Beyond Empathy Rites of Passage accepted for film festivals
Beyond Empathy's Film "Rites of Passage", which was partly funded by a successful crowd-funding campaign, has just been accepted into the Woods Hole Film Festival in Massachussetts USA and Auburn International Children and Youth Film Festival, Australia. Moviemaker Magazine has named the Woods Hole Film Festival as one of the 25 coolest festivals in the world. The festival is a showcase of independent filmmakers work with a spotlight on emerging talent and the festival selection process has an emphasis on cinematography. A win for crowd-funders and movie-makers alike - congratulations to everyone involved!
Rites of Passage is an exploration at the borderlands of feature film-making to create poetic, impressionistic images of young people's coming of age through adversity and hardship. The project involves a cast and crew of disadvantaged young people in the Illawarra and is designed as a journey for its participants to learn technical and personal skills as they explore stories about growing up.
The film does not have a pre-conceived script but is being made collaboratively with the young people and director Phillip Crawford. The stories are created from the experiences of the participants: the things they say and do, the way they act and their own rites of passage. With the film being shot over three years, the young cast literally grows with their characters in real time.
Phillip directed the award-winning hybrid film HURT and is a founding member of BE. Kriv Stenders, director of Red Dog, is the film’s creative consultant. The film is due to be released in 2013.
The young people making Rites of Passage are also making their own short films in the Directions project. The participants are writing and directing their own stories to develop their skills in decision-making, organisation and communication.