{"id":19671,"date":"2014-03-28T11:10:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T15:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=19671"},"modified":"2014-04-09T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-09T20:09:14","slug":"award-winning-filmmaking-shows-powerful-role-of-media-in-sparking-deep-conversations-and-social-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/award-winning-filmmaking-shows-powerful-role-of-media-in-sparking-deep-conversations-and-social-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning filmmaking shows powerful role of media in sparking deep conversations and social change"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a new approach to promoting peaceful communities, graduate students at Eastern Mennonite University are leading conversation around an award-winning documentary about people who collaborated to paint massive murals in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

A unique twist to the documentary, Concrete, Steel and Paint<\/i>, is that the painters include men incarcerated in a maximum-security prison as well as crime victims.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers, Cindy Burstein and Tony Heriza, consulted with Howard Zehr<\/a>, distinguished professor of restorative justice<\/a> at EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP)<\/a>, as they prepared to distribute the film. It covers the journey of these artists toward profound insights on the nature of crime \u2013 and reconciliation \u2013 during their collaboration, and explores how the criminal justice system affects everyone involved in the project.<\/p>\n

After its 2009 release, Concrete, Steel and Paint<\/i> found a wide audience within restorative justice circles. In 2012, Burstein and Heriza began working with CJP to use the film as a starting point for dialogue about using restorative practices to effect change on the wider social level that their film explores.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmbedding our restorative justice work in peacebuilding is one of our unique niches,\u201d said CJP professor Carl Stauffer<\/a>, co-director of EMU\u2019s Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Carl<\/a>
Carl Stauffer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While restorative justice<\/a> is often conceptualized on the personal level between individual victims and offenders, Stauffer said that CJP is equally interested in broader use of restorative practices to address violence caused by large structures like the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

Sarah Roth Shank and Jonathan Swartz, both master\u2019s students at CJP<\/a>, and two other classmates have led dialogues at several events where the film was shown, including the 2013 National Conference on Restorative Justice in Toledo, Ohio. Future students will have opportunity to continue leading similar dialogues around the film, both for practical facilitation experience and to explore the use of restorative practices to confront systemic injustice, Stauffer said.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers\u2019 enthusiasm for these dialogues began after they worked with Zehr to lead one at the Concrete, Steel and Paint<\/i> premiere in Philadelphia. After seeing hundreds of strangers erupt into conversation with one another after the screening, they were inspired to continue exploring how their film could continue to spark conversation among and between crime victims, criminal justice reform advocates and other stakeholders, as well as motivate them into action.<\/p>\n

CJP has incorporated the role of media and social change through dialogue into its curriculum. At its annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI)<\/a> in 2014, two courses co-taught by EMU professors and graduates of CJP will relate directly to these themes.<\/p>\n