PRINTIt's a small world
Third Goal International Film Fest educates CoMo
Photo courtesy of Tappan Heher
Gone to Mali explores the lives of host families and villages of Peace Corps volunteers who served there 12 years earlier.
November 12, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
At 28, Karin Muller stopped climbing the social ladder. She cast aside the monotony of gym memberships and dress suits and reverted to a life she had all but forgotten, one of service and education, of understanding
and acceptance, that she learned seven years earlier in the Peace Corps.
Muller’s story, now told in the film Hitchhiking Vietnam, will be presented along with three other documentaries on Nov. 14 at the fourth-annual Third Goal International Film Festival. The gathering is sponsored by the Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. In accordance with the mission of the Peace Corp’s “third goal,” the group’s intent is to spread the message of films about or directed by Peace Corps veterans to past members and the public in order to educate them about other cultures.
“The people we hope to attract are the kind of people who are interested in the international community and world events,” says Ashley Burden, a planning committee member.
Burden, who served in the Peace Corps in Mongolia from 2006 to 2008 with her husband, Michael, notes that last year, recruits from as far as Kansas City and Springfield attended the showings. In 2008, the festival featured RPCV films such as Muujan and Jimi Sir, which covered such topics as the struggles of a Mongolian
carpenter and the state of Nepal during the 1980s. Central Missouri RPCV president Karen Davis is just as eager to showcase this year’s new films.
The highlight of the upcoming festival is award-winning documentary Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love, which follows Africa’s most famous musician, N’Dour, as he records a new album and preaches social reform. Although the film is neither directed by nor does it feature a Peace Corps member, the RPCV panel concluded that the message of the film coincides with the message the festival endorses.
Although I Bring What I Love might steal the spotlight, Davis adds that the other films are strong offerings on their own. She is especially excited about Once in Afghanistan, which focuses on Peace Corps veterans Jill Vickers and Jody Bergedick’s attempts to vaccinate Afghanis for smallpox during the 1960s. Following the showing, veterans involved with the filmmaking will join a panel of RPCV members who will be available to answer questions.
Gone to Mali, a documentary about Peace Corps veteran Tappan Heher’s experiences returning to Mali 12 years after serving with the Peace Corps, rounds out the festival’s film lineup. Heher, like Muller, is an RPCV member.
The Third Goal International Film Festival offers a glimpse into the Peace Corps life. Skip the bug spray and hop in a theater to learn about misunderstood countries and their vibrant cultures.
WHERE: MU Animal Science Research Center, 920 East Campus Drive
WHEN: Saturday, 1 p.m.
COST: Free
CALL: 355-2408
