INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 2: FAITHS FILM FESTIVAL

Here are the programme notes I put together for A Serious Man, showing this evening at Phoenix Square as part of the Faiths Film Festival, celebrating Inter Faith Week and helping mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of Leicester Council of Faiths. At least they're drawn from more than one source, which is an improvement on the notes I "put together" for Little Buddha last night.

A SERIOUS MAN (2009) 

Directors Ethan Coen, Joel Coen 

Writers Joel Coen, Ethan Coe

106 min 

Cast Michael Stuhlbarg, Rixchard Kind, Sari Lenick

Plot summary (from Internet Movie Database)

Bloomington, Minnesota, 1967: Jewish physics lecturer Larry Gopnik is a serious and a very put-upon man. His daughter is stealing from him to save up for a nose job,his pot-head son, who gets stoned at his own bar-mitzvah, only wants him round to fix the T.V. aerial and his useless brother Arthur is an unwelcome house guest. But both Arthur and Larry get turfed out into a motel when Larry's wife Judy, who wants a divorce, moves her lover, Sy, into the house and even after Sy's death in a car crash they are still there. With lawyers' bills mounting for his divorce, Arthur's criminal court appearances and a land feud with a neighbour Larry is tempted to take the bribe offered by a student to give him an illegal exam pass mark. And the rabbis he visits for advice only dole out platitudes. Still God moves in mysterious - and not always pleasant - ways, as Larry and his family will find out.

A Serious Man: Coens change tack with masterly fable of a crumbling life (Andrew Pulver, The Guardian, 28 October 2009) 

The Coen brothers may just have made their masterpiece with this, their 14th feature and yet another hairpin-bend change of direction, which has been their trademark for their entire career. 

Two films back they were prowling the Texas badlands in a gruesome tale of blood and revenge in No Country for Old Men; then they turned to weightless farce in the entertaining Burn After Reading.Here they are heading to the suburbia of 1960s midwestern America for an elaborate, slippery, fable that feels, strange as it may sound, like a novel that Saul Bellow or Bernard Malamud never quite got around to writing. 

A Serious Man starts off odd, and gets odder. The first five minutes is entirely in Yiddish, a Coenised version of a shtetl folk-horror tale featuring a bearded old man who may or may not be a dybbuk (wandering spirit). Suffice to say, the Coens don't muck about when it comes to the use of stabbing weapons. 

Then we flip forward from the old country to the new world, to where our protagonist, Larry Gopnik (played by Michael Stuhlbarg) is your archetypal harassed and neurotic Jewish-American college professor.His apparently unimpeachable lifestyle is crumbling rapidly: one of his students is trying to bribe his way through exams, his application for tenure is being undermined by ­ anonymous threatening letters, his deadbeat brother is sleeping on the sofa and attracting the attention of the police, and – this is the killer – his wife is planning to leave him for another man, one of those swinging middle-aged types who embraced the permissive culture with desperate fervency.To offset this Gopnik goes looking for answers from his religion, but unlike Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, he does not come up against the blank wall of a  Godless universe; what he encounters are perplexing rabbis telling him baffling parables that just leave him feeling more and more confused. 

It's this refusal to neatly resolve their narrative that gives A Serious Man its distinctive flavour; it has the same open-ended spirit of The Graduate, an authentic classic of late 60s Jewish-American culture. (A Serious Man could easily have been conceived as a sequel to that film, with Gopnik as a grown-up Benjamin Braddock.) 

The Coens, though, don't quite do deeply felt alienation like anyone else. Despite the opaque story line, their film is a glittering, perfectly honed artifice; but what pushes it into the Coen premier league is the sense that, as with Fargo, there's something very personal going on here. 

It's not autobiographical exactly, but the Minnesota setting is the Coens' own childhood universe, and they revved up for their barmitzvahs at pretty much the same time as Gopnik's son, Danny. The Coens, so normally elusive, have let the mask slip a bit. It's  paid wonderful dividends.

