Note: Iraq body count only uses media reported, corroborated casualty figures. The number above
therefore represents a lower bound on the number of deaths. Other estimates are shown here
Pangea Day
This past Saturday, there was a four hour event attended across the globe at more than a thousand public gatherings called "Pangea Day". It was the screening of short films meant to give people a viewpoint from others perspective in order to further peace and understanding arround the world.
The website pangeaday.org is still up, with some of the films still available for viewing. There is also a one hour highlight reel from the event along with descriptions of the day and the reaction. The event is the brainchild of Harvard college graduate '96 Jehane Noujaim, who also directed the documentary Control Room about Al Jazeera. You can learn more about her motivations for making Pangea day by watching her TED prize talk in 2006.
One of the films that had excerpts shown in both her TED talk and during Pangea day was "Encounter Point". Here is the trailer:
Encounter Point is an 85-minute feature documentary film that follows a former Israeli settler, a Palestinian ex-prisoner, a bereaved Israeli mother and a wounded Palestinian bereaved brother who risk their lives and public standing to promote a nonviolent end to the conflict. Their journeys lead them to the unlikeliest places to confront hatred within their communities. The film explores what drives them and thousands of other like-minded civilians to overcome anger and grief to work for grassroots solutions. It is a film about the everyday leaders in our midst.
There is a youtube interview with Nahanni Rouse, one of the American producers of the film which talks more about the motivations for it, grounded in her own activism.
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