Six local filmmakers sat together in quiet anticipation for the “Filmmakers Roundtable”, which was held on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016 at the “Art + Journalism: Manny Crisostomo, 40 Years of Images” exhibit in the Agana Shopping Center.  The event was held to promote news literacy.

These filmmakers included Kel and Don Muna, Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Clynt Ridgell, Cara Flores Mays, Bernadette Provido Schumann, and Raphael Unpingco.

The panel was organized by members of the Guam International Film Festival (GIFF) and Humanities Guahan, a non-profit organization that supports and presents humanities projects for the people of Guam.

The forum coincided with the closing of the exhibit showcasing the work of Manny Crisostomo, a Guam-born photojournalist who received the Pulitzer Prize for his work documenting the lives of inner-city high school students in Detroit.

The panelists answered questions that primarily focused on how art could provide deeper insight into community issues and the power of film as a creative and journalistic medium.

They agreed that film can be a powerful and transformative tool that can reframe stories perpetrated by the general news media, inspire and empower consumers, and educate audiences by bringing light to narratives that would have otherwise been lost to censorship.

“History is a bundle of silences,” Michael Bevacqua said, quoting a line he would often tell his students at UOG. “If we look at Guam, for example, the silences in history are not results of freak accidents, vagaries, or chance. [They exist to] fundamentally disempower some and empower others.”

Bevacqua said film is important because as a creative medium, it provides people with the voice to combat those silences.

“It’s your job to fill [those silences] with noise,” he said.

According to Monaeka Flores, the coordinator for marketing and programs for Humanities Guahan, the panel was the closing event for a series of news literacy-related events the organization had helped arrange.

“Filmmaking plays a vital role in filling in the gaps that day-to-day media and journalism can’t fill in terms of offering really in-depth investigative coverage,” she stated. “We really wanted to generate a discussion about that.”

GIFF: 8 years in the making

Kel Muna, who is also the program director and co-founder of GIFF, was one of the panelists.

When asked what advice he would give to anyone who would like to chase their passion, he offered words of encouragement.

“Give it at least five years. Five years is a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not,” Muna said. “You’ll know within five years whether [your goal] is viable economically or spiritually for you. Give yourself five years to pursue your passion and if it’s not making you happy, change your course.”