Posted by jp in DAY 2
Obama and the Spirit of the Dance
Fittingly, on the eve of an historic inauguration, two films about racial relations stir the discussion even more—and a bunch of theology students join the conversation.
| Originally Posted 01/20/09 @ www.christianitytoday.com
PARK CITY, Utah—It is inauguration day and there is a definite “Obama anticipation” in the streets at Sundance. Signs are tacked on store fronts inviting event goers to step in to watch history unfold. Filmmakers who received the Tuesday morning slot were sweating. And bus conversations interweave the new administration with the films of the day.
 A scene from ‘Prom Night’  |
While today’s historic event certainly marks a shift in our nation’s posture toward racial inequality, independent filmmakers don’t want to assume our racial struggles are over. Prom Night in Mississippihas created quite a buzz for documenting the first-ever racially integrated prom at Charleston (MS) High School—in 2008. Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, a Mississippi resident, offered to fund the prom in 1997 under one condition: It had to be fully integrated. He was ignored. Freeman made the offer again last year, and this time the school took him up on the offer.
Toe to Toe tells the tale of an on-again-off-again friendship between two lacrosse teammates at a prep school—a wealthy white girl and a Princeton-bound African-American girl, who happens to live on the “other side” of town, one of Washington D.C.’s poorest areas. The story not only reveals the prominent racial divides that continue to exist in our cities, but in our schools as well. Why do lunch rooms still look segregated? Why is an American high school just now having its first racially-mixed prom?
 A scene from ‘Toe to Toe’ |
One of the most intriguing aspects of Toe to Toe is the statistic that inspired it—that 87% of interracial friendships for American teenagers end at the age of 14. The film prompted memories of my own childhood and some of the closest friendships that eventually ceased. Is this really a commentary on children or the adults that lay the constructs? Is the filmmaker the prophet? Do these realities speak to the Church as well?
Preceding the screening, Toe to Toe director Emily Abt said, “I hope you like it. But if you don’t, I at least hope you talk about it.”
And this is the beauty of Sundance, where every director and writer begs for dialogue to surround their film. But I am less convinced we are trained as film viewers (and Christians) to truly discuss film. We tend to walk into a movie with our minds already formed, or simply measure a film by its mere “entertainment” value.
Enter the Windrider Film Forum.
Windrider was started by John and Ed Priddy (of Priddy Brothers Entertainment) in order to provide space for just this: continued conversation. Through the generosity and partnership of the Mountain Vineyard Church in downtown Park City, theology and film students alongside filmmakers are given a space to converge, right in the heart of Sundance.
When Christians hear that a bunch of theology students have set up shop at one of the world’s most secular or “liberal” venues, they applaud the attempts to “bring God” to such a pagan culture. But that’s not what Windrider is about. In his book How (Not) to Speak of God, Peter Rollins writes, “Instead of bringing God to unreached peoples and unreached places, I find countless missionaries who say that while this was what they once thought, time and again they find that these unreached places are the very sites where they must go to find God and to be reached.”
The Windrider name is inspired by the Hebraic word ruach, which means “spirit.” And this forum is simply an invitation to ride the Spirit that blows. And having experienced the festival scene and Windrider multiple times, we have no intentions of “bringing God” to Sundance—for we are certain he is already here.
