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Whitehead Film Festival

Release Date:

Friday, January 16, 2009

MPAA Rating:

Genre:

Various

Starring:

Diaz, Fernando

Director:

Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

Synopsis:

Process theologians postulate that the world is relational and interdependent, that God is present in every moment of experience, and that our choices really do make a difference.

Process theology encompasses Protestants, Catholics, Unitarians, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims who have discovered that process-relational theology--which is a way of understanding of God and the world--makes sense. It encourages us to deepen our particular faith while reaching out with respect to other faiths for inter-religious dialogue and shared ministries.

As an organization, Process & Faith (P&F) is dedicated to providing practical applications of process-relational theology to all aspects of faith life: spirituality, education, preaching and worship, biblical interpretation, counseling, and ministries of justice.

P&F is a membership-based program of the Center for Process Studies, a faculty center of the Claremont School of Theology.

Whitehead Film Festival | Preview

Films That Promote the Common Good

Darrel Manson

I spent a wonderful weekend at the Eighth Annual Whitehead International Film Festival at Claremont School of Theology. The festival focuses on "films for the common good." The criteria for selections are:

The film shall exhibit artistic excellence in screenplay, music, and filming technique.
The film shall promote the common good, which is defined as a society in which persons and communities care for one another's well-being.
The film shall exhibit sensitivity to the human situation, promoting the dignity of all.
As appropriate to the film's subject matter, the film shall foster ecological responsibility.
The film shall cultivate a realistic hope of creative transformation.

As part of the festival, there is a Faith and Film class which serves as the festival jury, picking the film that best exemplifies the selection criteria for a Whitehead film. This was my third time to be part of the class. After each screening, we would discuss the film in great detail as to how the film fit the criteria and how we received the film.

This year's films were:

La Extranjera (The Stranger) from Argentina. The story of a woman who has been in Spain but has returned to the remote village of her childhood after her grandfather has died and left her his ranch (such as it is). She is an outsider until a tragedy creates a community that includes her.
Klopka (The Trap) from Serbia. How far would you go to save your child's life? A Serbian man faces this question and the film invites us to consider for ourselves just how moral we might be.
XXY from Argentina. The story of an intersex teen whose parents are letting her (or him) decide which sex she will opt for and when. It is a search for identity and for acceptance for one who doesn't belong to any of our "normal" categories.
Joyeux Noel from a collection of European countries. This tells the story of the 1914 Christmas truce observed at various point along the trenches. German, French and Scottish soldiers put aside their animosity and came together for worship and celebration. How could they go back to fighting?
Heimatklange (Echoes of Home) from Switzerland. A beautiful documentary about yodeling; yes, that's right, yodeling. Much more complex and beautiful than what we usually think yodeling is like.
Ben X from Belgium. The story of an autistic youth who feels more at home in the midst of a video game than in the real world. He is bullied to the point of suicide at school but finds a way to turn the tables on his tormentors.
Arranged from the USA. A young Orthodox Jewish woman and a young Muslim woman become friends as they are each in the process of having marriages arranged.
The Band's Visit from Israel. An Egyptian police ceremonial band goes to the wrong town in Israel. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, they meet some of the people of the town. They find they have more in common than differences.
The Visitor from the USA. The story of a middle-aged professor who has been going through the motions of life. On a trip to New York, he finds a couple squatting in his apartment. The relationship he forges with them (and learning to play a West African drum) brings him back to living.
Faro: la reina des eaux (Faro; Queen of the Waters) from Mali. The story of a man who was driven from the village as a child because he was illegitimate but returns now as an engineer who has plans to help the village tame the river. But his "bastard" status is noted by everyone.

The jury selected The Visitor as the top film of the festival. La Extranjera and XXY also had major support. There was also a Special Mention made of Heimatklange for the way it demonstrates and elicits the music of the earth in all its intense and beautiful variety of forms.

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