Greetings,
We are thrilled to have you join us for our second annual ACT Human Rights Film Festival. We know it will create moments of communication, community, and engagement. ACT encapsulates liberal arts education in its oldest and most important meanings. Liberal comes from the Latin root liberales meaning to be free and not constrained, while art comes from artes meaning learning and practice. ACT teaches us about freedom and offers opportunities to practice what we learn as we gather through empathy with people like and unlike us. ACT also demonstrates the centrality of communication to the arts of freedom. The films we will see are powerful, multi-sensory modes of communication that help us move beyond ourselves and our own experiences. Our interactions before and after the films, our dialogues with the festival guests, and our discussions with each other can remake ourselves and our world. The films and conversations we will share weave together hope and hurt, freedom and fear, possibility and paucity. ACT, we believe, is part of these very real, very human entanglements. May this experience awaken, connect, and transform us all.
Yours,
Greg Dickinson
Chair, Department of Communication Studies