The Film Festival

So I’ve been working on this AIDS Awareness Film Festival for the past year. It’s a small affair, featuring short (5 minutes) student-made films on the subject of AIDS Awareness. At the beginning of the year we had about 40 students. Over the course of the year, this number slowly dwindled and now we have about 15 who are actually involved in the filmmaking process, though if you count the kids acting in the films, it’s a lot more, which is good.

Assisting on (slash co-running) the project with me has been Mr. Vorapon (pictured here with two 12th graders filming and directing) from Deaf Ministries International. He’s a professional filmmaker, has worked on HIV prevention projects before, and has two kids who go to PRC, so all in all he is a great match for this project.

He’s actually letting the student filmmakers use his professional film-editing equipment and is having his staff assist them in the editing process at his film studio, which is where we are right now- at the Deaf Ministries International Chiang Mai office. Because the primary purpose of this organization is working with deaf people- promoting educational programs, teaching trade skills, etc- many of the staff are deaf. The staff assisting the students are not deaf, and neither is Mr. Vorapon, but the rest of the office is. I bet you didn’t know that Thai sign language is totally different from English sign language. But it doesn’t matter because all I ever knew how to say in sign language was “thank you” and “you look pretty”, and I don’t see that being very helpful right now anyway.

So I had to accompany the kids (pictured here during one day of filming) as the “official school chaperone,” but since I know nothing about film editing, even if the discussions were in English, I have nothing to add to the conversation. So I’ve set up my laptop in the middle of the office near where everyone seems to be having a meeting. They’re all deep in sign conversation and every few minutes everyone will burst out laughing. I feel like I’m being left out of the greatest joke in the world! I wonder how hard it would be to learn sign language…

Beside the fact that this whole filmmaking process has moved at a glacial pace, I’m really happy with this project because it is doing more than making the kids learn about AIDS: they are learning about writing (when they wrote the scripts for the film), learning about camera shots, about editing, about the whole process of filmmaking. Moreover, they are also learning about interacting with the deaf. Thailand can tend to be a very segregated society in terms of disabilities: one hardly ever sees disabled people in public places or employed in any kind of job. For wheelchair-bound people I can understand why this would be the case- NOTHING is handicapped friendly- not the sidewalks, not entrances to buildings, not public transportation or taxis (sawng taeos), etc. I honestly didn’t notice this until I broke my foot earlier this year and was on crutches for about 6 weeks. Because students don’t often see deaf/blind/wheelchair-bound people, I think they tend to forget that they are out there and that society often treats them in a way that is far from fair.

Many good life-lessons to be learned here. The films are to be shown in 2 weeks. At the Festival’s conclusion, I’m going to have all the participants write a short passage about what they thought of this project and tips for improvement in the future.

The films are in Thai, but I’ll try to post them on here when the kids are finished. If I feel especially industrious, I’ll try to put subtitles on them.

That’s all for now. I’m going to stare out the window and watch the monsoon rains shower the rice fields and banana trees outside. * Sigh * Ah, Chiang Mai.