AS THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS WORSENED IN 2015, MANY HISTORIANS BEGAN COMPARING WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY IN SYRIA TO WHAT HAPPENED IN EUROPE DURING WORLD WAR II. IN OUR CLASS, WE DID THE SAME. WE ASKED, WHY ARE SIMILAR PROBLEMS OCCURRING TODAY AS THE PROBLEMS THAT OCCURRED 80 YEARS AGO?
THIS LED TO FURTHER, MORE UNIVERSAL QUESTIONS: WHY DO PEOPLE PERSECUTE OTHERS? WHY DO PEOPLE FOLLOW CRUEL LEADERS? WHY DO PEOPLE SEE OTHERS IN NEED AND DO NOTHING? WHY ARE CIVILIANS TARGETED IN WAR?
WE CREATED BLACK AND WHITE SILENT FILMS TO EXPLORE THESE QUESTIONS AND TO DEVELOP EMPATHY FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED, BOTH FROM THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.THE FACES OF THE FILMS ARE OURS. THE SITUATIONS ARE NOT, BUT THEY COULD BE.
SINCERELY,
THE KINGS AND QUEENS
Project Reflection
Our exhibition on April 13th, was set up as if it was a movie theater but with three projectors all playing our films, there where at least 5 different films being played on the screens all made by my classmates. We had tables folded to look like boards and hung up our group posters that talked about what our main question as group was, and how we each answered the question chosen individually. During my time slot at this part of the entire exhibition, I spoke to one of my classmates mother about how us the united states are so cruel to everyone around us, and how we were so selfish about thinking that the Jews were going to take our jobs. Also, we talked about how maybe our generation would be the one to change everything, and we might be the ones to end all of this conflict, I could tell my classmates mother was impressed with how much knowledge I had about these topics. Something I am most proud of from our exhibition is how impressed everyone was with how much information we had and how passionate we were about these topics. If i was to redo this project I would change how it was silent, and how we weren't allowed to use props, because I feel like we could of made these movies much more meaningful if we actually added some quotes or, re-acted some really important events in history.
At the beginning of this project we had done interviews of our families talking about what they knew about refugees, these interviews also included our opinions. At the beginning of thus project I already knew that Syria was having issues but I didn't really pay attention to it, but now I know a lot more about ISIS and refugees. Some things I have learned from this project are that not all people from a specific religion or heritage are the same, all those terrible things you hear about them are just stereotypes. While creating a film of this genre, I found out to actually make it good and to actually have it mean something is to be verbal with all the movements that you have your actors do, because we had looked at each and every single scene and though about what each actor had done and what message they were sending with their body language. What I thought was done well with my film was the way we really tried to make it symbolic and make it mean something with out using words, I think that really pushed us to try to make it mean something to not just us but to the people who would be watching our film.