25385L Michou65: (announce) Fwd: Haitian Fillmaker, Michele Stephenson premieres her documentary (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michou65@aol.com

For Immediate Release

FACES OF CHANGE DOCUMENTARY SELECTED
FOR SILVERDOCS International Film Festival 2005

  The documentary film, FACES OF CHANGE, selected into the 2005
SILVERDOCS International Documentary Film Festival in Silver Spring,
Maryland will screen Saturday June 18th at 2:15 pm at the AFI Silver
Theatre (go to www.silverdocs.com for location details). Participation
in SILVERDOCS marks the world premiere for the documentary produced
and directed by Haitian filmmaker, Michèle Stephenson and Firelight Media, a
Harlem based media production company.

  In FACES OF CHANGE five activists from five different continents send
off unique video dispatches from their respective corners of the world
telling stories and showing images that are unlike anything audiences
have ever seen. With their cameras in hand they walk us through their
lives, experiences and societies, as we see the world through their
eyes. Their stories are rich in wonderment, humor, pain and unflinching
commitment to change. The film interweaves their engaging stories and
close encounters with racism and discrimination.

  The activists in FACES OF CHANGE are highly focused and passionate.
They are fallible and conflicted, yet not without humor and wit. They
are from all over the world. They are: Mohamed, a man from Mauritania,
West Africa campaigning to end slavery via an underground political
movement; Elodia, an African-American woman organizing her neighborhood
of homeowners living on a condemned toxic site in New Orleans,
Louisiana; Ivan, a Roma (Gypsy) attorney and doctor struggling with
discrimination and his own self-esteem in Eastern Europe; Kathir a
Dalit (Untouchable) man fighting to eliminate caste discrimination in
South India; and Nara, an Afro-Brazilian woman working to instill
self-empowerment in black teenage girls. Through this whirlwind journey
into their lives, the audience gets a glimpse of how much like the rest
of the world we all are.

  "Video can be a powerful tool to engage a broad audience around racial
issues. Images stir people's emotions' and evoke empathy," explains
director, Michèle Stephenson. Stephenson trained each activist to use
video cameras and create a story that would best capture the meaning
and power of their work. With support from The Ford Foundation,
documentary followed the activists to the UN World Conference Against
Racism in Durban, South Africa and documented how they each discovered
the stunning commonalities of their history and experiences


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