Coexist has just been awarded an Honorable Mention in the documentary category at the Metropolitan Film Festival of New York!
Through Coexist we want audiences to become activists in their communities. We hope Coexist inspires dialogue with friends, family, and most importantly strangers and the "other". We encourage you to explore our site to learn more about our educational mission that we are working to achieve.
Yesterday, at the Youth Summit we screened the film to a group of thirty youth from all over North America, as well as Kenya. I posted seven questions on the walls of the room and asked the youth to "walk the walls" and decide which question most resonated with them. Each wrote their name on the sheet of the question that tugged at them. The groups were unevenly sized: two, four, seven, six. Then they got into seven small groups to share their perspectives on these questions: -are human beings inherently violent?
-are some people born killers?
-who stands to benefit/lose from forgiveness?
-is evil intrinsic to some individuals and if so, is it a waste of time to forgive them?
-how might you judge the sincerity in a perpetrator's confession?
-what do you think of the statement that students in Rwanda are the same as students in the U.S., except that they lived through a different situation and faced different moral decisions?
-what do you think about this statement: the widow who reaches out to her husband's murderer is an expression of empathy not just for her loss but also for the loss of the perpetrator's moral humanity.
Their discussions were rich and several groups did not reach agreement. They reported out in the remaining time and we had to wrap it up. One of the young men is from El Salvador and we got to talk my research with Salvadorans many years ago, and the ways he feels pulled between non-violence and his families historic ties to the FMLN. It was a very real and wrenching conversation.
Early Saturday afternoon, political scientist Cynthia Enloe (Clark University) described her focus on the post-war reality of Iraqi women and U.S. women. She talked about injured soldiers and the women who care for them, and the impact this care has on the lives of the women, and how men's stories of war influence women's stories of war. She called this the gendering of injury of war. Cynthia ended her talk by saying that the privileging of men's war stories, the submerging of women's war stories, women's role caring for injured men, and the use of violence against women in war form the perfect patriarchal seed bed for the next war.
Carolyn Nordstrom, anthropologist from the University of Notre Dame, talked about the fault lines that constitute the zones of vulnerability that are often invisible. She described a fourteen year old girl from a war zone in Angola: she was shot as a child, lives on the street with other children, they care for each other, have clear rules about sharing and looking out for one another. Their motto is "let's not turn into Brazil; let's change this before Brazil happens here." Carolyn examines the extra legal activity that constitutes 1/3 of the world's economy: smugglers, drug traders, money launderers, dealers in guns and body parts, which all told generate over $2 Billion that are not accountable to anyone. About one-tenth of the world's economy is being laundered at any given moment. Meanwhile, 12 million children are forced to work in the sex industry every year, and 218 million children work illegally, mostly in agriculture. The informal economy is beginning to eclipse the formal economy, and the profits are used to grow political power and impunity. There is a global ideology that says this is okay, and this is a major fault line on our planet. Societies built on fault lines collapse.
Today (Saturday), we got an extra opportunity to screen the film for students from Roanoke College in Virginia. We will set up a screening on campus in the spring.
In the afternoon, we screened Coexist again for 47 Conference participants -- mostly college professors and activists. Three of the Conference keynote speakers joined us: Cynthia Enloe, Carolyn Nordstrom, and Catherine Morris of the University of Victoria. We were asked many more questions than we had time to answer, and most importantly, we made new friends and contacts, many of whom asked for copies of the film and the Viewer's Guide. One professor said his students are in ROTC and they need to see Coexist. Another professor said this kind of violence permeates our inner cities in the U.S. Someone else suggested that the film be used in Israel and Palestine to teach about coexistence. Some viewers said they love the film's complexity, others its relevancy and power. We were VERY pleased. After the screening, we met George Lahey from Swarthmore who encouraged our work, and many other pillars and pioneers of the peacebuilding and peace education movements of North America. We are thrilled to have attended the Conference and already have an idea for our next film! Stay tuned!
--Mishy Lesser, Learning Director for Coexist
“Learning about Rwanda... it gives people the opportunity to open their eyes about things that are going on in our neighborhoods (in the United States) so we can buckle up and make change. So, I think it's very important to learn it.” High School senior Maceyo Branch reacted to seeing a preview of Reconciliation's Reach at a discussion this week with the filmmaker at Health Careers Academy on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston. 25 seniors watched a 5 minute video preview of Reconciliation's Reach about genocide survivors efforts to reconcile with wives of perpetrators. Then the students, from neighborhoods across Boston, engaged in a lively discussion about why Rwandans stories are relevant to them and why they care about the struggles of people on the other side of the world.
