“Award combines film, activism: Festival to recognize social justice of Sept. 11, Congo in discussions,” Indiana Lawyer April 16, 2008 … on Provocate’s Eric Parker Social Justice Award at the Indianapolis International Film Festival
Rebecca Berfanger – rberfanger@ibj.com
IL Staff
The Indianapolis International Film Festival has a history of showing films with social justice themes – war crimes, HIV/AIDS, poverty, immigration, just to name a few.
But this year’s festival, which is April 23 through May 3, at Landmark Keystone Art Cinema, 8702 Keystone at the Crossing, Indianapolis, will have its first official award for such films. There will also be panel discussions hosted by a partnership with Provocate, an Indianapolis-based organization that encourages conversations of thinking globally and acting locally – and globally.
The Eric Parker Social Justice Award is named for film festival director Brian Owens’ cousin, an activist and academic who worked on behalf of social justice issues, mostly in Wisconsin, and died of a heart attack last summer.
Owens said he’d wanted to do an award like this for some time, and with the permission of Parker’s close friends and family, he decided to name it after his relative.
While he was working to raise funds for the cash prize intended to help the winning filmmaker continue to raise issues of social justice, he needed someone to help make the idea a reality by offering assistance with choosing films and organizing discussions.
Enter Provocate. After having had discussions with the organization in the past, the opportunity was too good to pass up for the festival or Provocate.
“We knew it was a great opportunity to use this intense movie experience to connect with the community,” said John Clark, Provocate founder.
The award will be something that Owens said is unique to the general interest film-festival world; however some festivals feature movies specifically about social justice issues, such as the Albuquerque Social Justice Film Festival and the Media That Matters Film Festival that starts with screenings in New York City and then offers community screenings in other locations.
But Owens added that not all film festivals that might offer this kind of award would also offer the same kind of panel discussions for audience members.
While Owens selected the films for Provocate to view and choose, it was up to Provocate to select finalists and organize the panel discussions.
Clark said the organization has done a number of film screenings and discussions in the past at the Key Cinema on the south side of Indianapolis, and it was already well equipped to determine which panelists would best distill the themes and ideas in the films.
The first films that are up for the award are “Beyond Belief,” a film about Sept. 11 widows who raise money for war widows living in Afghanistan; and “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo,” about the tens of thousands of women who’ve been raped as part of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The two films also happen to be about women’s issues and directed by women, Owens said, adding it may be because women are more in tune with certain issues, but that wasn’t among the reasons why the films were chosen.
While panel discussions following the three separate screenings of the two films will give audiences a new perspective and possibly offer ideas for working on these issues in their own lives, Clark and Owens said that after watching a film with a heavy subject matter it helps to talk about the film and the issues presented.
For instance, seeing a number of women who’ve lived through rape in their own country, or live in fear of being raped, and are then shunned by their husbands and families, and then hearing from the rapists themselves as to why they do it isn’t easy to take for most people.
On one hand, it’s difficult to imagine what the women have been through, and then as an American, it’s hard to imagine a non-existent justice system where rapists aren’t properly charged and the local special victims unit is just a handful of people in a small shack where confidentiality isn’t exactly guaranteed.
Or to relive the plane crashes of Sept. 11, 2001, more than six years later, through the eyes of women who lost their husbands and then to see how they handled their situations by helping others instead of seeking vengeance – it’s pretty powerful stuff.
“It’s sometimes easier to deal with a subject (of a film) when you’re able to learn about the tools to make the situation better,” Owens said. “This is why it is a perfect partnership between the festival and Provocate.”
But at the end of the day, it’s the films that can have the biggest impact on audiences who don’t deal with these issues on a daily basis. And that’s why these films made the cut.
“We were looking for films that not only gave the audience a new awareness of an important issue but showed a path, or the beginning of a path, toward a solution,” Gwyneth Sutherlin of Provocate wrote to Indiana Lawyer via e-mail.
Clark added that he also hopes the discussions after the films will have different themes for each of the three discussions: the culture of the country presented in the film, issues portrayed in the film on the international scale, and how the issues might affect people locally, such as violence against women.
Filmmakers of both films have also been invited to speak. The director of “The Greatest Silence” is working on her schedule to determine which screening she’ll attend, and the filmmakers of “Beyond Belief” are also working on their schedules but have not yet confirmed a specific screening.
Potential speakers include Charlie Wiles, a local peace activist who has been going to Iraq to work in Iraqi refugee camps; a speaker from the Washington-based Citizens for Global Solutions; and Ambassadors for Children.
Clark and Owens also said they hope attorneys will attend the films and discussions to add their own thoughts about the films’ issues of the international rule of law and justice systems (or lack thereof) in other countries.
The winner of the award will be determined based on the discussions and how audiences react to the films. But more important than the prize, Clark said the discussions will hopefully encourage people to get out and do something about what they see on the screen, not just in the Congo and Afghanistan, but in and for other countries as well.
“What about Iraq, or Iran, or Cuba, or other places where consequences of American policy affect ordinary people? Someone like Charlie Wiles (will likely talk about) the idea of 2 million refugees from Iraq in Jordan and Syria and how we as Americans have a responsibility as citizens to go there even just to say we care and want to help. … We hope to get other people to do this kind of short-term ‘voluntourism,’” he said.
“These films are difficult to watch in places,” Owens said, “but they offer at least a glimmer of hope … and will stir audiences to want to take action.” •
“Award combines film, activism: Festival to recognize social justice of Sept. 11, Congo in discussions,” Indiana Lawyer April 16, 2008 … on Provocate’s Eric Parker Social Justice Award at the Indianapolis International Film Festival
