LEICESTER DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL 2011

At Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre, for the first Leicester Documentary Film Festival. It's been organised by John Coster, Editor of Citizens' Eye Community News Agency (seen speeding through shot above).

I intend to do some live blogging throughout the day, updating on a frequent and regular basis. But I'm unable to keep to that commitment because people keep coming up and talking to me! When I do post my one and only entry from the event itself, there's a sudden spike in readers, with 33 of them being from the USA. John Coster, Simon Parker and I muse on this unpredictable and often baffling aspect of maintaining a virtual presence: you just never know to whom one particular post will appeal, or why. And you're unlikely to find out. "Life is full of mysteries. Consider this one of them."

As well as the films being shown, there's a marketplace, where film-makers of all sorts and organizations who would like to interact with them can show their wares. I've brought one of our exhibition banners and an assortment of freebies. I've also written a brief flyer, seeking to attract support for the making of a documentary film about Leicester Council of Faiths in our 25th anniversary this year. Other exhibitors in the marketplace include:

• From Dusk2Dawn magazine
• Large Scale Film
• Leicester Documentary Club
• Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Centre
• Lumiere Arts
• Pedestrian Arts
• Recovery
• TouchRainbow Productions
• Wotbox

I record a few short video interviews with some of the people running the displays in the marketplace. You can see these on the Council of Faiths YouTube channel (Leicester Documentary Film Festival playlist).

Our little bit of the marketplace is right beside TouchRainbow's display. It's probably the busiest spot - but maybe we're a bit overwhelmed! Flyers are distributed randomly/evenly around the space being used for the marketplace.

The one film listed in the programme that I really wanted to see isn't being shown after all. This was "The Game of Their Lives" (2002). It's described thus on the Internet Movie Datrabase (IMDb) "A BBC documentary producer is given unprecedented access in North Korea to chronicle the story of the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0, and go up 3-0 against Portgual before Eusebio eventually rallied the Portugeuse."

First productive conversation of the day (within a quarter-hour of setting up) is with Janet Hudson, British Cycling Leicester City Council Development Officer. We discuss the possibility of getting women's teams, from within the various faith communities, taking part in SkyRide later this year.

The only film I actually get to watch all day is "A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash" (2007) a theatrical documentary on the world's dwindling oil reserves ("Theatrical" in this context meaning that the film in question was given a general release in "theatres"). As we leave Screen 2, in which the film was showing, there's someone handing out flyers for the forthcoming Greenlight Festival ("Leicester's Festival of Sustainable Living"), being held in De Montfort University on Saturday 12 February. When I tell her that I've got one of them and that I'm intending to go the their festival, she asks me if I'm me (if you see what I mean). Turns out that it's Linda Faulkner - we're friends on facebook. We have a sit down and discuss ways that Leicester Council of Faiths and Transition Leicester (of which Linda is a member) can collaborate more closely. Linda's involvement with environmental issues in Leicester goes back at least 20 years. In our conversation, she mentions a conference that was held in DMU way back then (so far back, in fact, that it doesn't even seem to have a mention on the web) entitled "Faith in Nature" at which Satesh Kumar snd Martin Palmer spoke. I was there, running a small bookshop on behalf of the Bahá'í Publishing Trust. When I mention the Get Inspired project that I was involved with last year (but which didn't come off in the end), Linda knows all about that (and recognises the guys from TouchRainbow, who were involved in that, and are standing nearby). I think I've persuaded Linda to come along to New College on Wed 16 February, where I've agreed to do five (five!) one-hour workshops for older students on religions and the environment. I'm sure I'll be grateful for her assistance. We agreed, tentatively, that I should run a one-hour workshop (tentatively called something like, "Getting the Ear of the Faith Communities") at the Greenlight Festival.

Later in the day, I'm introduced to Rashmi Vyas, freelance TV reporter and presenter, and committee member of Leicestershire Brahma Samaj. She tells me that her uncle has seen our exhibition for Inter Faith Week in Highcross in November, and had been singing its praises to her and encouraging more support from local Hindus.

