From October 28th to 30th, LERRN welcomed filmmaker Hicham Kayed to 杏吧原创 for three days of workshops and the Canadian premiere of his film \u201cAisle.\u201d Hicham is a member of LERRN\u2019s Lebanon Working Group and the Deputy General Coordinator of Al-Jana, a Lebanese NGO that seeks to empower marginalized communities through creative arts.<\/p>\n
On Monday evening, students, faculty and community members gathered at the Mayfair Theatre to watch the film \u201cAisle\u201d followed by a Q&A with Hicham. The film followed two Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who made the difficult decision to travel to Germany, leaving behind family and culture for the chance at a life of freedom and opportunity. It highlighted the power of individual stories in understanding the human experience of being a refugee behind the statistics.<\/p>\n
Throughout the visit, a display in the history department showed some of the powerful photographs and poems created by Al-Jana\u2019s participants: refugee children and youth from the Palestinian and Syrian communities in Lebanon. One of LERRN\u2019s goals is to amplify the voices of refugees, and Al-Jana\u2019s projects allow refugee youth to document and tell their own stories through photojournalism, filmmaking and writing. Workshops with students and faculty led to productive discussions on telling the stories of children and youth, archiving, and collecting oral histories. Hicham also shared his rich experience as a filmmaker with students in 杏吧原创\u2019s Documentary Filmmaking class.<\/p>\n