Envision Offers Doc Primer on Global Education

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 06 July 2010 02:15

Written by Laura Blum

Given the benighted state of primary education from here to Timbuktu, the Independent Filmmaker Project is joining forces with the United Nations Department of Public Information to present the second annual Envision: Addressing Global Issues through Documentaries. The day-long forum held at the TimesCenter in New York City (on Saturday, July 10, 2010) will once again use nonfiction cinema to table some of the knotty issues slowing progress on the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

In the spirit of Woody Allen's quote, "If my films make even one more person feel miserable, I'll feel I've done my job," Envision will have been a success if the UN reps, entrepreneurs, activists, journalists, public policy pundits, NGOs and filmmakers expected to attend stagger home in a pall of gloom.

Talking points come from the MDGs, with the quest for universal primary education topping this year's agenda. The huddle takes on a new sense of urgency in view of the MDG deadline of 2015, which leaves only five years to go. Other proposed Goals -- a suite of eight humanitarian benchmarks established in 2000 -- include reducing child mortality, alleviating hunger and producing sustainable energy.

"Filmmakers are key partners for bringing the message of the United Nations to the public," said Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka. As IFP Executive Director Joana Vicente added, "we can leverage documentaries to initiate a larger conversation," especially linking the need for children to complete their primary schooling as a strategy to overcome poverty and war.

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte will give the opening keynote address, followed by the first title in Envision's feature double bill, Jennifer Arnolds' A Small Act. It chronicles the impact of an anonymous scholarship on a Kenyan boy, Chris Mburu, who went on to become a Harvard-educated human-rights lawyer and head of the anti-discrimination section of the UN Human Rights Agency in Geneva, Switzerland – as well as to create his own scholarship fund. Mburu will participate in the post-screening panel discussion, "Education Obstacles & Solutions in Africa - The Power of One."  

Next up is a panel exploring how citizen media can affect humanitarian issues, "Telling Their Own Stories: The Impact of User-Generated Media and the Individual as Documentarian." Short videos will be woven into the parlay, with discussants from human rights organizations Witness, World Without Walls, Video Volunteers, UNICEF and Breakthrough.

Waiting for Superman, by An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim, bookends the feature showcase. Producer Lesley Chilcott will introduce the film, which investigates the failing US school system and ways to improve it. She will also join a panel introduced by New York Times Foreign Editor Susan Chira, entitled "Education: Re-examing the Old Model and Probing the New."

Not since the US Ambassador to Italy tried to get The Blackboard Jungle withdrawn from the Venice Film Festival have cinema and education been taken so seriously in diplomatic circles.

The full program is posted below:

Envision: Addressing Global Issues Through Documentary 2010

9:00 a.m. - Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:15 a.m. - Keynote Address by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte

9:45 a.m.
Screening:
A Small Act
directed by Jennifer Arnold
(USA 2010, 88 min)
Introduction: Jennifer Arnold
When Hilde Back sponsored the education of a poor Kenyan boy, she thought little of it and never expected to hear from him. But years later she did. That student, Chris Mburu, now a Harvard graduate and UN human rights officer, decides to find the stranger and replicate the generosity he received by founding his own scholarship fund for a new generation. A Small Act bears witness to the lasting effect that one singular act of kindness can have. A 2010 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection. A presentation of HBO Documentary Films.

11:30 a.m.
Education Obstacles and Solutions in Africa - The Power of One
The film A Small Act reveals on a micro level how an individual act of philanthropy can have a profound effect on a child's education and future. How does this translate on a larger scale as a potential solution to education challenges globally? What other methods and programs are in place or being developed to make advances toward the goal of universal education in Africa and other countries in which multiple barriers exist?

Moderator: Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman, United Nations Development Program. Panelists: Chris Mburu, central character in A Small Act and Head of Anti-Discrimination at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Penny Abeywardena, Senior Manager of Education/Girls and Women, Clinton Global Initiative; Allison Anderson, Scholar, Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution; Michael Gibbons, Education Partnership for Children on Conflict at the Council on Foreign Relations and International Training and Education Program, American University; Heather Simpson, Senior Director, Education and Child Development at Save the Children

2:00 p.m.
Telling Their Own Stories - The Individual as Documentarian and the Impact of User Generated Media
Over the past few years there have been a growing number of programs established by human rights organizations to train and equip individuals around the world with cameras to document and tell stories about the issues affecting their lives and communities. What impact is this having on the issues, the communities, and those individuals who are the storytellers - many of them young people?

Panelists: Karen Cirillo, Executive Producer of Children's Broadcasting Initiatives, UNICEF; Mallika Dutt, Founder and Executive Director, Breakthrough; John Kennedy, Executive Producer, World Without Walls; Jessica Mayberry, Founding Director, Video Volunteers; Ryan Schlief, Asia Program Manager, WITNESS

3:30 p.m.
Waiting for Superman
directed by Davis Guggenheim
(USA 2010, 102 min)
Introduction: producer Lesley Chilcott
From the Academy Award winning director of An Inconvenient Truth comes Waiting for Superman, a provocative and cogent examination of the crisis of public education in the United States told through multiple interlocking stories - from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system. A Paramount Vantage release. www.waitingforsuperman.com

5:30 p.m.
Public Education - Examining the Old Model and Probing the New
Introduction: New York Times Foreign Editor Susan Chira
Waiting for Superman offers convincing and heartbreaking statistics that characterize the "dropout factories and academic sinkholes" within the US school system, but posits hope for the future. Join some of the real world players and top thinkers examining this landscape in an exciting public discussion.

Moderator: Elizabeth Green, Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting, Columbia University. Panelists: Cindy Brown, Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress; Christopher Cerf, CEO, Sangari Global Education Institute; Lesley Chilcott, Producer, Waiting for Superman; Jason Kamras, Advisor to District of Columbia Dept of Education, 2005 National Teacher of the Year, Nitzan Perlman, Citizen Schools

For more information go to: www.envisionfilm.org.

Envision: Addressing Global Issues through Documentaries
July 10, 2010
The TimesCenter
242 W 41st Street
New York, NY