Teaching Filmmaking as a Praxis for Social Justice

Guest Blogger: Rafael Angulo, Associate Clinical Professor

The Chilean documentary filmmaker, Patricio Guzman quipped about the relevancy of the documentary format when he stated that "a country without documentaries is like a family without a photo album." When we almost meditatively examine our own family photo albums, we are deeply moved by the context, memories and the emerging feelings associated with the images. The photo album provides a glimpse (as if looking through a window) into our developmental history and the relational resources that were available for our growth and maturation. The picture of our mother when she was 22 years old is not just an image created by light. It contains the deeper and most noble of struggles to be human.

The documentary also provides a glimpse into the soul of a country. Who are the heroes and heroines? What are the events that most impact a nation? Who holds power and who is fighting for power? What are the values that drive a nation forward or backward?

However, the doc is also a tool for purposes of breaking the illusion of our separateness. The students who attended the Global Immersion trip to India had the opportunity to focus the camera on the other and recognize that we are in deep relation with each other. Perhaps not be creed, geographic area, SES, or language but by the drive for human liberation. Our approach is somewhat similar to what the great Russian director, Sergei M. Eisenstein called "cine-dialectics" - the use of images to stimulate thought. Whereas Eisenstein used this method to promote a sympathetic sense of the Bolshevik revolution, our purpose is to illuminate the deep-seated drive for liberation within individuals and groups in different types of socio-political systems. The first step in any liberation process is the adoption of a critical stance, an awareness of what must be changed or abandoned.

For our social work students, their filming of the rural and urban problems in the largest democracy in the world creates an imprint in their individual and collective soul a healthy "shock of recognition" of what is both beautiful about the Indian people and what are the structures that reinforce oppressive systems of injustice. In the Mexican film, 'John Reed: Insurgent', we view the growth in political awareness of an American journalist who, while in Mexico to report on Pancho Villa and the revolution, gradually became convinced of the injustice of the uprising and dedicated himself to similar causes around the world as an international correspondent. From being a "participant-observer," John Reed grew to take a stand 'in' history, not alongside it. His story is a fascinating study in the psychology of conversion.

From my conversations with students, this conversion also took place while both observing and filming. They were able to view the structural issues that impact a nation and a people and at the same time what entertains one person can educate-even liberate-another.

Note: Please know that a documentary film of this trip will be available in early October 2010.