“Can Film Bring the World Together?”

Some posts ago I said our purpose was to make you aware of the relationships among cultures.

Jehane Noujaim, who is an Egyptian American documentary film director, had a bigger propose: to change the world by creating a day in which the world come together, through the power of film. Her wish originated Pangea Day, a name easy to understand once the point is to unite people from different cultures and from different continents.

Pangea Day was a four-hour worldwide live program broadcasted from Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro for millions around the world via TV, Internet and mobile phones.

This event, which happened in May 10th, 2008, involved music, speakers and, of course, films. Those were mostly short films which made us think about a vast diversity of people from different background: since remarkable stories such as William Kamkwmamba’s, a young Malawian man who built windmills to generate electricity to his family’s home, after he was dropped out of school for lack of money; to the short film “Meninos” which shows issues a Brazilian boy faces daily: bullies and indifferent girls.

On Pangea Day, were also featured animation films, always with a lesson. One of those is “Papiroflexia” (Spanish for origami), which reminds us of our power to shape the world. Take a look.



Pangea Day also make us reflect about discrimination, integration, war, peace, sad and happy stories. It is certainly an empathy exercise: in which we can experience to “live inside so many other heads”.

So, Pangea Day was a celebration of the power of movie. It tried to change minds and to move us to action. It’s a good example of how globalization can be positive (heterogenization, in this case), making as aware of the diversity of people and cultures.

If you miss the event, find more about it - www.pangeaday.org