisely why we were bracing so hard and for so long for the Romanian premiere. We knew that in Romania, even more than in other places in Europe or the United States, Our School would be holding a mirror up to its audience – an unflattering one at that. And there are few things as counter-productive and virulent as unexamined, defensive racism.
We did what we could to prepare for the premiere in terms of press, NGO partners on the ground, and the main characters themselves. The NGO partners were as nervous as we were and chomping at the bit to use the film for their own purposes. The characters got to see the film on their own terms before the festival premiere, on the principle that it is cruel and unusual treatment to see your own story projected on a very large screen with a large audience before absorbing it privately. The kids had never been to the cinema before, so they were extra nervous. Our youngest participant, Alin, helped to lighten the mood by eating three ice-creams in rapid succession and contently throwing up right before the screening.
The press was lukewarm, understandably, since they had not seen the film, and the international success of the new Romanian cinema over past ten years has made them unimpressed with projects with the kind of international festival success that Our School has had). The online comments to the advance press coverage came exclusively from people who had not seen it, but assumed that no film on Roma would ever help. They made violent threats and personal attacks against our team for “destroying Romania’s image abroad.” We imagined they were people who had too much time on their hands, but we were still put on notice: Our School had the potential of generating a strong backlash, and that was the last thing we wanted to happen.
Matters were not helped much by the great folk at the Transylvania Film Festival who programmed us in the largest cinema they had: 750 seats. We worried that the seats would remain empty or would be filled with people who do not like what they seen on the screen.
We worried about everything.
Whatever fears we had were dispersed in the first five minutes of the screening. The huge audience laughed loudly at even the smallest jokes in the film. They clapped after particularly poignant lines, making the projectionist worried that they would not hear the soundtrack. They started sniffling, visibly moved towards the end. And, when the credits ended and we all lined up on the stage, we found them giving the children a standing ovation. For five whole minutes.
Alin turned to me and whispered: “Are all of these guys Romanian?” Yes, they were. And they were applauding the courage, resilience, spirit and sass of Alin, Dana, Beni – and all the Romanian friends they managed to make, despite all odds, along the way. The audience had connected to the kids, managing to see themselves in our film without defensiveness or rancor. They found ways to process and understand what they could change in themselves by the time the credits stopped rolling.
After the film…
A teacher confessed to treating her Roma students as inferior. I wanted to put her in touch with the New York teacher who confessed during our Q&A at the Tribeca Film Festival that she had been tracking immigrant children in special education programs because she herself lacked support and know-how to integrate them.
A local mentioned a case of segregation next door to the screening venue – an activist invited the audience to investigate the case, right then and there. A journalist mused about what the Ministry of Education should do with the film – we referred him to the principal in Our School, who despite an awareness that the film showed him in a light that was “a little too true” (his words), ended up generously saying that it is an extraordinary tool that should be used to train and inform people not only in Romania, but abroad.
There were also hugs – lots of them. Alin, Beni, and Dana said that they were treated, for that one night, better than they had been treated, cumulatively, their entire life.
The press reaction that came in response to the screening was no less enthusiastic. A journalist confessed an allergy to issue films and declared herself not only surprised, but cured. An editorial talked about how Our School is not only a film about Roma, it is a film about us. A reputed blog said the audience had come in with fixed ideas and had come out with the urge to apologize to Roma children on behalf of all Romanians.
We know this was an ideal audience in many ways – progressive, trained by ten years of challenging festival experiences, and moved by the presence of the children in the room. But having an initial reaction like this from hundreds of people gives us confidence in what this film can do. It gives us trust that the film can accomplish what we always intended: Point to a systemic problem, make us understand it in the most direct, human way, and do the hardest things of all – change hearts and minds and open up a some hope for the future.
Guest post by Mona Nicoara, Director of Our School.
We may not be holding a rally like Jon Stewart did, but we do hope that our newly revised curriculum New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina will bring more sanity to conversations about culture, identity, immigration and globalization in classrooms and communities across North Carolina. With laws like the one passed this spring in Arizona and politicians running ads saying things like “This is Alabama; we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it,” it’s clear that anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States certainly isn’t diminishing. There is clearly a lot of education that we need to do.
New Faces Video: From Latin America to North Carolina
Here’s a sample of one of the videos from the New Faces curriculum explaining why a diverse range of Latinos have moved to North Craolina from Latin America.
Unfortunately Latinos are the primary targets of this backlash. When I listen to media reports or even participate in conversations with friends and acquaintances I realize that often this sentiment is fueled by a lack of factual information related to Latino communities and to the subset of Latino immigrants. We need more opportunities to get the facts and to have civil dialogues about these important issues. Our multimedia curriculum, New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina uses documentary film clips, discussion and engaging learning activities to help learners understand more about themselves and about the Latino community in North Carolina. Ithas been re-designed to spark meaningful conversations and consciousness-raising on issues such as the roots causes of migration, the immigration system, the breakdown of stereotypes and prejudice, characteristics of Latino cultures, and struggles for workers rights. New Faces is a multimedia curriculum for use in middle and high schools classroom and for adults in professional development or popular education settings.
