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Social change Film Festival to end on Sunday

Firing the imagination to visualize social change was the cornerstone of the 2011 inaugural Global Social Change Film Festival and Institute (GSCFFI) held this week at Arma in Ubud to end Sunday, April 17

Trisha Sertori (The Jakarta Post)
Ubud
Sat, April 16, 2011

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Social change Film Festival to end on Sunday

F

iring the imagination to visualize social change was the cornerstone of the 2011 inaugural Global Social Change Film Festival and Institute (GSCFFI) held this week at Arma in Ubud to end Sunday, April 17.

Through a range of films, workshops and panels, the GSCFFI highlighted the importance of storytelling through film to achieve social change.

Festival director and founder Cynthia Phillips explains the festival opens the door to information on global climate change, women’s roles in society, post-war conflict resolution, offering the public the opportunity to engage and understand and take action on these issues.

So important were the film festival’s messages, Indonesian award winning photojournalist Taufik Rahzen has called for the festival to be held annually across the region.

“In our inaugural year, the respect for and embracing of the festival has been beyond our wildest dreams. We are honored to have been invited to return next year in partnership to build this as a regional festival. We will still be in New Orleans in 2012 using the theme of water and here in Indonesia, also with the water theme,” said Phillips.

The festival this year honors Indonesian filmmaker Nia Dinata for her “Socially conscious award-winning films. Nia brings the story of women to light. Often to her own detriment. She is brave and she inspires us to be brave,” says Phillips of Dinata’s GSCFFI Filmmaker Honoree win.

Engagemedia from Jakarta picked up the innovation Honoree title. A selection of Nia’s films screens Saturday night ahead of the closing ceremony Sunday.

“We honor Nia Dinata as the 2011 GSCFFI Honoree in recognition of her work as an artist and a filmmaker, highlighting this year’s GSCFFI theme, ‘Women In Cinema’,” said Phillips.

Leading film and documentary makers, environmentalists, sustainable business activists and screenwriters, including Emmy awarded and Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker Jonathon Stack, shared their skills and vision of a better world through workshops, panels and films.

Indonesian filmmakers took advantage of the Stack workshop to hone their skills.

Ahmad Yunus and Vicci Fatralaya of Jakarta-based Watchdoc said the Oscar-nominated filmmaker offered new perspectives and techniques in documentary making. “We have learned more about technical equipment and different ways to tell stories. It’s been very valuable,” says Fatralaya.

Networking at the festival was also important, Yunus said. “We have met a lot of people and shared ideas. This can help to get Indonesian films better recognized,” said Yunus.

The festival’s lineup covered films from around the globe such as Sara Terry’s film Fambul Tok, which discussed the ability of Sierra Leone communities to forgive even the most horrendous brutalities of war and embrace perpetrators of these crimes back into those communities.

Gayla Kraetsch Hartsough’s 7-minute satire Slap pokes fun at the inability to listen to another’s viewpoint, so often seen during political candidate debates. Other films such as Climate Refugees and There Once was an Island focused on climate change impacts.

The women-in-film theme, coming hard on the heels of the March Centenary celebration of women’s day and just a week ahead of Indonesia’s Kartini Day on April 21, highlighted the dirth of women’s voices in film.

Festival managing director and filmmaker Simone Nelson says just 6 percent of places in the Hollywood film directors guild were held by women.

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