| Wednesday, 4 Apr | ||
| 6:30 pm |
A joint venture between UNE Peace Studies, Studio View Productions and the Regional Australia Bank.
A film of hope from the depths of despair: For immediate release.
A Texas prison is an unlikely setting for an educational program about the transformative power of peace, but multi award winning documentary, Inside Peace focuses on a peace education program at the Dominguez State prison in San Antonio Texas.
Filmmaker Cynthia Fitzpatrick chronicles the lives of several inmates both inside the prison as well as their lives following release as they explore the possibility of change. Fitzpatrick says the peace program impacted the prisoners on many levels from a reduction in violence in the overall prison population to a reduction in recidivism: “It did spill over eventually into the jail itself because the Warden as well as the Captain of Education and Captain of the Guard said to me that they noticed the effect that it was having generally in the population and that there were less confrontations between inmates.”
Globally, the Peace Education Program is run in 74 countries in 35 languages. Incredibly, Ghana adopted the program for all their correctional facilities they were so impressed! Robert Koehler of the Huffington Post writes: “These stories bleed through Inside Peace, and they are crucial to it, but they’re only part of what the film is about. The men manage to take the message to heart that they have value as people – no simple lesson… This is where, for the viewer, the awe comes in.”
The Peace Education Program helps people discover their own inner resources, innate tools for living such as inner strength, choice, and hope–and the possibility of personal peace. The film illustrates how effective the program is for hardened criminals with intergenerational experiences of hardship, poverty, drugs, violence and disadvantage. If it can help these men, it can help anyone.
“Inside Peace” Premiere NSW Country screening
4th April 2018, 6.30pm for 7.00pm, Belgrave Cinema, 145 Dumaresq St, Armidale.
A Panel Discussion follows the screening. The discussion will explore issues raised in
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