Today: Last Film Night!

The final films of the 2012 Multicultural Refugee Film Series will be shown tonight at 6:30 PM !

Come see two short films about Bhutan:

Eviction

"The son of American aid workers, U.S. filmmaker Grady Walker spent most of his childhood in Kathmandu. Later, as a film school graduate, he decided to come back to Nepal and introduce the world to refugees from Bhutan, whose stories he had grown up with. His documentary 'Eviction' sweeps from the camps of Jhapa, eastern Nepal, to New York City." 
      - From an Interview in the Press of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)



Building Cultural Bridges: Bhutan - Nepal - Portland

"Building Cultural Bridges is the culmination of a year-long community project to make a film about the experience of coming to America. Covering the cultural and spiritual realities of transition through community dialogues, interviews with immigration service stakeholders, teachers and volunteers, the film provides insight into the transition to life in Portland, OR. The film was made by youth from the Bhutanese refugee community, and edited in collaboration with members of B media Collective. While the film is made through the culturally specific lens of South Asian refugee immigrants, the issues raised and advice given is relevant to all newcomers to America."
                                                               - From bhutanpdx.wordpress.com


As usual, there will be food and drink and a Q&A to follow!

This Sunday

This Sunday August 19th we will be showing 
Moving to Mars: A Million Miles from Burma:

See the trailer for the film at their official website here

From the website:

"Moving to Mars follows two refugee families from Burma over the course of a year that will change their lives completely. Forced from their homeland by the repressive military junta, they have lived in a Thai refugee camp for many years. A resettlement scheme offers them the chance of a new life, but their new home, in the British city of Sheffield, will be different to everything they have ever known.  

With intimate access, this feature-length documentary from Mat Whitecross (The Road to Guantanamo) depicts the families' moving and sometimes humorous struggles with 21st century Britain. Their stories give us a unique insight into the experiences of displaced people throughout the UK, whilst showing the human consequences of Burma's political unrest."

There are only two more Sundays left in the MRC Film Series, so come out and enjoy some food and a free film!

Sunday August 14th, 6:30 PM

First Presbyterian Church

Rissman Hall

The Kickoff was a success!

The screening of Rain in a Dry Land this last Sunday was a success! 

Before the film...

... there was food!

Reasoned discussion!

It was a great time! If you didn't make it last Sunday or if you did and you enjoyed it, come this Sunday for our second film and one of my favorites, Rebuilding Hope. I highly recommend making it to the screening this Sunday.

You can check out a trailer for Rebuilding Hope here.

From the website:

"As small children, Gabriel Bol Deng, Koor Garang and Garang Mayuol fled their villages in South Sudan due to civil war. They became a part of a group of thousands of other boys with a similar story, nicknamed 'The Lost Boys' upon resettlement in the USA in 2001.  

In May 2007, Gabriel Bol, Koor, and Garang, now in their twenties, embarked on a journey back to Sudan to discover whether their homes and families had survived, what the current situation is in South Sudan, and how they can help their community rebuild after devastating civil war.   Along the way, the young men assessed the hopes, dreams and fears of the Southern Sudanese people nearly three years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

They explored the connections between the conflict in South Sudan to the conflict in Darfur, probing the larger questions of identity and ethnicity in Sudan.  Rebuilding Hope is a powerful record of Gabriel Bol, Koor and Garang’s quest to find surviving family-members and rediscover and contribute to their homeland; it also sheds light on what the future holds for South Sudan in its precarious struggle for peace, development and stability."

So come on out this Sunday at 6:30!

This Sunday, August 5th: Rain in a Dry Land

Come join us this Sunday, August the 5th, 6:30 PM at First Presbyterian Church

For our kick-off of the 2012 MRC Film Series:

Rain in a Dry Land

With a Q&A to follow with this week's Guest Speaker:

Multicultural Refugee Coalition Co-founder

Meg Goodman

About the Film:

"Makepeace’s previous feature documentary, Rain in a Dry Land, chronicles the journey and resettlement of two Somali Bantu refugee families from Africa through their first two years in America. Rain in a Dry Land received a limited theatrical release through Emerging Pictures, was nominated for an Emmy, and was broadcast nationally as the lead show on PBS’ P.O.V. series’ 2007 season."

"A deeply felt humanist tale."
     Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix


"Rain in a Dry Land is a film about time travel, culture shock, a leap from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century as two devout Muslim families find new homes in urban America. We meet these families in their 'cultural orientation class' in a refugee camp in Kenya, where they are preparing for their new lives. In the classroom they discover ice, a refrigerator, a bathtub, and learn about elevators, stairs, and buildings taller than one story...

The power of the documentary lies in the strength and beauty of our featured families. In cinema verité style, we follow them from the refugee camp through their first eighteen months in America, experiencing with them hope and despair, success and failure, and ultimately a kind of rebirth...

The title, Rain in a Dry Land, is a rough translation of one of the Somali Bantu's frequent expressions: 'bish bish.' Literally meaning 'splash splash,' the term refers to the return of rain after a long drought, the transformation of a desiccated land into a world bursting with new life. Despite all their hardships, they often referred to America as 'bish bish,' paradise, resurrection."

(from the website of Makepeace Productions)