A Serious Man is being shown as part of Phoenix Square’s short season of films with themes or subject matter of religion or belief as part of Inter Faith Week 2011 (being held throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Sunday 20 – Saturday 26 November). Our Faiths Film Festival is being promoted in association with Leicester Council of Faiths, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary during this period.

George M Ballentyne, Equality & Diversity Officer, Leicester Council of Faiths

Number of paying customers for A Serious Man this evening: 28 

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 2: BUDDHISM 101

At 1500 we have the second of ten public meetings for Inter Faith Week, under the series title, “Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester". These hour-long introductions are being held in Leicester Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which is part of the Adult Ed College).

Leicester Council of Faiths is hosting these meetings in association with Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). Chris Minter, Head of Service at LASALS, expressed an interest in supporting Inter Faith Week this year and we agreed that this would be an appropriate way for LASALS to do so, by allowing free use of its venue and facilities.

The speaker for this Beginners' Guide to Buddhism - or Buddhism 101 - is Dharmavidya David Brazier, of the Amida Trust. I pop in for the start of the session to welcome our speaker, ensure that everyone is sitting comfortably, offer a few words of introduction (setting this meeting in context of Inter Faith Week), leave a few leaflets, then dash back down to our exhibition in Highcross.

The photo above is one of two images representing the Buddhist community on show in the Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition, launched at Leicester People's Photographic Gallery during Inter Faith Week. The picture shows Jnanamati (left) preparing for his ordination as a monk in the Amida Order in December 2010; Susthama Kim (right) is instructing him in how to arrange his robes for the ceremony (sourced from Damian Smyth, reproduced with permission).

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 2: BAHÁ'Í 101

At 1200 we have the first of ten public meetings for Inter Faith Week, under the series title, “Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester". These hour-long introductions are being held in Leicester Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which is part of the Adult Ed College).

Leicester Council of Faiths is hosting these meetings in association with Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). Chris Minter, Head of Service at LASALS, expressed an interest in supporting Inter Faith Week this year and we agreed that this would be an appropriate way for LASALS to do so, by allowing free use of its venue and facilities.

The speaker for this Beginner’s Guide to the Bahá'í Faith – or Bahá'í 101 – is Rod Duncan. I say a few words at the start, setting this talk in context with the ones to follow and with our other activities for Inter Faith Week. I leave a bunch of leaflets, then hightail it back to our exhibition in Highcross. When I leave, three people have turned up to listen to Rod. Another couple turn up a little later. I don't think that's a bad turnout for this sort of event: an old fshioned public meeting in the middle of the day in the city centre.

The photo above is one of two images representing the Bahá'í community on show in the Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition, launched at Leicester People's Photographic Gallery during Inter Faith Week. The picture shows the Shrine of the Báb on Mt Carmel, Haifa (sourced from Bahá'í World Centre Media Bank, reproduced with permission).

VOLUNTEERS DO LOTS OF GOOD DEEDS FOR MITZVAH DAY

From today's Leicester Mercury:

Volunteers do lots of good deeds for Mitzvah Day 

Generous shoppers at three supermarkets donated toiletries to help those in need yesterday. 

The event, organised as part of international Mitzvah Day, saw volunteers from Leicester's Jewish community and other faiths join forces to help the elderly and those living in safe houses after escaping domestic violence. 

Instead of asking for money, volunteers asked shoppers at Asda Fosse Park, Asda Oadby and Waitrose in Oadby to donate items such as shampoo, soap and toothpaste. 

The donated items will go to domestic violence victims being supported by Women's Aid Leicestershire and Action Homeless, and to elderly people at a care home. 

Mitzvah is a Hebrew word meaning "a good deed". 

Riaz Ravat, of St Philip's Centre, a multi-faith charity in Evington which helped organise it, said: "Mitzvah Day is a significant day in the year, which coincides with the start of national Inter Faith Week."We hope that, in our own way, the faith communities of Leicestershire and our partners can provide some comfort to the weak and vulnerable in society."

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS BRING SPLASH OF COLOUR TO CITY STREETS

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury (though not on the paper's website):

Birthday celebrations bring splash of colour to city streets

A kaleidoscope of colours shimmered in the streets of Leicester yesterday as thousands of Sikhs celebrated the birthday of the religion's founder.