When I've packed up and ready to leave, I'm approached by Dan Kent, who's attached to The Wave (the young persons' monthly supplement in the Leicester Mercury). He asks if he can interview me and for the first time I'm on the other end of the Flip camera. He has some interesting questions - I hope my responses are also interesting. When I ask him how he intends to use the interview, he says that it might be turned into an article for the print version of The Wave, loaded onto their YouTube channel or used by Dan in a personal project - he's committed to making a short film every day for a year.

CreativeCoffee Club

To Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre for the first CreativeCoffee Club of 2011 - well, the last quarter of an hour anyway. Today, I've got younger son Harry in tow - and when we're just about to get off the 31A at Northampton Square, my older son Alastair phones and says he's in Belvoir Street. So a couple of minutes later we meet up and the three of us troop into Phoenix Square together at 1145. But it's always worthwhile showing your face at CreativeCoffee Club, even if it's just for a short time; you never know who's going to be there, or what's going to be in the air. This is borne out for my two sons as much as it is for me today. Harry talks with John Coster and Tina Barton about having an article about his recent audition for "Britain's Got Talent" published in The Wave, while Alastair and John talk about joining up on a new internet radio venture based at Phoenix Square.

This morning, I get first sight of the flyers for the next three sessions of Amplified Leicester. I'm convening a panel for the March session, on "Amplified Communities of Faith or Belief". Nice little blurb about the meeting, even if I say so myself (well, I would say that, wouldn't I - since I wrote it myself). I take away a bunch of the flyers, to drop off here, there and everywhere. Here's the blurb, for your information, faithful reader:

7pm Wednesday 23 March 2011
Amplified Communities of Faith or Belief

Convened by George Ballentyne, Leicester Council of Faiths, with guests Sughra Ahmed, Islamic Society of Britain, Richard Hopper, Leicester Secular Society, Matthew Hughes, Samworth Enterprise Academy. Groups working in the "protected characteristic" of faith of belief are big users of social media. but for what purposes? Each of these panelists will show how their organisations use social media to different ends - some surprising and unexpected.

back on The Wave

This month's edition of The Wave comes out today and we're back on the front cover! Well, that might be overegging things a bit, since the front cover features a thumbnail of every cover they published in 2010. We're in the one featured top left (honest - it's legible enough when you see the real thing!) But since we were the big story in the November edition (with a report on our exhibition for National Inter Faith Week in Highcross), it might at least serve to jog the memory of some readers. And since there are 70,000 copies distributed free inside today's Leicester Mercury, that's a lot of potential memories to be jogged!

INTER FAITH WEEK 2010: DAY 4

Priority this morning is to get my hands on a copy of the Leicester Mercury, to get a look at The Wave - the paper's young people's supplement, in which we've been promised front page coverage. There's a good big photo, showing Smita Shah (President of Jain Samaj Europe and Treasurer of Leicester Council of Faiths) and me, speaking with Katie (editor of The Wave) and Will (who wrote the story). The coverage is really good; I buy a dozen copies so we can show it off on the stall today.

Marion Kennedy is already at the display when I arrive around 0915. She's very apologetic about having missed her turn earlier this week (on Monday morning) when she was poorly and had to go home. She's determined to make the most of her time here this morning. I'm obliged to go off to CreativeCoffee Club just before 1000 and although I am loathe to leave her there on her own, she's quite content for that to be so.

Scott MacDonald and Aramesh Mahboubi (from Leicester Bahá'ís), Chogma (Education Outreach Officer from the Nagarjuna Kadampa Buddhist Centre), Suzanne Kelly (of Christians Aware) cover the 1400-1600 slot. Those four are in the photo below.

Speaking with one of the staff on the body care products concession that's selling products based on minerals from the Dead Sea, I ask what's happened to her colleagues from Israel, who had been speaking with us just a few days before, on Sunday. She tells me that their visas were found not to be in order, so the government has sent them home. Oh ...

