Santa Fe New Mexican | 2004

Global perspectives

By Jim Bowman

Kids across North America are getting a taste of international cinema thanks to the efforts of a New Mexico-based organization that believes movies foster greater cross-cultural understanding.

The Journeys in Film program, under the direction of Placitas educator and filmmaker Joanne Strahl Ashe, has introduced its movie-oriented curriculum promoting the ideals of cultural awareness and tolerance in seven cities around the United States and Canada.

The 3,000 students in the first year's pilot program got to see an assortment of largely foreign-language films made available by supportive distributors such as Fine Line Features, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Miramax, Newmarket Films, and Paramount Classics. The selected titles span the globe, but each boasts a story line focusing on young protagonists.

Ashe partnered with public and private school districts in Albuquerque, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Toronto, and Tulsa, Okla.

Middle-school students from grades six to nine participated, watching the films as a springboard for an integrated curriculum touching upon geography, history, social studies, languages, media literacy, and critical film analysis.

Ashe said movies offer a window to understanding different cultures in a deeper, more intimate way than can ever be taught solely from a textbook.

"When you're looking at other cultures, you can't get it from a textbook," she said. "But all of the films we show have a really strong sense of people and place."

An example is the Iranian feature Children of Heaven, about a poor girl, Zohre, whose older brother Ali loses her shoes. The two siblings solve their predicament by agreeing to share their one remaining pair of shoes, Ali's.

Another title, the Korean import The Way Home, follows the growing pains faced by a 7-year-old boy from the city who goes to live with his traditional grandmother in the country.

Journeys in Film is designed to help impressionable students overcome their biases and stereotypes. As one seventh-grader involved in the rollout said, "I wouldn't make fun of kids who were different from me if I knew more about where they came from."

Ashe said response to the program has been uniformly positive. "I haven't heard one complaint or negative impact from anybody."

The superintendent of schools in Chicago wants to implement the program districtwide, and Ashe has been invited to coach 75 New York City teachers on how to establish Journeys in Film in their schools. Closer to home, Ashe plans to expand the program to Santa Fe schools in 2005 and is angling to get Gov. Bill Richardson behind the effort, drawing upon his experience and expertise as a former United Nations ambassador.

She already has some high-powered advocates supporting her cause. Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz and actor, writer, and director Harold Ramis serve on the Journeys in Film Advisory Board; actor Liam Neeson has signed on as the organization's national spokesman. "If we are committed to the dream of world peace, we must first educate our children and teach them understanding and compassion for other people, races, and cultures," Neeson said.

By next fall, some 10,000 students in the United States and Canada could be served by the program, more than triple the current figure. Ashe is confident she can achieve that goal, citing generous underwriting from corporate sponsors that include Continental Airlines, Liberty Group Publishing, the Asia Society, and National Geographic Xpeditions.

In preparation for the program's second season, she's busy screening new titles that might be added to the offerings, among them pictures from Africa, Israel, and Latin America. All must have at least a PG rating to ensure they are appropriate for the intended audience.

Ashe's background is in education and international social work, including stints with global adoption agencies. In addition, she produced a documentary on Russian orphans, The Waiting Children, presented at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998.

Learn more about Journeys in Film by visiting its Web site at  or calling the Placitas headquarters at 505-867-4666.

Reprinted from Pasatiempo, the New Mexican's Weekly Magazine
of Arts, Entertainment and Culture