Some students found it hard to imagine how genocide survivors could begin to accept a killer or a killer's relative. Ashley Harton-Powell saw maturity, “It shows how strong they are. Because if you went to one of us, or an American in general, and asked 'What if this was to happen to you, how would you feel if the wife of that person or the family member of that person came to you to apologize for their wrong doing?' A lot of people probably would not be able to accept the apology.”
Maceyo understood how some Rwandans have found ways to live side by side with former enemies, “After the genocide they were able to humanize the person cause they really got to know that, 'They're human just like us and they suffered just like us.' You can dehumanize somebody but you can also humanize a person too.”
Watching Reconciliation's Reach was powerful for Noadya Legrand, she said, “It's something that can really change you, can change your whole mindset and your values.” Some students see the possibility of organizing their community for action. Efrangely De La Cruz, “We're the teenagers in America and it takes one person to make a change. If one person starts it up and they tell people, more people become involved and become more interested in making that difference.”
Bendina Remy saw a clear connection between Rwandans work for reconciliation and her life, “It relates to me because just like the Tutsis and the Hutu, I live in Dorchester (a section of Boston) and there's a lot of gang violence between the Bloods and the Crips. And it just reminds me, they're killing each other over nonsense and you need to stop it. It kind of hit home cause I know a lot of gang-affiliated people. Maybe we could do something to change it. And if we could change it in Rwanda we could change it in Boston.”
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As we prepare for our benefit concert event on Thursday March 26th, we're talking about the power of reconciliation with high school students. “We're all on this rock together.” That's the reason a high school student at Corwin-Russell School at Broccoli Hall gave for why reconciliation in Rwanda is important and relevant in his life. The message was clear from this group of 30+ creative and intelligent students. Arriving at Broccoli Hall in Sudbury, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, the name is the first clue this school is like no other. Teachers and students flow through from room to room of the quirky building that is half school house half modern/pop culture art museum. The sign outside the principal's office is “Toad's Hall.” Harry Potter paraphernalia is also popular. A photo illustration by the secretary's desk shows an open pea pod with rainbow colored peas “None of the things in this place fit into the same category.”
Somehow at the assigned time all the students just seemed to know where to be as they seated themselves alternately at a long high table with barstools, at computer desks, on the floor and perched on anything else they could find to hear me, a documentary filmmaker, tell them how they can help change the world. They also offered their advice on the lessons of our documentary film Reconciliation's Reach and how those ideas can be implemented in their lives. After a brief history of what happened in 1994 in Rwanda- 1,000,000 people killed in 100 days- we watched a preview of the film (watch it at the top of this page) Immediate reactions ranged from “moving” to “frightening.” The students were immediately engaged asking dozens of questions during our 90 minutes together.
They were quick with their ideas of how this model of reconciliation, which seems to be working in Rwanda, can be used in their lives. They talked about their personal relationships with other students, teachers, and then they mentioned grander ideas of reconciliation in Iraq and between Sunnis and Shia. They learned that REACH in Rwanda has been successful to a degree in introducing the idea of building peace through business and social partnerships. This progress comes despite the Rwandan people's experiences, suffering through atrocities that are unimaginable. One student said, our discussion helped to remind him that our problems are not as dire and that makes reconciling the differences we may have that much more feasible. Several students shared this sentiment saying, they feel that seeing this example inspires them to think about ways they can create reconciliation in their personal lives and neighborhoods.
The energy was infectious from this dynamic group of students. The class and the teachers were inquisitive and excited and eager to see the completed film, Reconciliation's Reach. They left with the reminder that they have the power to make a difference in their world. As one student, Nick, summed it up at the end quoting Ghandi he said, “We can 'be the change' we want to see in the world.” --Adam Mazo, Executive Producer-Reconciliation's Reach
Join us in Boston: Rock Out for Reconciliation's Reach Thursday, March 26th Hennessy's of Boston 25 Union St. Boston, MA 02108 6 p.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Come for the live music, dozens of raffle prizes worth thousands of dollars and much more! To learn more about Rock Out for Reconciliation's Reach and download the flyer click here. RSVP via facebook. Not a facebook member? Email us! --