In the late afternoon, a diminutive Sikh man and a big burly Christian fellow have a lively and friendly discussion about whether one has free will in matters of faith and belief or if it's no more than an accident of geography and history, determined by where and when one is born.

One woman, who introduced herself as a social worker, plucked half a dozen copies of each leaflet from our display.

Two young fellows, who later describe themselves as engineering students attending one of the city's universities, spend some time eyeing up the display on one side (the one with the later letters of the alphabet on it). After they've caught my attention, I go over and introduce myself and ask them what they think of it. They tell me that they'd like me to remove one of the banners from the display. I ask them which one, and they motion toward the Jewish one. They don't seem able to bring themselves to say the name. When I tell them that's not going to happen, they ask if I can at least move it so it's not adjacent to the Muslim banner. I tell them that's not going to happen either; we follow alphabetical order to avoid any protests at any faith community being unduly favoured over any other. After we've talked for a moment, I recognise these two chaps from a larger group who visited the exhibition earlier in the week, looked at it, appeared to speak about it among themselves, but wouldn't take any literature when offered it, or engage with anyone on the stall. (I note, later, that they've also been here earlier in the day - to judge from comments that one of the volunteers on duty earlier in the day had left in the reflective log.) This evening, the three of us spoke together for what must have been more than a quarter of an hour - and I found it all very interesting. They say that they were from Saudi Arabia and had never been outside their home country till coming here to study. They've only been in Leicester for a couple of months. Their issues with the Jewish presence in this exhibition arises from their awareness of the political and economic situation of the Palestinian people. I explain to them that the mission of Leicester Council of Faiths is to attend to relations between the faith communities in the city, and between the faith communities as a whole and the wider citizenry of Leicester. We know about the conflict between and among religions around the world - we don't hide our heads in the sand, but we also know can't resolve these conflicts. What matters to us is how we live here. To illustrate this, I describe to them what happened at Holocaust Memorial Day in Leicester, January 2009 (see blog post dated 31 Dec 2009, where I highlighted that event as my number one occasion of the year). They're still not convinced and tell me that, while their Palestinian Muslim brothers and sisters are being persecuted, there are no instances of Muslims persecuting members of other religions. I ask them to walk with me to the other side of the display and show them the Bahá'í banner. I ask them if they've heard of the Bahá'ís. They tell me that they never have. When I describe how they are being treated (how they have always been treated) in Iran, they fall silent. I put to them the question, because this is being done by Muslims to members of the religion I follow, should I take that out on Muslims in Leicester? To put it more bluntly, would it be good reason for me to punch the two of them in the face? Is it their fault this is happening? Of course it isn't - and of course I don't feel like that. but the rhetoric seems to work. At this point, they both tell me their names (they'd said earlier that they wouldn't do so) and we part on friendly terms, with firm handshakes all round. They tell me that they'll come back before the end of the week and try to talk with other people on the stall.

A young and dynamic Muslim businesswoman came to the exhibition late in the day and spent several minutes scrutinising it told me that she's opening a care home facility in Thurmaston and would be interested in obtaining training from the Council of Faiths in faith and cultural awareness for the staff she's taking on there.

"An uplifting experience. Thank you for the brilliant organisation. I've enjoyed all the conversations with 'staff' and visitors alike."

"Two Saudi Arabian students studying at DMU (engineering) were interested in the exhibition. when told about the leaflets one of the picked out Muslim, Christian, Jewish, His friend asked him why he wasn't taking one of each (I didn't hear the response). His friend took the others. We had a long chat."

"Was on exhibition from 4-8, met some interesting people and someone bought me a book to help me understand some alien concepts and approaches to spirituality."

