Following in Howe Sound Secondary students' footsteps, a Quest University student has organized a film festival focusing on the world's most vulnerable people.The entire community is invited to view four selected films on humanitarian issues from Thursday (Jan. 24) to Sunday Jan. 27 at the Quest University multi-purpose room. Admission is by donation.
"I read through an event schedule of an Amnesty International film festival hosted by Howe Sound Secondary School and began to plan one at Quest almost immediately," said student organizer Anna Stoll. Following a suggestion by Quest student support staffer Keely Stott, Stoll jumped on the idea, hoping to use the event as a platform to help foster connectivity with the community and with people in less fortunate countries.
"I thought this festival would be a great way to integrate with the 樱桃视频community and to welcome them to our campus," said Stoll. "I also wanted to organize this event because I feel that these issues are important to learn about. One of humanity's greatest weaknesses is our lack of unity. Often it's difficult for us to come together and support one another because we don't understand what's going on in the world around us."
Stoll said she chose three of the four films, Raised to Be Heroes, Scared Sacred and Uganda Rising, because they're made by Canadians. And all four films were appealing, said Stoll, because together, they address a wide variety of topics on various areas of the world.Stoll said university staff provided "amazing" support and guidance.
"The festival would not have been possible without them."
Case in point: thanks to Quest communications director Angela Heck's connections to the National Film Board, director Jack Silberman who created Raised to Be Heroes will attend the screening of his film on Saturday Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. Featuring haunting accounts from the front lines, Raised to Be Heroes introduces the latest generation of Israeli soldiers to selectively object to military operations undertaken by their country.The festival begins Thursday (Jan. 24) at 6 p.m. with A World Without Water, which investigates the future of water, and paints a disturbing picture of a world running out of the most basic of life's essentials.
Next Friday (Jan. 25) at 6 p.m., Uganda Rising explores the two decades Acholi people of Northern Uganda have been caught in a civil war between a rebel group whose objective was terror and a government whose response increased misery and suffering. And finally on Sunday, Jan. 27 at 1 p.m., Scared Sacred, a feature documentary, asks the question: can we be scared into the sacred? Can we take the trials of extreme historical situations and transform them into a force of awakening? Or will we succumb to groundlessness and fear?
