News

First Graduating Class of the “Global Filmmaking for Peace and Development” Course Will Take Place in Presence of FEMIS President Raoul Peck
Santo Domingo, June 22, 2010

Raoul Peck, Haitian filmmaker and President of France’s national film school FEMIS, will attend the first graduation of film students who attended the “Global Filmmaking for Peace and Development” project sponsored by the Global Media Arts Institute of FUNGLODE. The graduation ceremony will take place at 8:00 pm at the Mauricio Báez Club where the 29 participating students will screen their short films.

A month of intense learning activity in which students from the United States, Israel, Iran, India, Palestine, Haiti, Senegal and the Dominican Republic learned how to make film for peace and development is ending this Friday June 25 with the screening of their short films. The graduation ceremony is being held in the Mauricio Báez Club at 8:00 pm.

Raoul Peck, Haitian filmmaker and President of France’s national film school known as FEMIS, will be present at the graduation. Mr. Peck will begin his visit to the DR with a meeting with the Global Media Arts Institute (GMAI) of the Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) to discuss French collaboration with the organization.

Peck, recently designated president to the FEMIS (École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers de l'Image et du Son), met last month in Paris with the delegation from the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival who were attending the Cannes Film Festival 2010.

This Friday’s students make up the fifth group of graduates from the course “Introduction to the audiovisual production: Film and TV” which, this year, enjoyed the incorporation of the “Global Filmmaking for Peace and Development” (GFPD) project.

The now 5-year-old program developed by GMAI and One Race Global Films Foundation entered into a new phase of its objectives of training young people to work in the film and television industry.

Irving Vincent and George Argento, director and technical coordinator New York University’s Opportunity Programs, are instructors in the project which is being given in the classrooms at FUNGLODE.

The GFPD project seeks to integrate young people from various countries around the world into the learning and creative processes necessary to make films, shorts or documentaries that essentially contain a message of peace, family values and development.

Twelve Dominican students, chosen through an open call, participated in the program.

Understanding that the audiovisual medium has the capacity to give a voice to those who have none and to establish a powerful instrument to spread a message of peace, development and democratic values around the world, GMAI has incorporated this training course for the production of film for peace and development.

Raoul Peck’s Visit
For FUNGLODE, the presence of Mr. Peck at the graduation ceremony is one more step in the direction of achieving its initiative of promoting the film industry in the Dominican Republic.

Born in Haiti and raised in the Zaire and France, Raoul Peck has become one of the most distinguished members of the international film community. French President Nicolás Sarkozy recently appointed him to lead France’s national film school, FEMIS.

FEMIS, previously known as the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques, is headquartered in Paris. It offers courses on artistic research, professional development and technical training. Former FEMIS students have gone on to win some of the film world’s most prestigious awards such as the Palm d’Or from Cannes; the León de Oro at Venice’s Film Festival and the Golden Bear at Berlin’s International Film Festival.

FEMIS is the most highly awarded film school in the world, surpassing Beijing’s Film School and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.