greater responsibility

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program



With technology advancing as quickly as it is, people are more and more rapidly gaining access into various cultures and insights. The ability to cross borders is accomplished with a click of the mouse nowadays. However, with this great access comes great responsibility. Today, we, humans, are looked at as mere consumers that are fed message after message about the society we live in as well as other society. This becomes a problem when we look at who is in control of giving the message. Knowing that we cannot separate the message from the messenger, we must critically think about the message itself. We must ask ourselves, "who is sending the message?" "what is their ideals?" "what do they want us to see?" Depending on the answer to the question, we might have to use caution in watching and consuming what we do. Our views of things can be greatly slanted depending on the lens that we see it through. Sundance Film is one organization that understands this and sees the need for true, raw storytelling. These independent films are not heightened by the stereotypical roles, characters, and themes and instead allow the message to be heard through a true voice. The organization tries to cultivate true voices. In the video it says: "They do not tell you what to do and not do, they ask you 'what are you going to say?'" As teachers, we need to cultivate the same voice in our students and ourselves. We are the future and if we can grab media and technology by the horns and direct in a way that builds people up instead of breaking people down, the world could be something special.