Film Fest at HDS Spotlights 'Important Stories That Need to Be Heard'

Harvard students and independent filmmakers recently showcased their original works during Harvard Divinity School's fifth Film Fest.

The festival, held this spring on the Harvard Divinity School campus, was founded as a student-led initiative with the belief that films and filmmaking are important tools for advancing academic scholarship. The festival provides the opportunity for students and others to explore the intersectionality of film and faith.

“HDS is the perfect platform for a festival like this one, which is about religion—or faith—and film,” says Mario Cader-Frech, MRPL candidate, and president of the HDS Film Fest. “It serves as an incredible platform or steppingstone for deeper and longer studies. I think all of the movies this year are trying to bring the message of finding some type of light and sharing it forward.”

The festival kicked off with a screening of Angel Studios’ new movie, Cabrini, directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde.

Cabrini provides a glimpse into the humanitarian efforts of Francesca Cabrini, or “Mother Cabrini,” in New York City in the 1890s and early 1900s. Mother Cabrini is remembered today, alongside her many remarkable acts of kindness, as a saint in the Catholic Church.

The screening was followed by a panel discussion with Cabrini’s writer and producer Rod Barr and Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX and Harvard IQSS Fellow and College Lecturer. The conversation was moderated by Armando Fumagalli, chair of the HDS Film Festival panels and Professor of Semiotics and Director of the master's degree program in International Screenwriting and Production at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy.

During the second day of the film festival, independent filmmakers, students, and a professional director were featured.

The three independent films were Smile4Kime (dir. Elena Guzman), Fanm Man Mon: Women of the Mountain Lands (dir. Love Souley), and Te Puna Ora (dir. Kiran Jandu). During the post-screening panel discussion, director Kiran Jandu noted that all three of the female-directed pictures highlight “the divine feminine.”

Each of them celebrates the lives and experiences of women among their friends and within their local communities.

Smile4Kime is a particularly powerful tribute to director Elena Guzman’s friend, Kimberley “Kime” Edwards, who passed away in 2019. The film seamlessly shifts between interview sessions with Edwards and beautiful animated segments that show what words alone cannot express.

“Part of my commitment as a scholar is using film,” said Guzman, a 2023-24 research associate at the HDS Women’s Studies in Religion Program. “It is scholarship. I call my film a living altar. It’s not only a memorialization of my friend, Kimberely, but it’s also a way for her to continue to do the work she wanted to do when she was on this physical plane.”

The award-winning documentary Beyond Utopia played to a packed house. The documentary mainly follows the perilous escapes of the Roh family, with the close assistance of pastor Seungeun Kim, and of Soyeon Lee’s 17-year-old son, Han Jeong-cheong, from North Korea. After an incredibly moving and gripping two-hour runtime, Fumagalli moderated a Q&A session with director Madeleine Gavin.

“At a certain point, I remember I woke up one morning and was like, ‘This film has to be made,” recalled Gavin. “We need to find a way to bring North Korean [civilian] voices forward.”

The final part of the festival showcased five student-directed pictures: Integrate.Me (dir. Tristan Angieri, MDiv candidate), Firebird Singing (dir. Kythe Heller, ThD candidate), Eastern Ways (dir. Robbie Rhodes, academic media specialist at HDS and Harvard Extension School student), Irene O’ Bannon (dir. Susan Young, student at Harvard Extension School), and Tides of the Eternal Seas (dir. Eve Woldemikael, MDiv candidate).

Angieri’s Integrate.Me details the director’s own journey battling post-traumatic stress disorder, going from despair to new life.

“I suppose the experience of making the film was part of my integration journey, which I consider a spiritual practice,” Angieri recalled. “Throughout [filming] I was also working with a team, digging into my vulnerabilities, discussing things I would have prior just kept hidden. It allowed me to expand and share these things in a creative way.”

The student panel served as a fitting conclusion to the festival, which continues to grow in scope and participation by both HDS and Harvard community members, as well as an interested public.

Rhodes, who is also a board member for the festival, sees the Film Fest as a way to provide a platform for “important stories that need to be heard.”

“If we want to make an impact in the world, we need to take advantage of the resources that we have and use them to do something positive,” Rhodes said. “The films we feature are centered around religious literacy, social justice, and community.”

—by Suan Sonna, HDS news correspondent