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Humanity and technology fuse in global Pangea Day film event
Humanity and digital technology broke down walls between cultures on Saturday during a first-ever Pangea Day film event aimed at replacing conflict with understanding.
Millions of people at venues around the world simultaneously watched a live four-hour broadcast of short independent films, some made by refugees using camera-enabled Nokia mobile telephones, showing life through their eyes.
Films streamed via the Internet to computers, televisions and video-enabled mobile devices were interlaced with insights or performances by celebrities, royalty, musicians, scientists and humanitarians.
"Modern technologies are connecting us over incredible distances," Queen Noor of Jordan said while taking part in a star-laced broadcast from a stage in a movie studio where the "Wizard of Oz" was filmed.
"But today one of the oldest technologies is really connecting us _ story telling."
Films touched on emotions and experiences light and grim. There were films about laughter, tears, war, family, tragedy, triumph, and love.
A work from Mozambique playfully showed poor children rresort to making soccer balls by wrapping bags, string, and yarn around inflated condoms.
Actress Cameron Diaz her favorite, an animted work featuring a bear of a man folding a gritty, congested city piece-by-piece origami-style into a forest oasis.
"This is beautiful," Diaz said as Pangea Day became a reality. "Films can't change the world but the people who watch them can."
Live broadcasts merged from London, Kigali, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The event resulted from a wish documentary film maker Jehane Noujaim was granted as a prize at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in California in 2006.
Since she couldn't force people to travel to learn about foreign cultures, she opted to use film and the Internet to virtually immerse people in the lives of others.
"It's about time we knit ourselves together with this kind of understanding," said actress Goldie Hawn, part Pangea Day's board of directors along with actresses Meg Ryan and Diaz.
Parts of the program focused on those left homeless, crippled or grieving because of racism, poverty, civil unrest or wars.
Hawn took part in one of the lighter moments, helping a "laughing club" guru lead the first known global gaffaw.
Nearly a thousand people packed the cavernous Sony Entertainment studio while interpreters behind curtains translatd goings-on into a half-dozen languages.
"Anything film makers can do to get people to work together, as brothers and sisters, to make the world a safer place is worth it," said actor Matthew Modine, whose film credits include starring in "Full Metal Jacket."
"It's not enough to say the world is a mess. The purpose of the Internet is to point people in new directions to find solutions. Films aren't just for entertaining but for problem solving too."
Music performances included Iranian and Egyptian rock bands, Brazilian minister of culture Gilberto Gil and The Eurythmics' Dave Stewart.
"This event is an agent of change," Stewart told AFP. "For f---'s sake we're all people. Can't we just get along?"
Technology is "democratizing" media and eroding the power of governments and institutions to wield propaganda to "demonize and polarize" people, Queen Noor told AFP.
"Political leaders need to listen to young people like the one's we heard from today," Queen Noor said.
"They show the face of humanity and hope. This is desperately needed now."
Queen Noor said she hopes the Pangea Day event is the first of many.
By late Saturday highlights of the event were viewable on the http://www.pangeaday.org website.
"It is like we got a thousands strands of life from around the world and wove them into a global fabric," said Eboo Patel, who heads a nonprofit Interfaith Youth Core promoting unity among religions.
© 2008 AFP
"Modern technologies are connecting us over incredible distances," Queen Noor of Jordan said while taking part in a star-laced broadcast from a stage in a movie studio where the "Wizard of Oz" was filmed.
"But today one of the oldest technologies is really connecting us _ story telling."
Films touched on emotions and experiences light and grim. There were films about laughter, tears, war, family, tragedy, triumph, and love.
Actress Cameron Diaz her favorite, an animted work featuring a bear of a man folding a gritty, congested city piece-by-piece origami-style into a forest oasis.
"This is beautiful," Diaz said as Pangea Day became a reality. "Films can't change the world but the people who watch them can."
Live broadcasts merged from London, Kigali, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The event resulted from a wish documentary film maker Jehane Noujaim was granted as a prize at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in California in 2006.
Since she couldn't force people to travel to learn about foreign cultures, she opted to use film and the Internet to virtually immerse people in the lives of others.
"It's about time we knit ourselves together with this kind of understanding," said actress Goldie Hawn, part Pangea Day's board of directors along with actresses Meg Ryan and Diaz.
Parts of the program focused on those left homeless, crippled or grieving because of racism, poverty, civil unrest or wars.
Hawn took part in one of the lighter moments, helping a "laughing club" guru lead the first known global gaffaw.
Nearly a thousand people packed the cavernous Sony Entertainment studio while interpreters behind curtains translatd goings-on into a half-dozen languages.
"Anything film makers can do to get people to work together, as brothers and sisters, to make the world a safer place is worth it," said actor Matthew Modine, whose film credits include starring in "Full Metal Jacket."
"It's not enough to say the world is a mess. The purpose of the Internet is to point people in new directions to find solutions. Films aren't just for entertaining but for problem solving too."
Music performances included Iranian and Egyptian rock bands, Brazilian minister of culture Gilberto Gil and The Eurythmics' Dave Stewart.
"This event is an agent of change," Stewart told AFP. "For f---'s sake we're all people. Can't we just get along?"
Technology is "democratizing" media and eroding the power of governments and institutions to wield propaganda to "demonize and polarize" people, Queen Noor told AFP.
"Political leaders need to listen to young people like the one's we heard from today," Queen Noor said.
"They show the face of humanity and hope. This is desperately needed now."
Queen Noor said she hopes the Pangea Day event is the first of many.
By late Saturday highlights of the event were viewable on the http://www.pangeaday.org website.
"It is like we got a thousands strands of life from around the world and wove them into a global fabric," said Eboo Patel, who heads a nonprofit Interfaith Youth Core promoting unity among religions.
© 2008 AFP
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