We’ve worked hard to revamp New Faces so that it encourages learners of all backgrounds to reflect on their own cultural identities and immigration histories, giving them important context for learning more about North Carolina’s multifaceted Latino communities. The curriculum was first released in 2007 and well received by educators, human service professionals, and community groups alike. We’ve expanded the curriculum to include 5 units and better indexed the lesson plans so that teachers and community leaders can pick lessons that will be most useful for their particular purposes. We’ve also added new content and shifted the framing of some of the original content to make it more approachable for learners from all walks of life. All the New Faces lesson plans and documentary films clips are available for free at www.workingfilms.org/newfaces, and a DVD of the films clips is available at no charge for teachers and non-profits in North Carolina
Missed last week’s invigorating Story Leads to Action at the 92YTribeca that we co-hosted with Chicken & Egg Pictures? Fear not, filmmakers Elizabeth Mandel and Beth Davenport have agreed to share their lessons learned from the evening for your benefit:
photo by Chicken & Egg Pictures
Three years after filming the reunion of a Congolese girl and her mother, separated by war in Congo, Rose & Nangabire (working title) is almost complete. The work-in-progress screening last Thursday was an exciting opportunity to share our work outside the edit room. With a focus on audience engagement, it was also invigorating to finally explore in a public forum how the film can be used to create change.
While many social-justice issues are covered in the film, our audience engagement strategy focuses on refugee rights and resettlement; peace-building and reconciliation; and women in post-conflict situations. The evening was moderated by Robert West of Working Films, with panelists Matthew Edmundson, Operations Officer, Mapendo International and Desiree Younge, Senior Manager, Global Philanthropists Circle, Synergos. Audience members included representatives from the International Rescue Committee, STEPS to End Family Violence, Witness, Human Rights Watch and The Safe Harbor Project, as well as filmmakers and film fans.
Ideas and thoughts generated by the post-screening discussion included the following uses for the film or modules created from the footage:
• Reaching policymakers and practitioners who are often, due to politicization, desensitized to the issues Rose and her family confront and challenge.
• Targeting schools, because the presence of a teenage refugee going to high school in the film will make the issues accessible to a youth audience.
• Partnering with the Department of Education to train teachers who work with refugees and other ESL populations.
• Bringing together diaspora communities, for example by creating a women’s-only discussion group, and/or a group for teens, where survivors of war can have a safe space to share their experiences.
• Working with women- and girls- leadership programs to provide a portrait of a strong, resourceful role model.
It was also pointed out that while embarking on our project we need to assess who is already doing this work and can program the film into their existing frameworks, and who can use the film to take their work to new places. This thought brings us to our next phase, solidifying relationships with organizations that address our three issue areas, and finessing the ways in which Rose & Nangabire can be used to help them in their work. As we finish up the film and begin to screen at film festivals, we’re also looking forward to using this momentum to inspire thinking and follow up action on the part of general audiences as well.
Stay tuned for announcements about our festival premiere and the launch of our audience engagement plan. In the meantime, if you are in any way involved with our issue areas — refugee rights and resettlement; peace-building and reconciliation; and women in post-conflict situations — please be in touch, we’d love to hear from you. We can be reached at elizabeth at artsengine.net or beth at artsengine.net.
This filmmaking team co-founded their production company Moxie Firecracker Films in 1998. Together, they have produced and directed a wide range of work exploring social issues through the lives of everyday people, including examinations of the U.S. legal system, AIDS, violence, abuse, and human rights.
Rory commented:
I was absolutely thrilled to learn that Liz and I had been chosen for the 2010 Career Award. It is such an honor to join past recipients such as Ken Burns, Barbara Kopple, and DA Pennebaker – filmmakers that I have admired for years. Full Frame is one of the premier documentary film festivals and I am so deeply honored to be receiving their lifetime achievement award.
You can read more about this award and the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival that will be held April 8-11, in Durham, N.C. at fullframefest.org.
The Media That Matters Film Festival is now accepting submissions for their 10th Annual Film Festival. The festival showcases short films on various social justice issues. This year they are particularly interested in films on Media Literacy, Human Rights, LGBTQ & Sexual Identity, Youth Activism and International issues.
Each year, Working Films presents the Changemaker Award to the film with the most potential to inspire activism. Last year, we presented the award to Exiled in America, a film about five siblings struggling to support their American livelihoods after their mother is deported to Mexico.
Check out the Media That Matters website to review their criteria and submission guidelines. Deadline is January 22, 2010.
Good Fortune explores how massive, international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. Through intimate portraits of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development organizations, the film presents a unique opportunity to experience foreign aid through the people it is intended to benefit.
In the rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multi-million dollar rice farm. Across the country in Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest squatter community are being demolished as part of a United Nations slum-upgrading project.
Interweaving meditative portraits of its characters, Good Fortune examines the real-world impact of international aid. With a broad scope and intimate style, the film portrays gripping stories of human perseverance and suggests that the answers for Africa lie in the resilience of its people.
Following the two screenings, there will be Q&A’s with the filmmakers and organizations who are working in unique ways to address international aid that benefits the communities that they aim to support.
The film has already received kudos, as it was the recipient of the 2007 Sundance Documentary Fund, winner of the Fledgling Fund Award for Socially Conscious Documentaries at the 2007 IFP Market, and the recipient of a Fulbright Grant in the Creative and Performing Arts.
The New York premiere will be the following week at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated films and videos with a distinctive human rights theme. This screening is presented in association with the Fledgling Fund and IFP and will also include a post-screening Q&A.
In 2007 the issue of torture made its way to the forefront of political current events. Leaked memos condoning harsh interrogation tactics in October were followed later that month by evasive testimony from Attorney General Michael Mukasey on the legality of waterboarding during his confirmation hearings. Then in December it was revealed that the CIA destroyed at least two video tapes depicting the brutal interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects.
As the reality of the Bush administration’s torture policy is unraveling on the world stage, what has clearly changed since the heinous photos of Abu Ghraib prisoners were released in 2004, is the public perception that torture is an act that only occurs when a few “bad apples” behave badly. With the help of diligent independent media makers such as Rory Kennedy, director of the Emmy award winning documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Americans are beginning to understand that the responsibility for recent U.S. sponsored torture goes straight to the top of the chain of command.
Good Fortune
