Usually when I program a group of shorts, there is an obvious theme. But when I was invited to curate this particular group of shorts, I asked myself, "What is the greatest statement I can make with the small amount of films I am going to present?" I believe in the development of globalization, there has been an underlying sense of guilt felt by first world countries toward lesser-developed countries. If you notice, there are no films here from Latin America, Africa, etc. I think being the white suburbanite who grew up in the 1980s, America, affected my choices. I felt like an outsider most of my life, partly from choice and partly from circumstance. I had everything a human could want: food, a stable upbringing, etc...so why did I feel the way I do? The saying goes for writers..."Write what you know." For my current PhD research I examine the effect of globalization on America and Europe. I believe my program here exemplifies many different facets of an underlying anxiety felt by the masses as we head through an undoubtedly transitional stage in our cultures. The bottom line is fear. Fear that the other will fundamentally change who we are at our core, both individually and collectively… Fear of change in a techno-oriented digital present…Fear that globalization is taking us all down a road we are not prepared for, at a speed we cannot yet comprehend. I welcome you to investigate these films for yourself and examine how the “other” may be the outsider… Or perhaps the “status quo” person has now become the outsider. In a dizzying state of globalization, the outsider is not so clearly defined.
Mrs McCutcheon
JohnSheedy
Fiction / Australia / 2017
Le bleu blanc rouge de mes cheveux
Josza Anjembe
France / 2016
American Paradise
Joe Talbot
USA / 2017
Behind the Walls
Hyun Lories
Belgium
A New Home
Ziga Virc
Slovenia
In the Shadow of the Mountain
Neith Sentis
UK, Spain