FilmfestDC 2020
Teaching for Change is partnering with Filmfest DC: The Washington, D.C. International Film Festival (Oct 2 - Oct 11) for a ninth year to spread the word about the international film festival and to bring films and filmmakers for several films into D.C. virtual classrooms.
Students gain a lot from viewing the documentaries, preparing questions, and discussing the film with the visitors. While most Teaching for Change programs are for the D.C. metro area, the funding for these visits is limited to schools located in the District of Columbia.
Filmfest DC is offering tickets for classes to see a specific film during the festival and offering opportunities for one of four filmmakers to virtually visit a class after the class has viewed the film.
Films available to view (click the links to view descriptions and trailers):
Filmmakers available for virtual classrom visits (schedules permitting) are:
Mohammad Saffouri, The First
Claudia Sparrow, Maxima
Cheryl Jacobs Crim, Resisterhood
Catherine Murphy, They Say I’m Your Teacher
Please contact Rosalie Reyes with any questions or concerns.
The First
Mohammed Saffouri
USA, 2019, 14 minutes, documentary
A young Muslim American woman runs for a school board seat in Fairfax County, Virginia. The obstacles she faces during her campaign as a person of faith and a person of color strengthen her determination to act as a voice of empowerment for an increasingly diverse community.
La Llorona
Jayro Bustamante,
Guatemala, 2019, 97 minutes
In Spanish, Mayan-Kaqchikel, and Mayan-Ixil with English subtitles
In Latin American lore, La Llorona is a haunting figure destined to weep for eternity for her children who died by her own hand. If you hear her cries, things are not going well for you. In Jayro Bustamante's luminous film, present-day Guatemala weeps for its children, the Mayan-Ixils, who were killed in a 1980s extermination campaign, genocide hiding under the skirts of a 36-year civil war. A general's genocide trial becomes a crucible of revelation for his family and a test of will for the indigenous protestors camped at their gate. Enter Alma, the new maid, who mourns her children lost all those years ago. Through Alma, Bustamante (Ixcanul, FFDC 2016) weaves magical realism and a ghost story into politics to show how the past haunts the present; history is a séance in which all Guatemalans touch hands. Without reconciliation, the country may go on weeping eternally.—Judy Bloch
Maxima
Claudia Sparrow
USA, Peru, 2019, 88 minutes
In Spanish and English with English subtitles
In Peru's northeastern highlands, the Yanacocha open-pit gold mine sits like a scar. Yanacocha has already poisoned the waters for miles, but the American-owned Newmont Mining Corp. wants to branch out with the new Conga Mine. It has one obstacle. She stands less than 5 feet tall and is dwarfed by her hat but is cowed by no one. She is illiterate but eloquent. She is Máxima Acuña, a subsistence farmer who, with her husband, refuses to leave their land, thus blocking the expansion. Harassed by local police, her home and crops destroyed repeatedly, nevertheless Máxima persists. With the support of environmental rights organizations and an indigenous activist community, she has taken the case for her land and its habitat all the way to D.C., eventually winning the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize. Reality can be as heroic as fiction, but its exploits are ongoing, as is Máxima's struggle.—Judy Bloch
Resisterhood
Cheryl Jacobs Crim
USA, 2020, 96 minutes, closed caption available
If in the future we have the luxury of forgetting what necessitated a nationwide Women's March the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, Resisterhood reminds us, opening with a medley of Trump's greatest hits from 2016–17 alone. Nevertheless, the mood of this documentary is joyous as it explores the various avenues women, in particular, take toward activism in our time and catalogs, for the record, the injustices that have brought about protests in the last 3 years. At the same time, in focusing on the great granddaughter of a suffragette and the granddaughter of a slave, a young LGBTQ athlete, and an Egyptian-American grandmother running for Chicago city council, the film also suggests that ours is not a time out of joint but part of a continuum. A historical document for the future, and a tonic inspiration for the present, it reminds us, "This is what democracy looks like."—Judy Bloch
They Say I’m Your Teacher
Catherine Murphy
USA, 2019, 9 minutes, documentary, closed caption available
In the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Bernice Robinson, a beautician from South Carolina, becomes the first teacher in the Citizen Education Schools, teaching African American adults to read to pass the voter registration requirements in the South. For both students and teacher, the classroom becomes a path to understanding that engagement in the issues that affect their lives is a key step toward changing the system. Created from the 16mm archives of the groundbreaking 1985 film, "You Got To Move," this documentary short from The Literacy Project serves as a timely reminder of the powerful connection between learning and the fight for social justice.