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Winter Park, Florida: Global Peace Film Festival Features Outdoor Movies

By Open Air Cinema on September 18, 2009 in Outdoor Movie Events

Against the Grain

September is a month for the film festivals. Many studios in gearing up for Oscar season release their best and brightest films to festivals in Venice and Toronto this month, and while the occasional gem is revealed, the majority of the screened films are standard Hollywood message movies lacking any real substance. Substance and message movies are two things though that the upcoming 7th Annual Global Peace Film festival will have plenty of. As anyone who has ever attended the festival in years past knows, it is unlike any other around. This year, The Global Peace Film Festival will showcase 39 films from 6 continents, each film completely different except for a common thread of unification and the filmmakers shared dream to help better the world.

I talked with Dr. Denise Cummings who, along with a core group of other Rollins faculty, has been working together over the last several years with Nina Streich, the Festival founder. The mission of the faculty is the same as that of the festival, Dr. Cummings believes- “to teach global citizenship and responsible leadership.” The festival’s mission, she says, is to create a “global discussion” to “highlight the power of film as a medium as it relates to new peace issues.” All features, Dr. Cummings explains, that make the Global Peace Film Festival “unique as a film festival.”

For Tomorrow

The festival begins on September 22 with an outdoor screening on Rollins’ very own Mills Lawn of ‘The Day After Peace.’ The film, directed by Jeremy Gilley, follows the filmmaker around the world in a 10-year journey to establish September 21st as an International day of Peace. From there, the remaining 38 films tackle such diverse topics as how to cope with the death of a child, an old Volkswagen beetle, a performance artist’s stand against “Europe’s last dictatorship”, and a concert to benefit migrant farmworkers. The film dealing with this last topic, titled “UNO: The Harvest of Hope” is of particular interest because of the close relationship its filmmakers have with the Rollins Community. Filmmakers Shaun and Jamie Cricks are no strangers to the Orlando area and are in fact Rollins Alumni. To be able to come back to their Alma Mater years later must no doubt be a thrill, though the idea of screening a film here isn’t a new one to the Cricks, who have done it twice before in this same festival. This time though, the subjects are America’s many migrant workers. “Everybody knows who their doctor is, their lawyer, and their teachers, but why don’t they know who their farmer is?” It’s an interesting question that the film poses and one that the filmmakers support throughout the 75 minute run time with “music, interviews and historical clips,” according to the festival’s website. Dr. Cummings, who has been involved with the festival over the last four years and is very passionate about this year’s flock of films, is “very excited” about this one in particular, though she wishes she “could see every film in this year’s program.”

For the Next 7 Generations

The festival, which runs until the 27th, offers Rollins students a discount of $3 off the standard $8 ticket price and screenings will be held in various buildings and around campus. The festival’s website, www.peacefilmfest .org, has the full schedule and synopsis of each of the 39 films. Truly, the Global Peace Film Festival has something for everyone and Rollins students are strongly encouraged to try and attend even one screening. The impact and importance of this festival is summed up best in Dr. Cummings words that “attending films, meeting filmmakers, and engaging in panel discussions, students, faculty, staff, and members of our community can become more aware of important issues and learn how to get involved in creating positive change in our world.” Isn’t that the real point of a film festival in the first place?

Source: http://media.www.thesandspur.org/media/storage/paper623/news/2009/09/18/LifeTimes/Peace.Love.And.Films.About.Peace.And.Love-3775475.shtml

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Winter Park, Florida: Outdoor Movie Event Features Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Documentary -A Review of "Encounter Point" (2006)

By Open Air Cinema on February 25, 2009 in Top Outdoor Movies

Outdoor Movie Review of In November 2008, Rollins College presented an outdoor movie event featuring a documentary about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Many students turned out to watch “Encounter Point” on an inflatable screen, and stayed afterward for discussion and food. Audience members reported enjoying the film very much as it was an accurate, though surprisingly optimistic depiction of the situation in the Middle East. While there have been many documentaries on said conflict, few have revealed the growing non-violent conflict-resolution movement between Israelis and Palestinians. The following is New York Magazine’s review of “Encounter Point”. You can read the original blog post about the outdoor movie event here.

Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha’s Encounter Point feels like another one of those good-for-you documentaries about the evergreen issue of Israelis and Palestinians trying to live together in peace. We’ve seen this subject matter tackled before—in a couple of cases, as with the Oscar-nominated 2001 documentary Promises, quite powerfully—and one wonders what Avni and Bacha will bring to the story that’s new. At first, not all that much: Encounter Point depicts a number of unlikely individuals on both sides who have decided to help build grassroots, non-violent dialogue. Most of the people involved are victims as well—many are parents who lost children to terrorists or soldiers, one is a former Intifada zealot who spent four years in prison and lost a brother to violence, and so on. Avni and Bacha dutifully film these individuals as they go about their journeys, joining silent protests, attending conferences, arguing with their fellow countrymen, etc. The filmmaking here isn’t exactly revolutionary—much of it is dry, episodic, and undistinguished. But as I watched Encounter Point, I began to sense it working on me in quite a different way. Most documentaries covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even the ones about the peacemakers, are cries of despair, but there’s something extraordinarily upbeat about this film.

Outdoor Movie Screening of "Encounter Point" at Rollins College

The idea behind Encounter Point—and it’s a new, bracing one—isn’t that these people are iconoclasts and heroes who have broken the mold, but that they are part of a growing movement of non-violence, that there are thousands like them. It may not break any new aesthetic ground, but Encounter Point might just be the most optimistic film about this conflict you’ll ever see.

Source: “Encounter Point” by Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine. Read full review at: http://nymag.com/movies/listings/rv_54084.htm.

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Winter Park, Florida: Outdoor Movie About the Israli-Palestinian Conflict on an Inflatable Screen at Rollins College

By Open Air Cinema on November 10, 2008 in Outdoor Movie Events

Outdoor Movies on an Inflatable Screen at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida On the night before Election Day, a Middle Eastern Multicultural Night focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was held on Mills Lawn. Though not as high-profile as the Uncle Sam’s After-Poll Party that occurred there the following night, the outdoor movie event did see a decent student and faculty turnout. Hillel and the Society for a Just Peace in Palestine (SJP) co-sponsored the night, which featured food, speakers, free “coexist” bumper stickers and a film shown on an inflatable screen that exuded a message of hope for the entire region.

Although students trickled onto the lawn slowly near the beginning, the number of attendees eventually built up to about forty individuals at the height of the night. The event began with the clubs’ presidents welcoming their guests and introducing the two speakers, Rabbi Jonathan Siger and Brother Yassine Benzinane, both of whom had spoken at a similar event last year showing the film “Promises.” Rabbi Siger, executive director of the Central Florida Hillel, focused on the history of the Jewish people’s settlement in the land of Israel. Brother Yassine, owner of the Ali Baba Bookstore and a member of the Orlando branch of the Council on American- Islamic Relations, emphasized the need for the audience to think about possible solutions, given the claims that each side has to the land.

While technical difficulties following the speeches were being dealt with, the audience was able to enjoy a spread of Middle Eastern dishes including pita, hummus, tabouleh, falafel and shawarma.

The film “Encounter Point” was an amazing portrayal of the independent grassroots movements for peace that are occurring within and between Palestine and Israel. It focused on the stories of a few individuals and showed how they had turned grief and hardship from the conflict into the drive to make peace.

In one portrayal, two men, one Israeli and one Palestinian, lost their daughters in attacks from the other side. Both joined a group for bereaved families where they now talk to each other, bond and work towards mutual understanding. Another person, Ali, had lost his brother, been shot in the leg and sent to prison, enough to make him a hero in Palestine. However, instead of perpetuating hate, he is now working tirelessly to meet with both Israelis and Palestinians in order to spread the message of peace and dialogue.

When asked about her impressions, Susie Robertshaw said that she “…liked seeing those two young men, the Palestinian and the Israeli, who had changed their stances despite their upbringings and the violence that had befallen them….”

Having lived in Southern Africa (Botswana) during the Apartheid regime in the Republic, Susie also said that she appreciated one woman’s comments from the film “about how certain attitudes of the Israeli settlers are just like those in Apartheid S. Africa.”

“I also liked hearing from those two speakers again,” she said, “and of course the food and company were just great. Breaking bread together helps in all cases.”

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