Tereza Barta
Students Teaching Students: CILECT Film Library
Artistic expression has always tried to find the common denominator of humanity. To express the human condition beyond cultural, socio-historical and geographical differences. And yet, even though man's biological destiny is the same all over the world, historical, economic, geographical and political conditions, values and traditions make the destinies of individual people or the societies to which they belong vastly different.
How one can introduce young people in Canada to the struggle for equal rights for women in Afghanistan? How one can sensitize young people born in a peaceful and wealthy country to the plight of other young people born in poor countries plagued by armed conflict?
In my presentation, I aim to demonstrate the vital role that the exchange of films produced by students in film programs around the world and facilitated by CILECT, through the CILECT Prize initiative, plays in opening not only cultural but also emotional horizons. I will impart how the films made by students from other parts of the world have been understood by my students and their importance in opening new and deeper understandings of the world and the complex destinies of people. I will also talk about my role as pedagogue in decoding the subtlety of different cinematic expressions which belong to these distinct cultural backgrounds.
Tereza Barta has extensive experience as a director, writer, and researcher. For 12 years she was a writer and a director at the Romanian National Film Board in Bucharest. In 1989 she fled the Communist regime of her native country, Romania, and in 1991 she settles in Canada. Her first Canadian documentary is honored with the Gemini Award, the higher award for a Canadian Television production. Her films have been screened at prestigious International festivals such as Bilbao (Spain), Leipzig and Oberhausen (Germany), Bucharest (Romania), Montreal (Canada), Chicago (USA). Currently she is an Associate Professor in the Film Department at York University, Toronto, Canada where she has passed to many generations of students - and continues to do so - all her passion and unbend enthusiasm for the seventh art.