Brightly decorated floats led a parade of up to 15,000 worshippers from the Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara, in East Park Road, to the Guru Nanak Gurdwara at Holy Bones, near St Nicholas Circle.

The Nagar Kirtan event, which has been held in Leicester for more than 20 years, marks the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

After prayers and hymns at the Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara, the procession took three hours to make its way through the city.

Worshippers carried on the celebrations with more prayers and food at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara.

Wosrshippers lined the streets to watch the parade.

Harpreet Kut Bolina, 20, of North Evington said, "It's lovely. it reminds us al of wonderful our culture is. It has a serious message, but is fun too.

Her friend Mandy Kaur Bassi, 23, also of North Evington, said: "We are celebrating the birthday of our 10 gods and it's very important.

"It's great to see the youngsters and the older ones mixing in a day of celebration."

Balinder Singh, 43, of Crown Hills, said: "It is a fantastic occasion and an opportunity to show all of Leicester and beyond how we are about peace and love."

International charitable trust Khalsa Aid made a collection during the procession in aid of people suffering in Haiti, Ethiopia and Somalia.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 2: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

For the second day in a row, I'm in the studio of BBC Radio Leicester early in the morning - even earlier today, as I'm doing Thought for the Day on Ben Jackson's Breakfast Show. I've barely slept, having lain awake until 0100, with this morning's task rattling round my head, then wide awake with a bang again at 0315. Thought for the Day is, at most, 90 seconds long. I've written 90-minute talks in less time and with less anxiety than it's taken to prepare this. John Florance sent me guidelines for TFTD and I've done my best to follow them. Ben's producer, Giles, gives my piece the once-over, okays it, then ushers me into the studio with Ben. After he's gone through today's papers' coverage of Russell and Flavia's exit from Strictly this weekend, Ben introduces me and I have the mic. In the same seat yesterday morning, speaking live with John Florance, I didn't feel nervous in the slightest - but this time, sticking to my own script, reading off the printed page, I do! Subjectively, my mouth feels dry, my voice sounds tremulous to me - though at the end, Ben congratulates me on content and delivery and says he looks forward to me coming back and doing another one. Very kind of him - but as I rise from the desk, I make the comment that the station's newsreader's jobs are safe.

Thought for the Day is repeated an hour later. Makes me wonder why I need to come in and do the first one live then! Anyway, here's my 90-seconds' worth, faithful reader:

Good morning

Ask someone to think of something good to say about Leicester, and more often than not they’ll describe a place where people of different beliefs, cultures, practices and traditions live and work side by side. We’ve developed a reputation for rubbing along happily enough, without ever really rubbing each other up the wrong way.

That’s the widely accepted image of Leicester today. But we shouldn’t take it for granted. Leicester got to be like this largely because a great many of its citizens have worked hard for decades now to overcome bigotry, intolerance and prejudice. It takes constant effort and vigilance today to keep it this way.  A lot of that hard work has concentrated on building trust, understanding and cooperation between the city’s diverse faith and cultural communities. That sums up the mission of Leicester Council of Faiths, which is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary.

This is the start of Inter Faith Week across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This national occasion offers us a chance to recognise and value what we do well locally. But it also helps us see how much work still has to be done. Inter Faith Week is a time for people of various religions or beliefs to come together to work for the common good. It gives us the chance to recognise and celebrate what Leicester does well – but it also reminds us that the work of building a united community never really ends and that we can all find our own part to play in this important collective effort of building a safer and happier future.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 1: FAITHS FILM FESTIVAL

Here are the programme notes I put together  for Little Buddha, showing this evening at Phoenix Square as part of the Faiths Film Festival, celebrating Inter Faith Week and helping mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of Leicester Council of Faiths. Well, when I say, "put together", more like copied and pasted from the Internet Movie Database. Still, why reinvent the wheel?

For the uninitiated, Phoenix Square produces these notes as A4 black and white handouts, that patrons can pick up at reception, before or after they've seen the movie in question.

