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September 10, 2008

Project Rebirth: Film and Understanding Our Common Bonds of Loss

9/11 Anniversary Symposium

Project Rebirth: Film and Understanding Our Common Bonds of Loss explored the use of film and other media to help individuals and communities rebuild from catastrophic events and break down barriers to interreligious and intercultural understanding. This was an inaugural event in a new partnership between Georgetown and Project Rebirth. This major film chronicles the strength of the human spirit coping with disaster in the aftermath of 9/11 and documents the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and the lives of ten individuals impacted by 9/11. Project Rebirth is poised in the coming year to gain international attention, both as a wide-release film, and also by providing video content for the World Trade Center 9/11 Museum.



September 10, 2008 
6:30-8:00pm
Gaston Hall
Screening of a 30-minute preview of the major-motion picture Project Rebirth, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Jim Whitaker, President of Production of Imagine Entertainment and a Georgetown alumnus, and Georgetown President John J. DeGioia, who is a member of the Project Rebirth Board of Directors.

September 11, 2008 
Copley Hall Formal Lounge

Panel 1: The Power of Film to Share Universal Loss
10:30am - 12:00pm
Panelists explored the intercultural and interreligious challenges we still face, seven years after 9/11, investigating the ways narrative, especially films like Project Rebirth, can help us face those challenges.  How can film and narrative help in overcoming barriers to dialogue and understanding between persons of different cultural and religious backgrounds, both in the US and abroad?

Panelists:
Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, (senior advisor for Inter-Religious Affairs at Interfaith Alliance and former Episcopal Bishop of Washington)
Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, (US Director of Interreligious Affairs for American Jewish Committee)
Radwan Masmoudi, (President of the Center of the Study of Islam & Democracy) 
Preetmohan Singh, (Georgetown alumnus, Director of Legislative Affairs, Interfaith Alliance, and Producer, (A Dream in Doubt)
Daniel Tutt, (Outreach Coordinator for Unity Productions Foundation)  
Chester Gillis, moderator, (Amaturo Chair in Catholic Studies, Professor of Theology, and Interim Dean of Georgetown College)

Panel 2: Coping With Violent Loss, Our Common Bonds of Grief
1:30-3:00pm
Dr. Fathali M Moghaddam, Professor in Psychology, hosted a conversation with Israeli and Palestinian representatives from "Parent's Circle," an organization bridging the divide between Israeli and Palestinian parents directly affected by violence in the Middle East. This panel addressed the personal dimensions of tragedy and loss in catastrophic events and ways to achieve healing, individual and communal rebuilding, and strategies for maintaining inter-cultural peace during crisis moments. 

Panelists:
Fathali Moghaddam, (Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University)
Aaron Barnea, (Director of International Affairs, Parent's Circle)
Aziz Abu Sarah, (Chairman of the Parent's Circle Families Forum)

Sponsors: Berkley Center, Office of the President, Georgetown College Film and Media Studies Initiative, and The Georgetown Entertainment Media Alliance

Featuring

Jim Whitaker

Jim Whitaker

Jim Whitaker founded Project Rebirth shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Project Rebirth now has 14 cameras that are documenting the historic rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in 35mm film. Jim has also interviewed nine people who were impacted by the event and has recently spent more than a year and a half to complete the Project Rebirth documentary, which combines the minute-by-minute redevelopment of the site and represents the first long term film record of people coping with grief and trauma. He is currently the Chairman and Producer of Whitaker Entertainment at Walt Disney Studios. Previously, Jim was the President of Motion Pictures at Imagine Entertainment and completed notable films, such as CINDERELLA MAN, FLIGHT PLAN, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, 8 MILE and many others. Jim began his career as a documentary filmmaker to raise money for nonprofit organizations. He wrote and directed LOADED, an award-winning public service announcement against drinking and driving, in memory of a Georgetown University classmate.

Participants

Aaron Barnea

Aaron Barnea

Aaron Barnea is a member of the board of the Parents Circle-Families Forum. He joined the organization following the death of his youngest son Noam, who was serving in the Israeli Army as an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist) soldier ...

John DeGioia

John DeGioia

John J. DeGioia is President of Georgetown University (since 2001) and a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. As the first lay president of a Jesuit university he places emphasis on sustaining and strengthening Georgetown’s Catho...
Chester Gillis

Chester Gillis

Chester Gillis is the Dean of Georgetown College and the Founding Director of the Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue within the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. A Professor of Theology, Gillis is the Amaturo Cha...
Radwan Masmoudi

Radwan Masmoudi

Radwan A. Masmoudi is President of the Center of the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), a Washington-based non-profit dedicated to promoting freedom, democracy, and good governance in the Arab and Muslim world, as well as improving relations betwe...
Fathali Moghaddam

Fathali Moghaddam

Fathali Moghaddam is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown and is an expert on culture and intergroup conflict, with a particular focus on the psychology of globalization, radicalization, and terrorism. He is an expert in the are...
Daniel Tutt

Daniel Tutt

Daniel Tutt is the project director for 20,000 Dialogues, a national interfaith and cross-cultural dialogue project sponsored by the Unity Productions Foundation, which creates high-quality films that increase understanding and dialogue among the ...
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