The 48th Chicago International Film Festival wraps up tomorrow night. While the main fest garners great reviews, major press and big stars – less acknowledged is the CIFF’s amazing commitment to film education. On each day of the festival, Cinema/Chicago sponsors transportation and private screenings for Chicago Public School students. The films, all current festival selections, take place at the Festival’s home at AMC River East Theater. Education Screenings are paired with carefully curated classroom discussion questions as well as a post show dialogue. This long standing collaboration between the Festival and Chicago Public Schools evidences a great deal of respect, on both parts, for the knowledge and engagement of the students. The Festival Films are all contemporary, challenging and adult–far from typical classroom education fodder.
Last Monday I had the opportunity to speak with 80 sophomores and juniors from Chicago’s Lake View High School after one of these Education Screenings. Our film was War Witch, a heartbreaking fiction feature by Kim Nguyen which will serve as Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Film in this year’s Oscar race. I must admit I had a bit of trepidation before our discussion. The film, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo with untrained actors, dramatizes the story of a young woman conscripted as a child soldier. The filmmaker uses elements of magic realism to infuse the narrative with horror, spirituality, and subjectivity. I truly had no idea how the students would react. I was thrilled to find that they were rapt – no talking or giggling, no leaving or nudging. There was no question that they were interested. Our discussion, however, took a strange turn.
War Witch, Dir: Kim Nguyen, Canada, 2012, 90 min, French & Lingala, English subs | Cast: Rachel Mwanza, Serge Kanyinda
Its been a long time since I’ve spoken with younger students about film. I’m more familiar with college students, students of “cinema” who come armed with a bit of pretension. (No judgment! I was once among them.) They are ready to discuss broad themes, story construction, cinematography and pacing. In front of students from Lake View High, all of my questions along these lines were met with silence.
But they did want to talk!
“What was that food they were making?” (Um…palm oil?)
“What were those weapons?” (I think AK-47s and machetes)
“What drugs were they taking” (Wow…Perhaps something similar to cocaine?)
“What was the war about?” (Well it doesn’t say…but often wars in Sub-Saharan Africa are fought over natural resources and clan differences.)
“Was the actress really pregnant” (No, but wasn’t she an amazing young actor?!)
Overall, I was taken aback by the specificity with which the students viewed the film. They were deeply engaged with the “What” of it all–-the plot, the material objects and the places depicted. Though surprising, the response was absolutely a valid reading of the film The questions from my young audience forced me to examine my own experience as a viewer. Am I too quick to look to the symbolic and thematic, and to overlook the particularities of the film? Do I place less value on the specifics that populate a film, than the airy “ideas” it contains? Its clear that objects, the physical worlds of the story, do absolutely matter in their own right. I’m so grateful to my amazing Education Screening student interlocutors for helping me take another look.