I wanted to do much more for this (and do it much better). Maybe put in some information about Buddhists worldwide, Buddhists in Britain and Buddhists in Leicester (as in our leaflets) but I ran out of time. I typed this up and emailed to the Box Office at Phoenix Square while still at the exhibition in Highcross, barely two hours before the movie was scheduled to be shown.

LITTLE BUDDHA (1993)

Director Bernardo Bertolluci 

Starring Chris Isaak, Bridget Fonda, Keanau Reeves

Plot summary (from Internet Movie Database) 

Lama Norbu comes to Seattle in search of the reincarnation of his dead teacher, Lama Dorje. His search leads him to young Jesse Conrad, Raju, a waif from Kathmandu, and an upper class Indian girl. Together, they journey to Bhutan where the three children must undergo a test to prove which is the true reincarnation. Interspersed with this, is the story of Siddharta, later known as the Buddha. It traces his spiritual journey from ignorance to true enlightenment.

Synopsis (from Internet Movie Database)

Little Buddha is a story about the quest of a group of monks, led by Lama Norbu (Ruocheng Ying), to seek out the reincarnation of his great Buddhist teacher, Lama Dorje (Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen). Lama Norbu and his fellow monks believe they have found a candidate of Dorje's reincarnation within a boy named Jesse Conrad (Alex Wiesendanger) in Seattle. While Jesse is fascinated with the monks and their way of life, his parents, Dean (Chris Isaak) and Lisa (Bridget Fonda), are wary, and that wariness turns into near-hostility when Norbu announces that he would like to take Jesse back with him to Bhutan to be tested. Jesse's father changes his mind however, after one of his close friends and colleagues commits suicide, seeming to realize that there could be more to life than work and money. He then decides to go to Bhutan with his son. In Nepal, two children who are also candidates are encountered, Raju (Rajuh Lal) and Gita (Greishma Makar Singh). 

In the story, the Lama Norbu relates Buddha's life story from a book entitled "Little Buddha," which is also enacted as a story within the movie. In the story, a Hindu prince called Siddhartha sets on a journey to achieve his goal. Mara, a jealous demon, senses that Siddhartha (Keanu Reeves) is about to attain enlightenment and sends his daughters to distract him. Failing to do so, he attempts to shatter Siddhartha's resolve and thus begins an onslaught of threats, intimidation and temptation. 

Mara summons a terrifying horde of monsters of every conceivable description but even something as horrific as this still leaves Siddhartha unmoved, unperturbed. Instead he transforms the weapons which these hosts throw at him into lotus petals which exude a lovely fragrance as they gently floated down to earth. Mara decides that Siddhartha will not deny himself and turns into his image in a reflection on a pool of water. Instead Siddhartha reaches and pulls the image out of the water. The classic Buddhist dialogue between Mara and Siddhartha takes place:

Mara: "You who go where others dare not; Will you be my God? The architect of my house?" 

Siddhartha: "Finally I meet the illusion of self; Your evil house will not be built again."

Mara: "But you live in me; I am your house."

Siddhartha: "O, trickster; phantom of my own ego, you are pure illusion. You, self, do not exist. The earth is my witness to this Supreme Enlightenment."

Lama Norbu explains that Siddhartha defeated an army of demons, simply through his observance of patience and tolerance. He achieved great peacefulness and compassion, through self-detachment from illusions.

In the end, it is found that all three children are reincarnations of the Lama Dorje, separate manifestations of his body (Raju), speech (Gita), and mind (Jesse). His reincarnation represents the three most important aspects of life. A funeral is held for Lama Norbu. The children distribute his ashes to respect Norbu's teaching of reincarnation through setting off the ashes in many places.

“Little Buddha” is being shown as part of Phoenix Square’s short season of films with themes or subject matter of religion or belief as part of Inter Faith Week 2011 (being held throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Sunday 20 – Saturday 26 November). Our Faiths Film Festival is being promoted in association with Leicester Council of Faiths, which is celebrating its 25^th anniversary during this period.

