As a champion for more media to heal the world, I am enthralled with Jehane Noujaim. Daughter of two worlds, filmmaker, and dreamer, Jehane, with the TED community, pulled off a TED wish from 3 years ago. Her wish for a "day of film where the world comes together and that that day would echo out into the future" --to create greater mutual respect and understanding amongst the people of the world--came true last Saturday, May 10. What a wish!
If you didn't get to see Pangea Day, you're in luck. As part of their incredible vision and generosity, everything's posted on the website for anyone and everyone to get a generous slice of true media for possibilities. I watched parts with my 18-year old and I think the few short bits he got were more than he'd ever gotten in social studies, economics or psychology classes so far.
What I loved about the Pangea Day talks and films was--everything. But if I had to pick and make a recommendation for you start, I'd say start at the beginning. The four-hour production, spanning all the continents, was a beautifully orchestrated set of stories within a story, commencing with Cosmologist, Carolyn Porco's stunning description of us inhabitants of planet earth and her sharing of Carl Sagan's moving Pale Blue Dot -- and continuing on through a palette of films.The program covered all our shared experiences: love, laughter, tears, strife and reconciliation on a planet where the sentient species (us) all share more traits in common than differences.
Let's pretend you live in a world where you receive a gazillion bits of information a day and, like bits of confetti, that information rains down on you and sticks, affecting how you see yourself in the world, how you see others, and how you see the world. We've written a little about changing your media diet and here Jehane and friends have offered us a feast of media designed specifically for healing the world. I hope you'll add Pangea Day to the part of your media diet you want to stick.
I hope you'll go on a Pangea Day diet for a few weeks and let it work on you as it has on those of us who've been watching. Watch the highlights, or if you can, watch the whole thing (with some breaks). I hope all of us who watch will be a part of Jehane's wish for "the echoing out" that comes from meeting each other in a new way on this small planet.
As one of the speakers said, "Films can't change the world, but the people who watch them--the people who are moved and transformed by them--can."
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