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Boston College students have traveled across the globe, from Mt. Kilimanjaro to Chile and from Haiti to Israel, over the past year to document social justice issues under the aegis of the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Film, which marked its 10th anniversary at BC this spring.
All 12 of this year’s Salmanowitz films were screened at last month’s Arts Festival before a standing room-only crowd. Among the films shown were “Porters on the Stone of God,” an investigative look at the working conditions of the porters who assist guide groups climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The porters, who make six US dollars a day, often are forced to climb with shoddy equipment and have their tips stolen by their guides, according to the film’s co-producers, senior political science major Benjamin Key ’11 (writer/director) and film studies and communication major Chris Battaglia ’11 (cameraman and editor).
“The system is corrupt from the top down in many cases,said Key. “But there are ethical companies, and there are organizations — most significantly the Kilimanjaro Assistance Project — who are helping. We wanted to get the word out about this issue, because really, it's in the hands of the tourists. An American, for example, who wants to climb, should simply climb with an ethical company – and the film explains how to figure that out — and they should tip their porters directly. Those two simple things make all the difference.”
Seniors Brianna LeRose, a 2011 Arts Council award winner, and Elizabeth Rodriguez went to the US-Mexican border in Arizona to document the story of female immigrants for their film “The Other Side of the Fence.”
“We were shocked about how serious anti-immigration policies are in Arizona. We had no idea how extreme they were, and how severely they are impacting many people's lives, immigrants or not,” said LeRose, a film studies major and an international studies minor. “We wanted to show the perspective of some immigrant women themselves. Through my Salmanowitz project, I’ve become educated and very passionate about immigration policy.”
Launched in March 2001, the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Film aims to encourage the production of social justice films focused on issues of human rights, civic concerns and acts of moral courage, providing role models for youth worldwide. Directed by Fine Arts Professor and documentary filmmaker John Michalczyk, the program — named for a Swiss businessman who helped individuals escape Nazi Germany in World War II — is funded via a renewable grant from the Jacques Salmanowitz family in Switzerland under the aegis of the Foundation for Moral Courage (formerly Documentaries International Film and Video Foundation) of Washington, DC.
The Salmanowitz Program helps student filmmakers by funding travel and living expenses, loaning camera equipment, and through mentoring and workshops.
Senior David Tapia, a political science major and film studies and German minor, shined a light on the working conditions of miners with a film focusing on the women connected to some of the Chilean miners who were trapped for months back in 2010 .
“By investigating the consequences that the working conditions and the accident had on the miners and their families, I hope that viewers understand the incident’s far-reaching human implications. By drawing a connection between the working conditions at the mine and the accident, I also hope that audiences will feel a greater sense of responsibility to ensure the security of workers who perform vital economic roles,” said Tapia. “I am grateful to the program for encouraging students to produce films with a focus on social issues because this turned out to be an eye-opening experience.”
Past Salmanowitz student film projects have examined revolution in Bolivia, racism in Australia, the construction of a mosque in Boston, AIDS in South Africa, the disabled in Uganda, and the life of Nazi resistance leader Sophie Scholl, among other topics.
Michalczyk, who chairs Fine Arts and co-directs the Film Studies Program with Fine Arts Professor Rev. Richard Blake, SJ, noted that students’ projects have grown more ambitious over the years.
“BC is opening students’ minds to global issues, global plights and you see this influence in their film projects. The students’ technical skills are more advanced and the result is a more professional finished project.”
The program is a signature part of the evolution of the Film Studies Program at Boston College, which began as an interdisciplinary minor in 1983 and was elevated to a major in 1998. This year, there were 50 film studies majors and 38 students with film studies minors. Earlier this month, 13 seniors premiered their final film projects at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.