Volunteers Working Hard to Make the Gala a Success

Looking for this session’s movies? You can find them at our Video Sharing Site, Vimeo HERE. Or you can visit the special page we’ve set up here.

The Movies without Borders Project is blessed with an especially dedicated group of volunteers– a fact that most of the students in the class mentioned in their evaluations of their experience. At left, Michelle and her sidekick labor all during the performance at Saturday’s Gala Premiere to get the food ready and keep the food platters filled. The Greensboro Historical Museum generously partners with FaithAction to provide space for our digital storytelling class Gala Premiere.

Volunteers teach the class, and also work one-on-one with the individual students so that every student, no matter what level of technical expertise they have to begin with, can make a movie of the story of their choice.

Board member Ernest Dishner and Movie-Maker Jean-Francois Llorens at the Gala

The movie-making class– renamed this spring “Movies without Borders” because of the wide diversity of the students we attract to the  class– takes place every Saturday for ten weeks. When we have raised the money for the next class, we offer it. The first Movie-Making for Immigrants and Refugees class was the fall of 2009. The latest class started in April.

The latest crop of students are just as diverse as our first class. We had students from Iraq (newly arrived refugees), Sudan, Ghana, India, Mexico and Vietnam.

Our movies are at our Video Sharing Site, Vimeo HERE. Or you can visit the special page we’ve set up here.

What time: 3 pm

Where: Greensboro Historical Museum
131 Summit Avenue
Greensboro, NC

Refreshments will be served after the show.

Join us for a late afternoon extravaganza to celebrate the movies created by the seven students in the Movies without Borders Project.  Our students for this round are from Iraq, Sudan, Ghana, Mexico, India and Vietnam. They tell stories around the theme of My Journey, and that journey can be geographical or emotional or a little of each.

We at Movies without Borders provide digital literacy tools so that our students, immigrants and refugees — here just this year or here for many years– can tell the stories they want to tell about their lives, their concerns and their unique perspective on their lives.

Please  join us for a great party and a wonderful celebration of creativity and joy.

Dr. Llorens at Work

The movies are made! You can see them here.

The Gala Premiere was held and nearly 200 folk turned out to enjoy the small but powerful films made by our refugee and immigrant students.

Our nine students, from Burma, Mexico, Bhutan, Togo, Niger, Liberia and Spain,all created short (1-3 minute) movies on the theme of “My Journey.” Each student interpreted that idea differently.  It was wonderfully empowering to be able to produce a graphic and dramatic presentation about one’s life, said one refugee.  Now these students have a skill that will allow them to produce simple movies about their communities, their cultures, and themselves.

Thanks to the American Friends Service Committee for co-sponsoring the Movie Making Class for Refugees and Immigrants.  Thanks to the many volunteers who gave many hours of their time sharing their knowledge and skills.  Thanks also to the Greensboro Historical Museum for hosting the Gala Premiere of the movies.

Be watching for an announcement of our next Movie Making Class for Refugees and Immigrants, sometime early in 2010.