George M Ballentyne, Equality & Diversity Officer, Leicester Council of Faiths

Number of paying customers for Little Buddha this evening: 2 (and one of those is Javid Djalili, who came up from London to "soak up the atmosphere" as he put it. He'd seen Little Buddha before and wasn't intending to see it this evening, but he decided to do so in then end, in order to swell - i.e. double - the numbers. He said that he enjoyed the film more seeing it this evening than he did first time round - well, thank goodness for that!)

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 1: HIGHCROSS EXHIBITION

First day of our week-long exhibition in Highcross to celebrate Inter Faith Week, showcasing the eight member communities represented on Leicester Council of Faiths.

This is the third consecutive year we've been invited into Highcross to put on this display. This time though, things are refreshingly different. We're in a new location: bigger, more central - and (I'm glad to say) warmer! This time last year, there was snow on the ground and we were rather too close to the outer doors of the West Mall for comfort. The weather is milder this year, but we're also deeper in the heart of Highcross (just over the line that marks the start of the East Mall, for any retail facility anoraks out there). We're at the bottom of the central set of escalators, which makes this spot one of the most highly frequented in the whole building. The loos are just behind us too, which helps make this a popular destination.

We're able to put more into the display this year. We have trestle tables for the first time (three of them) we've borrowed the University of Leicester's "Faiths Trail" and "Mapping Faith and Place" banners (and a box of their guide books for the city centre walking tour of places of worship). Our set of pop-up banners is arranged in a completely new way, back-to-back in pairs. No doubt I'll be messing  around with the arrangement as the week goes on.

Rosemarie Fitton (who has helped bring down all the material from Bishop Street), Gursharan Thandi and Shobha Trivedi are first on duty at the stall today. Shobha's daughter, Natasha, helped out for a couple of hours at this event last year. We're joined by Shobha's friend, Prafulla Raja. They all help with the final stages of setting up so that we're fully operational by 1115.

I leave them to it just before midday, to take a smaller amount of exhibition material by taxi to Beauchamp College for their "Together" event. But no sooner have I arrived there than circumstances compel me to return to Highcross - though not before putting up our old banner and laying out some of our literature, leaving it all in the care of Council of Faiths Secretary Inderjit Gugnani, who is manning a stall for Oadby & Wigston Sikh community. Pity: I'd been looking forward to this one. I have to leave before Bobby's vegetarian restaurant has even started cooking.

I'm back at Highcross just before 1400, in time to relieve Gursharan and spend the next hour or so on the stall with Deirdre O'Sullivan. Deirdre is a Lecturer in Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. She's been instrumental in developing their "Mapping Faith and Place" project. The next hour passes quickly (for me, anyway!) with a very interesting chat about the project and related topics.

Just before it's time for Deirdre to go, two Highcross staff members arrive and start taking photos of our display. Jo and Laura (photo above) put together a web page with highlights of each weekend at Highcross, for staff. We'll be in the one they're compiling today, apparently!

In the outside world today, there's a procession between two Sikh gurdwaras, as part of the local celebration of Guru Nanak's birthday. The procession ends at Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Holy Bones, near Highcross. Mid-afternoon, we see a lot of Sikhs coming through Highcross and many of them stop and look at our display.

Since we first had our exhibition at Highcross in 2009, we've kept a "reflective journal", in which we ask our Inter Faith Week volunteers to record something of how they felt about the experience. We're doing so again this year. Here are some comments by some of those who took part on this first day of Inter Faith Week 2011:

"Always a learning experience - right at the start I spoke to a man who raised many questions about faiths - good starter!"

"Very few visitors to the exhibition, those that did were pleased with the information they could take away. Spoke at length to a teacher and passed on the light source / colander example explaining Hindu god(s), which she loved. One person went past muttering that the Christians didn't have a banner - but they had gone before I could catch them. Lovely talking to other volunteers." 

"I have enjoyed being a volunteer for the Interfaith Council. I have learnt a lot by just observing people's reactions when reading quotes from various faiths."

"Although there were many shoppers, very few bothered to look at the displays. Talked to a Christian lady who wanted to find our more about the Faiths Trail and a teacher who took away a lot of leaflets. Many people just waled through the exhibition! It was lovely talking to Rosemary and Gursharan (George was fun too!)" 

