| Author | Message | ||
     Mahoganyanais "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Mahoganyanais Post Number: 494 Registered: 01-2005 Rating: N/A |
For Immediate Release FACES OF CHANGE DOCUMENTARY SELECTED FOR SILVERDOCS International Film Festival 2005 The documentary film, FACES OF CHANGE, selected into the 2005 SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland will screen Saturday June 18th at 2:15 pm at the AFI Silver Theatre (go to www.silverdocs.com for location details). Participation in SILVERDOCS marks the national release for the documentary produced and directed by Michèle Stephenson and Firelight Media, a Harlem based media production company. In FACES OF CHANGE five activists from five different continents send off unique video dispatches from their respective corners of the world telling stories and showing images that are unlike anything audiences have ever seen. With their cameras in hand they walk us through their lives, experiences and societies, as we see the world through their eyes. Their stories are rich in wonderment, humor, pain and unflinching commitment to change. The film interweaves their engaging stories and close encounters with racism and discrimination. The activists in FACES OF CHANGE are highly focused and passionate. They are fallible and conflicted, yet not without humor and wit. They are from all over the world. They are: Mohamed, a man from Mauritania, West Africa campaigning to end slavery via an underground political movement; Elodia, an African-American woman organizing her neighborhood of homeowners living on a condemned toxic site in New Orleans, Louisiana; Ivan, a Roma (Gypsy) attorney and doctor struggling with discrimination and his own self-esteem in Eastern Europe; Kathir a Dalit (Untouchable) man fighting to eliminate caste discrimination in South India; and Nara, an Afro-Brazilian woman working to instill self-empowerment in black teenage girls. Through this whirlwind journey into their lives, the audience gets a glimpse of how much like the rest of the world we all are. "Video can be a powerful tool to engage a broad audience around racial issues. Images stir people's emotions' and evoke empathy," explains director, Michèle Stephenson. Stephenson trained each activist to use video cameras and create a story that would best capture the meaning and power of their work. With support from The Ford Foundation, documentary followed the activists to the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa and documented how they each discovered the stunning commonalities of their history and experiences |