National Inter Faith Week: day 2

Early in the day, Jan MacDonald (Secretary of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Leicester) takes a turn on the stall between 1200 and 1400. She has a long conversation (over half an hour) with a young Sikh fellow, who talks candidly about how becoming a father has changed his attitude to his culture, heritage and religion. We also enjoy a visit from Parmjit Basra, Project Officer at Leicester City Council's Adult Skills and Learning Services, who was in charge of the recent Leicester Speaks event. (That's Parmjit talking to Jan in the photo above). Also on the stall at this time is Clive Sutton, from Leicester Quakers (the fellow in the dark jacket on the left of the photo below).
 

Early in the afternoon, John Florance pops in at the display to tell me that he'd given the exhibition a mention on his Sunday morning show yesterday on BBC Radio Leicester. This time last year, Noel Singh, Shaykh Ibrahim Moghrah and I appeared live on John's show to talk about the first National Inter Faith Week.

The undoubted highlight of this second day of our exhibition is the visit from The Wave (a supplement for young people, by young people distributed free with the Leicester Mercury). Katie Stewart (Editor), and reporter Will Sturgess arrive at the exhibition just after four, accompanied by John Coster and Tina Barton of Citizens’ Eye community news agency. On the display at that time with me are Ramila Chauhan and Smita Shah. Will interviews Smita and me and photos are taken of us in front of the Jain banner (Smita is President of Jain Samaj Europe as well as being Treasurer of Leicester Council of Faiths).

There’s a plan brewing between The Wave, Citizens’ Eye and Leicestershire Constabulary for an activity they’re calling “Speed Faithing”, in which young reporters will dash around the city to see how many places of worship – and how many meaningful encounters they can fit in with the people there – in one day. The Council of Faiths has latterly become involved in this.

In the last shift of the day, from 1800-200, I share duties on the exhibition with Sarfraz Khan, who works as Administrator for the Federation of Muslim Organisations (FMO). I've long been keen to get greater involvement of Muslim friends in Amplified Leicester, CreativeCoffee Club and other networking activities, so I take advantage of the moment to try and sell their usefulness to Sarfraz. I hope I sounded convincing, rather than just some mad old bloke riding his own hobby horse!

Here are a few of the comments that some of the volunteers who helped out on the exhibition today committed to our reflective journal:

"In the lunch hour there were a lot of people keen to hurry by and only a few who would allow me to catch their eye. One, from Thailand, wanted to see what the Council of Faiths had to say about Buddhism (he works in a casino here). Another, in a wheel chair, was glad of someone to take notice and chat. Others went by. A man at the next stand, trying to capture subscribers for Sky TV, said that he found this arcade a very difficult place and he found it hard to engage people, most of whom were heading for the clothes shops. A young clean-shaven Sikh showed interest, as did a visitor to Leicester whose girlfriend is a Buddhist chaplain in the NHS. Good interest from two Turkish Muslim engineering students"

"Some people had specifically come to have a look at the stand because they had heard it was here. Others were curious and asked, some took leaflets when they didn't have time to talk. Generally, the people who spoke were very positive and encouraging."

"Interesting experience. A lot of people passing by. Young ones are also stopping and taking interest. Quite interesting that a few we spoke to hadn't heard of Jains or Jainism. Not sure that it being going home time meant overall less people stopped by. Strange interaction but very enjoyable and some interesting questions get asked."

CITIZENS' EYE COMMUNITY NEWS CAFÉ,11 NOVEMBER 2010

Popped in this morning at the Community News Café held in Coffee Republic, Granby Street. It's Community Media Week (8-13 November) and Citizens' Eye Community New Agency has been holding Community News Cafés in different locations around the city, several of them each day during this special week.

In the process of riffing on some ideas to do with young people in the city, we come up with "speedfaithing" (not my title for it!) - which would involve a minibus full of young people dashing round the city fitting in visits to as many places of worship in a fixed period of time. We also make tentative plans for the young people involved in production of The Wave to come and see our exhibition in Highcross during Inter Faith Week and write it up for their paper.