"Interesting being right in the middle of Leicester going by. People seem shy about coming in beyond the banners."

I'd say that's the sort of mix of comments I'd expect for the first day, especially when we've had a few people with us who haven't taken part in this event in previous years.

As well as our exhibition, the East Mall features a big promotion for Nintendo this weekend. Visitors are invited to join in the celebration of a host of imaginary characters who inhabit a fantasy realm, where they achieve astonishing feats of magical skill. These characters have millions of followers, brought together by a common devotion that overcomes differences of age, language, nationality and race. Their devotees expend  immeasurable amounts of time on the glorification of their idols and pour unimaginable treasure into the coffers of those who are the guardians of their legacy and the trustees of their future expansion toward global domination. I'm talking about Super Mario Brothers of course. Who did you think I meant, faithful reader?

While on my way to Beauchamp College around lunchtime, I receive a text message from my friend Javid Djalili, who says he's coming up from London later this afternoon, to attend the first screening (Little Buddha) in our Faiths Film Festival at Phoenix Square. I meet Javid off the train just before 1700, in time to dash down to Highcross so he can get a look at the exhibition (photo above). Just as we arrive there, I receive a call from Maureen Sier, who helped out on our very first Inter Faith Week back in 2009. While she and I talk about how the week is shaping up, it strikes me that this is a serendipitous moment; Maureen's daughter, Sonia, is a filmmaker who has worked on inter-faith themes and topics (see my blog entry about her film, Beyond Tolerance) - and she's called me, out of the blue, just when I'm with Javid, who is in the process of setting up Interfaith Focus, an international charitable foundation for inter-faith filmmakers! So I pass the phone to Javid. He and Maureen have never met, but they have what appears to be a convivial and useful conversation, which I am sure is to their mutual benefit.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 1: TOGETHER EVENT AT BEAUCHAMP COLLEGE

As I was unable to attend the Together event at Beauchamp College this afternoon for more than a quarter of an hour, I'm glad that Michelle Benn (of Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation) has permitted me to include this short piece which she wrote for the congregation's newsletter.

Faiths Together 

On November 20th, whilst others were engaged with Mitzvah Day, I took along a collection of Judaica and Jewish books and spent a most unexpected afternoon at Beauchamp College's "faiths together" event. Sandwiched between a Sikh stall portraying the lives of the Gurus and a Hindu stall displaying stunningly beautiful saris and with a good view of the Muslim stall opposite, with posters of Jerusalem, I took time to reflect on how much I love being part of multi-faith Leicester and how easy and good it felt to celebrate that which unites us, instead of engaging in that which divides us. Also were local Oadby churches and Leicester Council of Faiths. 

It's funny how standing behind a stall displaying religious artifacts encourages people to talk. I had the most interesting, inspiring and deeply moving encounters with people of deep faith and none: a woman with Jewish roots in search of her ancestry; an atheist man grappling with issues of spirituality; a woman coming to terms with her loss of faith when her minister was unable to support her grieving and a woman vicar discussing gender-biased translations of the Bible. 

I had gone with the expectation of talking about Judaism and returned full of wonder having listened to people's life stories; people eager to share their thought and feelings about God, religion and the human heart. Having the time and a space devoted to faith allowed all sorts of people to stop and reflect on the meaning of life ... and enjoy a samosa.

OCCUPY LEICESTER

On the way into BBC Radio Leicester I pass three guys wrapped up against the cold in the Occupy Leicester camp. Last time I saw this, it was just one tent up against the Clock Tower. It's bigger now and has moved to the middle of the pedestrianised High Street. They give me a shout as I go past and I tell them I'll be back in half an hour or so and have a chat with them. Better than that, I bring them hot food and coffee from McDonald's (is there irony in there somewhere?) I talk to them about the blog, ask their permission to take a picture to put on here - and invite them in to see our exhibition in Highcross sometime during the coming week (since they're camped right outside there).

Join Occupy Leicester's Facebook group.

Follow Occupy Leicester on Twitter: @OccupyLeicester