Film Festival provides global exposure and dialogue

Free event connects Missouri to the world

The Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers will host the Third Goal International Film Festival in Chamber Auditorium at the University of Missouri Student Center  on February 4, 2012.

The Third Goal International Film Festival is a showcase of films covering diverse topics of worldwide significance; each film was either impacted by a Peace Corps volunteer or features significant issues faced in the countries hosting volunteers. Films are followed by speakers’ panels featuring Returned Peace Corps Volunteers from the highlighted region(s) as well as country nationals.  

This year’s feature film, “Bush League,” is a character driven ethnographic survey of a tiny village in Northern Malawi. Intimate dramas unfold in the lives of four villagers who are all members of the local soccer team.

Chatwa, the team captain, is an ambitious farmer who is in deep with the local bank but torrential rains are destroying his crops. Jake, an American Peace Corps volunteer who sponsors the team, is pushed to his limits when the politics of the game affect his school construction project. Jacqueline, the head cheerleader, suspects her husband is cheating on her and is concerned he'll give her HIV. Mlawa is a midfielder and an expectant father who's gravely concerned about the infection growing on his leg. Each must face their individual challenges as the team battles to win the local championship.

The film is by director Cy Kuckenbaker, recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for filmmaking in 2004 and a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Lithuania from 2000-2002. Kuckenbaker will attend the film festival to discuss his film and his Peace Corps experience along with Jake, the film’s main character. Kuckenbaker received his MFA in filmmaking from the California Institute of the Arts.  His film “The Orphans” premiered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2006 and went on to screen at the Pompidou in Paris, the Los Angeles Int., Calgary Int., Edmonton Int., and the Viennale film festivals. He financed his first feature film, “Bush League,” by working for the U.S. State Department in Iraq for 21 months. He teaches film and photography San Diego City College.

Kuckenbaker will discuss his craft at a filmmaker’s workshop Friday, February 3 from 6-7:30 p.m. at Columbia Access Television’s Studio A on Stephens College campus. The free workshop is open to the public. 

The Third Goal International Film Festival is hosted by the Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and made possible by Columbia Access Television and the Missouri Arts Council, the University of Missouri Departments of Anthropology, Russian Studies, Master’s of Public Health program, and the Division of Applied Social Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

Schedule of Films

1:00 p.m. Feature Film “Bush League”

3:00 p.m.  “To Educate a Girl”

In 2000, 110 million children in the world were not in school—two thirds of them were girls. In 2010, filmmakers Frederick Rendina and Oren Rudavsky traveled to Nepal and Uganda, two countries emerging from conflict and struggling with poverty, to find the answer to one question: What does it take to educate a girl? Framed by the United Nations global initiative to provide equal access to education for girls by 2015, “To Educate a Girl” takes a ground-up and visually stunning view of that effort through the eyes of girls out of school, starting school or fighting against the odds to stay in school.

4:45 p.m. “Peace Corps Shorts”

A yearly favorite, “Peace Corps Shorts” is a compilation of YouTube videos by Peace Corps volunteers which feature wide variations in housing, climate, and experiences. Compiled by Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Don Spiers, “Peace Corps Shorts” is a hit year after year.

5:30 p.m. “Frontrunner”

The setting: Afghanistan’s first election—ever. In the aftermath of 9/11, America’s military might has set the stage. But who will determine the fate of democracy in Afghanistan? Is it possible, a woman running for President? Where unspeakable cruelty to women had become part of day-to-day life under the Taliban? “Vote for the Mother,” Dr. Massouda Jalal shouts to the crowd. “Frontrunner” tells the heroic story of this medical doctor and mother of three and the first Presidential bid by a woman since the ouster of the Taliban.

7:00 p.m. “Paradise in Peril”

The Río Platáno Biosphere Reserve, Honduras – home to the highest level of tropical biodiversity in Central America, homeland of the Pech and Miskito Indians, and keeper of hundreds of unexplored archeological sites – is in danger. Non-Indians are invading the Reserve from all sides, poaching endangered wildlife and fish, slashing and burning ancient forests to sow pastures, and forcing indigenous inhabitants off their ancestral lands. Paradise in Peril follows an expedition organized to document the destruction of this UNESCO World Heritage Site and collect testimony from the native peoples who rely on the Río Platáno for survival.

About the Third Goal International Film Festival

The Third Goal International Film Festival features films made by or about the work of Peace Corps volunteers in an effort to share their experiences overseas with fellow Americans.  In John F. Kennedy's original mission statement for the Peace Corps, Goal #3 -- "Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans."

About the Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers was formed in 1996 as part of the 35th anniversary of the Peace Corps. It now has contact with more than 175 returned volunteers in the Central-Missouri area. Learn more at morpcv.org or email centralmorpcvs@gmail.com.

The Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Association is affiliated with the National Peace Corps Association.

Our objectives are to:

•Educate people about the Peace Corps

•Act as a resource for people interested in joining the Peace Corps

•Promote volunteerism in the community

•Support currently serving Peace Corps volunteers from Central Missouri through small project grants

Directions to MU Student Center

1. •From I-70
   

1. ◦Exit 128 at U.S. 63 highway. Proceed south (signs will say toward Jefferson City). Exit Stadium Blvd, turn right heading west. Turn right (north) on College Avenue, and left (west) on Hospital Drive, then right (north) on Hitt St. Parking available at Virginia Parking Garage immediately on your right. MU Student Center is one block north of Virginia Parking Garage: 901 Rollins St.
   

2. •From U.S. 63
   

1. ◦Exit west on Stadium Blvd. Turn right (north) on College Avenue, and left (west) on Hospital Drive, then right (north) on Hitt St. Parking available at Virginia Parking Garage immediately on your right. MU Student Center is one block north of Virginia Parking Garage: 901 Rollins St.