Films for Peace

Some time ago I wrote about the Dayton International Peace Museum .  Well, associated with the Museum is (among many other things) The ScreenPeace Film Festival .   The Festival’s Founding Director, Dr. Robert Girvin, explains how “ScreenPeace” came to be:

“The influence of the media on our collective consciousness is apparent to us all. After many years working in Hollywood and teaching university film classes, I have realized that we are sorely missing something in both our media production and our media studies… an official genre classification titled “Peace Films.”

To that end, the Dayton International Peace Museum and I initiated the ScreenPeace public film series in 2007 and added a Student Film/Video Contest last year for peace-themed films/videos produced by students in the Greater Miami Valley.”

You can see the films shown last year here .  There is a short blurb for each film that explains the film’s link with peace, broadly understood.  The calendar for 2009 is not up yet, but should be available soon.  The theme for the 2009 student film/video contest is “What does Peace mean to you?” .

Once again, I am very impressed by what is happening in Dayton, and specifically at the Peace Museum.  These people really seem to have their heads and hearts in the right place.  It seems obvious that film and video have enormous impact on us, and I find it very insightful and innovative to highlight the peace-related aspects of mainstream commercial films, and to encourage aspiring film makers to make films about peace.

IGBarb says check it out!